Big Beat Steve

And next thing you know - the discussion will take another turn, to the tune of "oh those poor parcel delivery drivers are so poorly paid that they just can't cope and just have to unload their stuff somehow to get it done within their time frame. It's not their fault - it's the system and the working conditions and ...") (Happened over here - pathetic too ...) A political post? Maybe ... but no matter what the working conditions may be (I understand there are other jobs that are a treadmill too, BTW), this is no friggin' excuse for just dumping the stuff just anywhere or not bothering to deliver it at all but just stick a "nobody home, collect it ourself at the center" notice in the mailbox (and then you're lucky if the do at least this!) even though clearly someone was home and sitting on edge waiting for the doorbell to ring ... etc. etc.

And when they did - it remained in the can: Frank Rosolino! Apart from that, your post above sums up the core of it all perfectly IMHO.

You nailed it. It is rare that equal coverage is given to performers/artists/sportsmen (whatever ..:) from each era. But this is how it should be. Because every era had its superstars that mattered enormously (and to a fairly comparable extent) in THEIR time. Which is why I am very wary of any "100 greatest Rock bands (or Pop vocalists or ...) of all times" (or similar) kind of publications. A serious and well-informed writer (and historian) ought to be able to assess any artist's merits in the contexts of his times and weigh them accordingly. Besides, if the present-day artists (or sportsmen etc.) dominate in such lists/books etc., isnt this skewed from the start? Do we know what the impact or impression of a "great" artist of the present time or very recent past will be 10 or 20 years from now or how (if at all) he/she will be remembered then? Whereas, on the other hand, someone from, say, the 40s or 50s may be covered only in passing in such books because she/she is fairly forgotten today, yet he/she was a huge star with the public and the media in his/her prime. Publications like that need to be compiled/written by historians (or people with acute historical awareness and knowledge), not by fanzine "cash-in" scribes. (Wishful thinking, I know, but yet ... ) One notable exception and a case of relatively even coverage I came across a couple of years ago was a book on the history the German football (soccer) cup finals from the start in 1935 to the (then) present in 1995. Three or four pages were alotted to each year THROUGHOUT, and only the most recent 10 years were given 6 or 8 pages each. This is how such "all-time" histories that compare repetitive events of (obviously) comparable "period" importance ought to be done.

Maxwell Davis? Maybe it would be appropriate not to forget that a good deal of the post-war African-American west coast jazz(ish) scene was taken up first by the Central Avenue scene (which was not "West Coast" at all in the sense it became known, although cross-fertilization seems to have taken place, according to some accounts) and then the R&B scene (e.g. Aladdin, John Dolphin and many, many others). This covered a lot of ground of "black music" (and artists like Red Callender and Plas Johnson straddled the fence).

Yes, in THAT respect i agree with you all the way. French bureaucracy (or should we say "bureaucrazy"? ) is not something mere mortals would want to mess with.

What a pity. I was half-expecting the text would not break any major new ground beyond what Arnold Shaw wrote decades ago (or what you were able to glean from Swing Era New York). But if the book pretends to cover the 1930-1950 period, how can you visually show that in a fairly comprehensive manner in a book that pretends to be an ILLUSTRATED tribute by using only photos taken around 1947? That caught just a small segment of what happened on The Street. (P.D. seems to be too tempting not to make use of it ...) Anyway, many thanks your feedback - you got me in a quandary now because - against all reason - I still see myself tempted anyway (for completeness sake).

But why would you need Facebook for that? Start a thread in the Non-Music dusission forum and see what info you will get and if that suits your desires. Having been able (or rather, forced, in my immediate surroundings ) to observe what FB does with other private fields of interest once there are both forums and FB "throw-a-line-or-two-in-the-wilderness-and-see-how-many-likes-I-get"-type posts on FB I agree all the way with what mjazzg said about the slippery slope. The danger is there that parallel structures will not encourage the life of the forum at all. And once there IS a FB "group" comvering the same field it is a safe bet to assume this will not remain a "fallback" emergency option only.

+1 In EVERY essential respect!

Michel Ruppli's Savoy discography lists this 45 (though surprisingly, the 45 release no. appears only for the Happy Tune track but not for the Dreamed track listed immediately afterwards. They must have forgotten the hyphen to indicate the 45 no. applies there too). But as no matrix numbers are given for this session you cannot tell if these actually are the same takes or if different takes were used for the 45 release.

