Big Beat Steve

Misc. Music?

Don't give up - try another 16 ... Or to put it more directly, I am unimpressed by an AI "machine" dissecting and reconstructing a Coltranesque cascade of "free" notes into something just as free. I will be impressed if that "machine" turns out something NEW (i.e. not a replay of something existing) that would fool Ellingtonites (for example) in a BFT. Just my personal opinion.

Care to elaborate? Why would you want to "sigh" there too? What WOULD be at stake by issuing sessions like this in the first place? Like hgweber rightly said, it would no longer be a matter of reputations - for several reasons that no doubt you in your position are fully aware of: 1) Just look at how many sessions have been issued AND reissued through the years that do not exactly rank among the top-notch recorded output of an artist and YET they are appreciated by many. 2) There are tons of fans of any artist and/or style of music (jazz, in this case) who'd swallow ANY utterance by their favorite artist. So this IS a matter of fandom and at the VERY least most of those fans would go to any lengths to focus above all on the positive aspects of these sessions and find something more than worthwhile in them, particularly maybe in the case of Grant Green where the dispute rages anyway about what and from what point onwards was to be considered of mainly "commercial" and not exactly artistic appeal, so no doubt there'd be many who'd appreciate another "new" "not yet commercial" all-out jazz recording regardless of what flaws it might have had. 3) Even if the music is below the "usual" standards of an artist's typical output I'd guess there'd be more than enough buyers/listeners who a) would either approach these recordings from an "academic" POV (or so they claim) to observe and analyze this as a sort of "work in progress". An entire session that did not turn out "right" (according to some - not all, as this dicussion shows) is not fundamentally different from fluffed, goofed or aborted alternate takes that DID see release anyway (to the delight of many) even though they never were considered "alternate" but rather "rejected" takes at the time; or b) would be curious enough (though I would NOT call it voyeurism) to want to explore even the weaker or more unstable phases of an artist's recorded career in an attempt of obtaining completeness or peering into those sides of the lives of the artists as expressed at a moment of their weaker or less inspired recordings. Precedents abound on what was issued in this manner on other artists before. Who has the final objective (!!) word (not just the clout to nix a release) on what is favorable to an artist's recorded legacy or not? If THAT was any yardstick, how much of what Lester Young or Coleman Hawkins or Bud Powell recorded (to name just three) in the rock-bottom phases or twilight of their careers should never have been released at all? And YET many drool about these sessions for a variety of reasons. Maybe even some of those who'd cry out "heresy" if those Blakey or Green sessions were released in due form? So it would NOT be a matter of "why more of the same (imperfect) stuff" either but rather a matter of letting everyone find those aspects of interest in there that they DO want to find there.

Totally true, parciularly since there are quite a few tunes that he recorded more than once. You would really have to work with an up-to-date discography or previous reissue packages to identify which is which and see where you are with what you have or don't have (and use the SEQUENCE of the tracks used in previous reissues for orientation). In short, an original release label and no. would have been MUCH more significant to the prospective buyer than the songwriters' credits.

DADABOTS says it (almost) all ... Interesting experiment, but I will be impressed if they listen to a major Duke Ellington or Louis Armstrong or Count Basie etc. recording 16 times in a row and go on in a meaningful way from THERE that truly SWINGS and doesn't just replicate like a mechanical piano does ...

Just re-read the above press blurb again, the transcription reference must have been well hidden. As for the "additional" 80 tracks, the 20 or so Deccas have been around often enough too, so the recordings for the indies in a comprehensive reissue seem to be the major point of attraction. And of course the fact that "those who thus desire" can get it all in one place. For the occasion, going to spin the "Nat King cole meets the Master Saxes" Spotlite SPJ136 LP now.

I am no early NKC discography expert but I find the info by Resonance a bit vague on what exactly in what QUANTITIES came from which labels. or to put it another way - if the early years up to 1943 are covered, will this include the transcriptions too? Of which there were MANY, and they have been out and around in variuos guises over time (the 6 CDs on Naxos alone include 120 tracks up to 1943 (mostly for the Standard Transcription Service, but also for Davis & Schwegler and Keystone).

Don't know to which names you are alluding specificaly but you got to remember too that that all times there were musicians who were stars in their day but once they had passed their zenith they were forgotten more quickly than others who may still have been household names decades later. The reasons aren't always easy to pin down and aren't always the same but one factor that IMO definitely plays a role is that critics may have held a musician in high regard who may never have been as famous or popular with the listeners/record buyers/audience at large (who in turn tend to forget faster once they discover other stars). So if the audience no longer is with you and the critics never held you in the highest esteem your fate is sealed ... So don't let latter-day perception skew your perspective ... What we remember (or are told to remember) today about a specific era of the past is not necessarily how it happened back then. The emphasis may have been quite different at the time.

Somehow Wynton looks awfully like Steve Urkel on that photo ...

Too late. Them beans bin spilled ...

A strategy even better applied to Bill Crow's "Jazz Anecdotes".

Well, a wee bit more seriously and just to explain ... - I am under the impression that fences set up to separate adjacent suburban plots (even and particularly if there is "just" lawn all around each house) are much more common here (and not just in Germany) than they seem to be in the US (or so it is being told). Which often does make a difference as far as casual contact between neighbors is concerned.

This is what baffled me most when I read that part. Admittedly I am not familar with typical US suburban neigborhood manners but what would anybody be doing and thinking if he told a story about how others (neighbors or the postman or whoever) saw him standing by the garage or nodding or waving at them from across the street or whatever? Would he able to know and say they SAW him anyway or would he, honestly, just be able to say they MUST HAVE SEEN him? Who would write something like that about HIMSELF? Wouldn't it have been much more normal to just be up and out and about and just talk to the neighbors every now and then, no matter how briefly, and then remember and point out THAT? Or was KB known to be that much of a recluse for so long? And if he is, it still sems very weird to me that ANYBODY would write about HIMSELF like that. To me, that just "don't fit".

