Big Beat Steve

That may be one reason. But in the day when they still showed bidders' names there sometimes were other factors at work. I remember one case (that went on for a very long time) where one particular bidder in the field of automotive collectabilia consistently placed insanely high bids that often went way beyond the actual "market values" of the items in question and was clueless or careles enough to place his sky-high bids as starting bids. This quickly pissed off a lot of other bidders who never got wining bids in at what would have been a decent and affordable price that at least halfway reflected the actual value. I got to talk via mail with two of them (one with whom i had "crossed swords" in a number of auctions. though in a sporting way - and in fact we went on to echange material off eBay, and one who both sold and bought lots on eBay). That bidder (who at that time used a ebayer pseudo that clearly hinted at his actual name) was known in some of these circles as the owner of quite a collection of Italian sports cars and therefore evidently had money to burn. In fact those other bidders (and there probably were more) were pissed off enough to make a point of RAISING his starting bids even on items they weren't interested in because his bidding tactics (or rather lack of) made it evident after a few checks how high he'd bid outright. So even though nobody else may have been interested they made dead sure (and I admit I occasionally joined the game at a lower level ) that whatever he bid on he would not get at, say, the starting bid of $9.99 (in case no one else bid too) but would have to shell out $50 or more in each and every case (and at that sum his STARTING bids had not even been reached yet ...). Served him right ...

I think Gheorghe was referring to the typical "hip fast talkers" of the day. That's another segment of radio presenters. More akin over here to how Jean-Claude Averty (a very fitting name - "averti" in French meaning "in the know" ) acted on French radio in his long-standing "Les cinglés du Music Hall" show. He wasn't just fast talking, but agitated, exuberant and almost on the verge of going overboard with his sheer enthusiasm. Even more so because there was a second presenter on the show who (probably totally unintentionally but just dictacted by HIS personality) acted as a sort of "straight man" to Averty, and this brought out the airwaves presence and contrast of Averty even more sharply.

I remember you told that story before. Not very pleasant for sure ... (Another chapter in the section of "famous jazz musicians being pricks and pains in the butt in their personal interactions ... makes you wonder what's harder to bear - "Mister Know it All" or someone taking advantage of you and living off your back because he figures "he is entitled to it because is a celebrity" ? - The latter characterization incidentally was one told to me by someone in the know about your Austrian #1 tenor sax player of that period) I remember something like your experience with Joe Newman that crept up between the lines a long time before in some reivew of a tour involving Joe Newman. Sounded to me like a case of some bitter man who felt he had not received his star dues.

Reminds me of an "encounter" at a swap meet (when you usually find a number of stalls with non-automotive "vintage" items too) back in the late 80s/early 90s: One stallholder had set up a table with a fair number of new, unopened cartons of cigarettes of 2 or 3 different brands (holding 200 cigs each) that clearly dated back to the immediate pre-war era. The cartons looked clean, tidy and really almost like "off the shelf". On top of the cartons sat a board proclaiming "Can still be smoked!" Apparently the seller had unearthed a stock that had been forgotten for decades and had opened a pack to try out the goods and found them "satisfactory". Being a non-smoker I did not dare to ask him what he usually smoked to find these OK and would not have been able to judge for myself anyway ...

Opened and used a glass of stewed plums the other day that was about 3 1/2 years beyond the use-by date (for use as a topping for a dish on a Sunday when no shops were open).This was 2 weeks ago and I am still around. But I agree that usually I am very wary of canned foods that are WELL past their use-by date. A couple of months - no worry, but years? No.

I think once anyone's collection exceeds a certain number of records a discography is a must as a reference opus (and maybe as a "window shopping" catalog to whet your appetite ) - and to check which is which in order to avoid excessive duplications before buying (unless you have moneys to burn). Rust, Jepsen (books) and Bruyninckx (on CD) do it for me (Lord is way overpriced IMO for what I will get out of it beyond Bruyninckx et al and includes a LOT that is of no interest to me), and along with Goodrich-Dixon and Leadbitter/Slaven for blues plus Nicolausson, Ginell/Coffey, Lange and various others (including internet discographies) for niche segments of my music largely cover most of my needs. And I'd feel fairly naked without them. Which brings up one particular favorite subsegment of mine from that era: R&B going Bop or Bop ging R&B Leo Parker is a prime example. Gene Ammons too. And some late 40s/early 50s R&B men at times got in some boppish overtones too. (Frank Motley & his "Fat Man's Scat" on Gotham is fun!)