Very tempting ... including as a follow-up to the book by Arnold Shaw. But what I found a bit irritating when I looked at the sample pages on Amazon (Amazon.de has it listed but not yet available for shipping) is the photographs. Assuming that the sample pages are typical for the book, could it be that the editors ALSO helped themselves to the photo archives of William Gottlieb from 1947 - as have others done for their books in recent years too? The Gottlieb photographs are fantastic but as they are freely accessible online as P.D. items the "new" factor tends to wear off. Besides, visually describing an entire era for the most part (so it seems ...) through one man's photographs that largely come from one year (and therefore cover the activity in a fairly narrow span of time) does not entirely do the subject justice, isn't it? Aren't there any other substantial photo files on 52nd Street in existence? (To name just one exmaple, I'd guess there must be more in the Charles Peterson files than has been seen in "Swing Era New York")

Bruyninckx also lists quite a few broadcast recordings by Mel Powell small groups from July to December 1944 (that were issued mainly on Phontastic NOST7649 and on Esquire E316) as well as more than just 4 tracks from Paris in 1945.

Uh oh ...

Actually the question and answer isn't that silly IMHO. Provided that there is a rack labeled "Jump Blues" in the shop (and provided you are not referring to or mixing him up with the pianist Joe Turner ). At any rate, I'd expect to find his records in the "Blues" section of any record shop and would him consider somewhat out of place in the jazz section if his entire opus had been filed there, or else I'd venture a guess the shop owner is a very old-hat type fella to whom blues is nothing but down-home-down-in-the-gutter-roots country blues (there still might be such persons, actually). And if I'd find one of his records in the Jazz section and it was one I'd been looking for I'd be overjoyed his platter had been filed incorrectly in a place where most ofther Joe Turner fans would not look first (I know more than one R'n'R and R&B fan who enjoys Joe Turner's Atlantic recordings a LOT but would not touch "anything jazz" with a ten-foot pickup arm). See how you can make a case for any kind of fling (or shoehorning, if you want)?

Reminds me of the roadhouse scene in "Blues Brothers": "Oh, we have both - Country AND Western!" More seriously ... everyone knows what Duke Ellington meant ... but that's way too broad for archiving and retrieval purposes. And besides - regardless of what the Duke said - above a certain level good and bad in these fields STILL is subjective and a matter of taste ...

I do suppose that others might use/add other categries, depending on what they hve in their collections. As - stylistically speaking - the most "modern" (or "advanced") jazz record I own is Ornette Coleman's "Change Of The Century" I am happy filing this one among my Modern Jazz records (no use starting a separate category for a scant handful of "Free" records ).

The examples of "genre" categorizations above (particularly Wikipedia) IMO are dictated by a lot of criteria which have little to do with the basic categories of jazz that have come into common and universally understood use but often are just as much a reflection of what is considered "correct" or "desirable" to be given a term of its own in order to underline its importance. In much the same manner the Mosaic categories are rather marketing categories than anything else. And Schuller's are no categories at all but rather reflect the subjects of the chapters of his book. Both unsuitable for any general and "universal" use outside their specific uses (unless you are dead set on thinking along those lines of thought). I have catalogued my own collection along the following criteria (based on those commonly read about in reference works and found to be suitable for my own uses) US jazz: - Classic, Traditional, Oldtime, Early Jazz or whatever term you want ot use to refer to pre-Swing era jazz -- subdivided into a) early jazz recorded before c. 1934-35 or later on by exponents of that early jazz (e.g. SIdney Bechet), and b) revival, trad etc. jazz - Swing (including both Swing era and later "Mainstream" or "middle jazz" recordings made after the swing era ended but stylistically belonging to the Swing-style jazz) Further subdivisions used (loosely!) only in the "Various Artists" sections (big bands, small groups, regional jazz, jam sessions, JATP, label series, etc.) - Modern Jazz (Bebop, Cool, West Coast, Progressive, Hard Bop all lumped in - there are too many overlaps to subdivide this in a clear-cut manner that is meaningful throughout, otherwise I would have to split my Miles Davis records three ways, for example). Further subdivisions again used (loosely, because impossible to apply stringently) in the V.A. section: Bebop, West Coast, Cool, Hard Bop, a.o.) - Blues and R&B (again subdivided further only in the V.A. section - but "White Blues" is in a totally different part of the shelves) As for other criteria used in the thread starter's post, big bands and small groups are not subdivided any further. Would it make sense to put the opus of Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton or other name acts into different categories? Not to mention the fact that big bands basically cover anything from pre-Swing era Fletcher Henderson up to Progressive Jazz or beyond. So this conflicts with the style categories I have adopted. Anyone who has to spend more time trying to figure out where he has pigeonholed a particular record in his umpteen categories instead of having enough memory and overview to find the records within these BROADER categories will soon get lost. And I for one usually have no trouble trouble rapidly finding suitable items for listening in the Swing or Modern Jazz sections when I am in the mood for "Piano jazz" and do not need those records in a cateogry of their own (particularly since this again would bust all MAIN stylistic categories - which - again - are more important to me). European/Non-US jazz: - Catalogued along the above criteria too but for ease of reference subdivided by country of origin. So, to get back to the Wiki "Gypsy jazz" criterion, Django Reinhardt and Sarane Ferret are filed among French Swing-era jazz whereas Schnuckenack Reinhardt, Häns'sche Weiss and Bireli Lagrene are filed in a section among German post-war jazz. P.S. Referring to Hopkins' latest post: Though I do think of Western Swing most often as a Territory jazz style I for one still file all my Western Swing records among my Country records (though pre-war Western Swing has a separate niche there, except Bob Wills for convenience's sake).