FWIW, my order via amazon.de still shows an expected delivery date of 23 July. Let's wait and see. I am not expecting wonders but so far they have always filled their preorders.

Thanks, but way too late for me, for example. In the end I preordered via Amazon at what looks like a 1:1 equivalent of the US retail price at the curernt exchange rate. Looks fair to me. GIven that I recently received a book from the USA that was MUCH smaller and lighter than this one probably will be and that one already cost something like $14 to ship (which the post office said was the lowest rate available) I'd not have held my breath that the 40% discount (well-intentioned as it is) would even nearly offset the price that the USPS charges these days - alas ... Sorry to say, but shipping rates these days more and more kill direct international end consumer trade.

I only got to know the Cologne and Hannover shops in the vinyl era. The Hannover shop was the one mentioned above where I had my friend do my shopping.

Yes, Saturn was EXCELLENT, particularly the one in Cologne! They had stuff we never saw down here (and we had a LOT). I remember in 1985 or so I asked a friend (who was never into anything even remotely connected to jazz or blues) to get me over a dozen R&B reissue LPs from a particular Saturn shop in his hometown I had visited a few days before (when I was in town for some studies-related matter) but had run out of funds to purchase them. He dutifully obliged and worked off my shopping list one by one ... As for "Jazz Tracks" in "Viennese" German - excellent! You made my day ... And you weren't far off the mark for the cover "art"work.

Yeah, coming to think of it, now I remember. I probably passed them up at the time because of that extremely nondescript cover (there were sooo many reissues with BAD, ugly, boring, totally "out of tune" artwork in the 70s that you really had to be a fanatic with money to spare to work your way through to the track listings in every case). Much later on I bought the Buck Clayton LP (secondhand) from that series, only to find when I got home from the shop that I already had all of the contents on a Vogue double LP. (This and others from that series came from Vogue masters from the 50s, and Discogs shows they also reissued Roulette masters) It still sits in my box of duplicates for the fleamarket. If I remember correctly, at that time there were 7 Schillings to one DM - an exchange rate that remained constant for a very long time. So 101 Schillings was not cheap for an LP by German standards but mid-price. And 163 Schillings would have been considered decidedly expensive - about the price (22 DM) that one shop charged here on almost all items (except for special offers or introductory promo items). That price would have been tolerable (although it hurt this student's purse ...) for rare US imports (which this shop carried in a selection that was larger than with many other shops) but not for run of the mill stuff that would otherwise be priced at the equivalent of 90 to 100 ÖS. Full-price would have been about 120 ÖS, budget LPs would have cost something like 60 to 70 ÖS.

A brown series of LPs with that "series" title? No, I don't remember that. Maybe if I saw the covers. FWIW, Bellaphon was not really "cheaper", at least not always. I remember them as mid-price LPs and decently pressed and presented, particularly the items they licensed from Prestige and Milestone. They were good value for money.

Yes - those Musidisc LPs were a good source to get some interesting stuff at a decent price back in the 70s and were a great way to familiarize yourself at a budget price with artists that are "new!" to you (IMO they sometimes are even worth a look in the secondhand bins today for vinylites). And it wasn't just bop, they also had a huge range of swing and classic jazz recordings. Sometimes thier presentation is galling - like you say, the lineups and recordings dates sometimes are way off - for no apaprent reason at all because the stuff had been released elsewhere with correct credits. I wonder how and by what criteria they souced their material anyway - quite a few of the live recordings had been reissued on Alamac and on Jazz Archives in the USA (and on other small collector's labels) but others seem to have come straight from studio recordings, particularly from the Savoy label IIRC (e.g. the John Coltrane/Wilbur Harden dates).

"Jo host aaa scho dä Fiees of Kiliman-dscha-roh ghööärt?" (or something like this ) No, what I alluded to was that two of the seminal Beatles albums released by EMI in the 70s were the "Red Album" and the "Blue Album" (both twofers) that chronicled as a sort of in-depth "Best-Of " the earlier and later periods of the Beatles. Basically they were compilations or "samplers" but in fact their status elevated them more to full-blown, almost "cult" Beatles releases among teenage fans. Known anywhere, by anybody, even beyond hardcore Beatles fandom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1962%E2%80%931966 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967%E2%80%931970 (Incidentally, EMI cashed in on that "red" and "blue" album idea for other reissues in that period too)

Even when listening to nothing but jazz, you all were obviously influenced heavily by the typical Beatles record "lingo" of the day. (Those were the - 70s - days ...)

Thanks, you're comforting me. The other day I had briefly put the Jo Jones bio in my Amazon cart bnefore putting it on hold again as I found it less essential compared to other items I was about to order. Agreed about the Dicky Wells and Terry Gibbs autobiogaphies. Very good reads (each in its own way). Another one I have always been intrigued about is the "Harlem Jazz Anecdotes" book by Timme Rosenkrantz but during the past several years I have never come across a decently priced and affordable copy. Even by Scarecrow yardsticks this goes for insane prices, even secondhand. Came across excerpts from the book accessible online on google.books. Fascinating insights into the swing era. Those who like the Dicky Wells book should appreciate that one too.

I've read the article and watched the clip but I've got to say that to me the build of that fellow does not really look like someone who'd evolve into what young Pops would look like a scant few years later. Not to mention that this one looks taller. There seems to be a lot of wishful thinking going on here.

I think the legendary Manolete wasn't a long way away from that if contemporary reports are to be believed.