Some time ago i picked up a dirt cheap copy of MoJ R2CD 8004 "Charlie Christian" at a local record clearout sale. It turned out to be a 2-CD "Best of" of the 8 individual MoJ reissues of Charlie Christian recordings (MJCD 24 to 75). I had figured to use it for the car CD player but as it includes several tracks I do not have elsewhere yet (a.o. reasons because I totally missed the MoJ phase at the time) it went into my collection. I wonder if there were other "Best of"s. I think what may have contributed to the MoJ reissues being overlooked by many (me too - I just must have seen them here and there in the shops) was their incredibly nondescript, bland and uninspired cover "art"(?)work. They look horribly like a bunch of budget labels such as "History" (an Israeli-German co-project) that were around at roughly the same time. As a result, the INITIAL visual impetus to just "spring for them" wasn't there IMO. Understatement is all very well but there was not much to make them stand out even with an intentionally simple "corporate identity" look (contrary to the Classics series - at least they had a wide range of different colors though they can be tiring too if you see a stack of them).

A real discography (not necessarily the Lord one) should be more helpful (apart from all the info that is out there on the internet). Discogs is useful but spotty. I did not check the details of the covers you posted but clues to what is on these individual reissues include are there. E.g. I am fairly sure even without checking closer that the "The Champ" LP features tracks from the early 50s DeeGee recordings that Diz made and that ended up with Savoy and were reissued there. The name of John Coltrane listed among the featured artists there is the clincher for the directions that further investigations ought to take. And the "Paris Concert" record on GNP (with a cover photograph hardly matching the period of the contents) is the 1953 Pleyel concert (cf. "Mon Homme"!). Both items way outside the listing provided by EKE BBB, of course.

Looks like it's not so much the "prices" that are insane ($9.99 starting bid was reasonable) but what is insane is that there are two out there who want it at ANY cost it seems and are battling it out now. Reminds one of the time when Asiatic ebayers like ondemand12 were running up the bids almost everywhere on the somewhat rarer items.

Indeed. In the case of a box like this Charlie Christian would no doubt be THE major seling argument. BG? Not so much anymore IMHO,. There are an AWFUL lot of live dates and airshots of his late 30s/early 40s band out there on the market, and no matter how great the band as such is there is a point when you just tire of him runing the scales (to put it very, very bluntly ).

Any opinions on the Carnegie Hall concert recordng of 29 Sept. 1947? Re- the concert at Salle Pleyel in February, 1948, here is a cutting from a French family magazine of spring, 1948, telling the touching story of a young boy struck down with polio at the age of 13 and finally venturing out among the public (though still bed-stricken) at age 17 in 1948 to see his idol Dizzy Gilespie live in concert at Pleyel.

Paywall .... Anyway ... she wasn't that overlooked in Europe. More like a "cult figure" to collectors. Reissues (mostly from the UK) have been around since some time in the 70s. And this book looks like an interesting read and analysis: https://jazzlives.wordpress.com/tag/coda-magazine/ FWIW, Valaida DID get an obit in the June, 1956 issue of ORKESTER JOURNALEN from Sweden. The obit was brief but at any rate twice as long as the obit of Adrian Rollini reported in the same issue.

@BillF:Those early Diz sides of 1945 etc. sure made the rounds. Their presence on that legendary 70s Prestige twofer (disucssed elsewhere recently here) is known but I wasn't aware that Savoy had control of the masters for a while too to reissue them. Amazing ... I wasn't aware Savoy made that extensive use of other 78rm era labels except National (and DeeGee). @EKE BBB: I took the recording year from the reissue but checked neither Jepsen nor Bruyninckx so an error may be there somewhere. As for the reissues you mentioned, some of them actually are more something like different pressings (worthy of preservation in their variety too, of course). ""Guilde du Jazz" (as in the starting post of this topic) indicates a French Jazztone pressing, and "Concert Hall Society" was Jazztone under a different guise too. Not sure whether these catered to different markets of the record club business as I have seen US pressings of both Jazztone and Concert Hall Society with their typical thick cardboard covers, for example. @Gheorghe: To be more precise one would need to know which LPs jazzcorner is referring to. Not having my discographies on hand I can only guess but I think the GNP "In Concert" reissue that is out there, for example, is what has been reissued elsewhere as the "Pasadena" concert. The RCA releases and reissues (i.e. the STUDIO recordings by the big band) usually are very well documented in the liner notes of the commonly accessible reissues, starting with the 60s "RCA Vintage Series" (which was my first exposure to the RCA big band sides and was a real ear opener) to the Black & White LP on French RCA you showed and then to the Jazz Tribune series 2-LP set (French RCA again) with the full output that superseded the two individual LPs in the Black & White series.

If this series ran up to 1963 then well before 1963 someone among the bigwigs behind the scenes must have gotten wind of the fact that soul jazz sold well even outside the community on the "wrong side of the tracks". So not that big a surprise as they may well have figured that soul jazz-tinged clips might be an asset. Makes me wonder when someone, then, will do a thread on that the Ozzie Nelson big band DID belong up there after all among the greats of the (white) big bands of the swing era ... (The occasional recordings by the band did swing very well but overall ... ho hum ...)