I cannot find any particularly and typically French drawbacks and snags of average websites from France. And I've seen and bookmarked many, following my interests and my contacts there. If you refer to the linguistic aspect of it - I think the reason is a different one. On average, they tend to take French (and knowledge of same ) as much for granted as US Americans and British tend to take universal knowledge of English for granted everywhere else around the globe. And they are not ashamed of being able to speak only their very own mother language and no other one (like - again - many, many U.S. and British people). And this is reflected in many ways and walks of everyday life. So just put it down to an ongoing "battle" between the English (only) and French (only) speaking worlds as to which is (and is supposed to be) the real lingua franca.

FWIW, Down Beat (through reviewer Ralph J. Gleason) was less than flattering in the 2 1/2 star review of the Amram-Barrow group LP on Decca (Jazz Studio No. 6 - The Eastern Scene) in 1957, making fun of the odd instrumentation (including the "tuben" here, a sort of downsized tuba with an unswinging, "mournful" tone) and wondering what would come next - the "serpent", "bombardo" and bagpipe (this was before Rufus Harley )? R.J.G. found the music on that LP "contrived to a point of painfulness" and "being more trick than treat". I don't know how that LP fits into the overall works of Dave Amram (except tha it seems to have been his only jazz leader date of the 50s and 60s) but maybe impressions like this echoed elsewhere too? I have the reissue of that LP so will give it a spin again soon. From what I remember I found it interesting and somewhat amusing but considering how fast other forumists here have resorted to accusations of gimmickry, "cuteness" etc. in the case of other recordings I wonder what credentials (that place him on a pedestal) an artist would have to accumulate elsewhere to AVOID this kind of putting down in cases like this.

I do own his autobiography ("Jazz Roads") and just checked: He dwells on that race massacre for not much more than 1 page and is not very specific. So I don't think you missed much. And yes, I was surprised too to learn he still is around - more so because friends from France who knew him well and had sort of befriended him in the 80s were under the impression he had died in the meantime when his name came up 2-3 years ago. Best of health to him in these times.

That's what I remember from one local (long-established) record store for a while from 1975 (when I started buying and collecting records) onwards. I used it occasionally when in real doubt (and usually did buy afterwards) but it clearly was a dying feature. The other local record shops had no such facilities anymore. And booths had been long (very long) gone by then. When I look at photographs of record listening booths in product folders from local radio/record shops dating back to the 50s and early 60s this was a totally different world and though I visited those shops from the start of my record buying the whole setting was impossible to recognize. They must have changed their entire shop furniture several times over in the meantime.

Anybody seriously interested in the "Swing to Bop" transitional years (including the seminal live recordings caught on wire by Jerry Newman and essential in this context) will at least have heard of Allen "Pee Wee" Tinney. Pee Wee actually was his brother but that's how Allen appeared on some lineups. At any rate, Allen Tinney does have a Wikipedia entry, and his presence in the Jive Bombers vocal group of the 50s did bring him into the studios with Kenny Burrell and Leonard Gaskin. And those who happened to see the Cry Baby movie feat. Johnny Depp will have heard Allen Tinney supplyng backing vocals and playing piano in the Jive Bombers' hit "Bad Boy".

Moms MObley. Some difference ...

Well, I wasn't aware things went THAT far. I just was somewhat taken aback that someone woull describe that reecord as "wholesome" - because, like I said, this seems to have quite different connotations in the context of vocalists on the 50s music scene. I only have the stereo rerecording of Something Cool but now need to give it a play again. (I remember I spun the record not without pleasure after buying it but was a bit disgusted when I later read about the stereo rerecording of the original mono tracks because I've always found this artifical rehashing of recordings in the name of "that new stereo fad" rather pointless)

Please refresh my memory. But having heard about Art Pepper's consumption habits and all things being relative ...

Please define "wholesome" in this particular (singing) context. The only (period) context where I can recall "wholesome" being used was when reference was made to 50s singing groups such as the McGuire Sisters and others of that kind (particular white cover girls/girl groups who specialized in whitening up black originals for the WASP consumer market) who (including in Down Beat) were referred to as "wholesome" in their singing and stage (and public?) behavior and image as those who were "suitable for the entire family", clean(ed up), never ever offending anyone through their performances, the perfect "next door daughter-in-law(s)" for conservative mainstreamish middle class suburbians in the 50s US unsettled by lewd R&B and uncouth R'n'R on the airwaves and elsewhere in the media. But June Christy? Not that she was an Anita O'Day who "hung out, drank and swore with the boys" but how would "hip" (which no doubt she was) and any definition even remotely connected to the above use of "wholesome" go together?