Funny .. only the other day I got to thinking abut that adapter and wondered whether it was still marketed at all. I remember a friend had one of these adapters in his car in the late 90s, and of course at the time this was quite impressive being able to play your CDs through the cassette system. But this was about the only time I ever saw anyone use these. And somehow the connecting cable running to the CD player stuck away under the passenger seat did not make for a relaly tidy setup. The reason I remembered it now was that I 've had cassette players in my late 50s collectible cars since the very early 90s but now, with them being more than a quarter of a century old, increasingly murky sound (despite cleaning) and wobbliness indicate their day has come. These players are cassette units only (no radio) so they are rather compact and fit nicely into a corner of the glove box. As the glove boxes of these cars aren't exactly large I hung on to them not only for my very personal mix tapes but also for reasons of space. But some convenient and space-saving upgrade is due now. Even if this means I'd have to burn the track lists of my mix tapes onto CD (not totally easy yet as I do not have a turntable with PC connection yet so for the time being it is a matter of burning from CDs only - yeah, old hat, I know ...) As I am not into IPods etc. some front-loader CD player is the way to go but I am wondering what the most space-saving item wold be. So I've wondered if something as compact as the CD part of that adapter setup of the late 90s would be the thing to go for. Maybe I'll get around to checking the market THIS year ...

Except Bird & The Herd, right? That is a great album.

Those different covers of 50s UK (and French) releases of US jazz records would be worth an entire record cover art book all of its own ...

I cannot recall the Alamacs were available at our (often very well-stocked) record shops in the late 70s or early 80s. However, I found out later that the compilations of quite a few Alamacs had also appeared on the French Musidisc jazz series LPs which were plentiful (and very affordable) here. So the contents of these budget labels must have circulated between various record companies. The Alamacs must have been available in Europe, though, as I bought them secondhand in the 90s over in London (and there were more of them than could have been imported privately). Being U.S. imports, they probably (as Gheorghe rightly said) were rather expensive and therefore too expensive for what they were. "Bird with the Herd -1951" is a gem indeed.

Another relatively early purchase , triggered not least of all by the (possibly somewhat embellished) description of that Christmas broadcast scene in Ross Russell's "Bird Lives".

The Echoes of an Era series was a TERRIBLE mess. Whatever I have seen from that series was just a hodgepodge of senseless combinations of various incomplete sessions that left you scrambling for other releases to find the missing session tracks. Good for starters at that time (I picked up the Stan Getz twofer in my starting years) but a pain in the butt if you were after the full sessions. Charlie Parker Records all in all releasesd three LPs' worth of Dial material by Bird but these were odd assemblies. For some reason (cashing in??) they took several of the quintet tracks that been reissued on "Bird Is Free" and reissued them again under Miles Davis' name on "Many Miles of Davis". The duplicates even showed up on the C.P. Records box set of a few years ago. Oddly those C.P. Records LPs seem to have remained on the market for quite some time. I remember buying "BIrd Symobls" (my first Bird Dials) and "Bird is Free" at a local record shop (not usually known for a huge import section) in 1976/77.

You are right. It was on the "Dig" twofer. (BTW, the "fan" that you alluded to in the Don Lanphere episode was scribe Doug Ramsey) Re- the Miles Paris Jazz Festival LP, indeed it was my first Miles LP (the Birth of the Cool recordings were not in print at the time I bought this one) and was quite an ear opener. As for the starting introduction, maybe you ought to have had a glance at the liner notes too. Fidelity is so-so but the atmosphere is excellent. It also might make for interesting listening if those interested in that festival also check out the one below featuring the swdish all star band of 1949 that made a HUGE splash at that festival and sort of put Sweden on the international post-war jazz map. https://www.discogs.com/Parisorkestern-1949-Swedish-Jazz-All-Stars/release/12268504

No, that was in the Prestige twofer "First Sessions 1949/50". (Great late 40s bebop compilation, BTW )

That's a selection of the DIAL dates recorded by McGhee in 1946. I have his entire Dial output on Spotlite LP SPJ131 - "Trumpet at Tempo" from their "The Dial Masters" mini-series (yes, the good old trusty Spotlight label ). That Jazztone LP (J-1026) was a direct reissue of French Vogue LD.062 which had the same tracks. P.S. Excellent idea for a new thread!

Would you perhaps like to put your post in the What Jazz Book Are You Reading section? It might get some more attention there and would not be out of place there at all.

The difference in experience is that with box sets like this you get to experience the music quite a bit more the way it was experienced by listeners BACK THEN. This can be very instructive. If you investigate (any) one's (Sun) artist's output at a time you get a very different set of music because the ratio of tracks not issued at the time is INORDINATELY high (often way more than 50%, and all this was issued for the first time only from the 70s onwards when the first relatively comprehensive avalanche of 50s Sun music was pressed by Charly). Great as a lot this previously unreleased music is, of course the 50s audience never got to hear it, so what we listen to as the "Sun sound" is not quite what it actually was at the time. This colors our perception and appreciation (and as with many jazz artists where every note committed to tape or wax has since been dug up this can be a dangerous thing if the unissueds are underhandedly or unwittingly included when we today figure out what the PUBLIC awareness and appreciation of the artist was back then or - worse still - ought to have been).