Big Beat Steve

Sorry but this is utter nonsense. And the statement by jazzmusicdepot that "Europe" "have holiday for the entire month of August" is just BS too. Of course summer holiday periods are in SUMMER (as the name implies) and at least over here some things may slow down (because employees ARE on leave but NEVER all of them at the same time and virtually NO family can take time off from work for the whole duration of school holidays or even afford to do so - far from it, or else I, for example, would not be here where I am right now - and everyday peak hour traffic would not be what it is even during "holidays")! People do quip that in France, for example, where nationwide holidays are condensed into a shorter time frame, the entire country runs at idle during July and August. But even THAT is exaggerated. So PLEASE don't generalize. You wouldn't want to have that done with the US either. BTW, as for getting hold of business partners overseas in a timely manner, I can tell you that this is a door that swing BOTH ways too. US "partners" have been known to be deadbeats too.

Malibu Beach, ca. August 1951. Jepsen, Bruyninckx, and Discogs list about 10 different labels that this was released on (all of them budget except a Vogue/Mode release). My pressing is on Spinorama. He must have seen those before that I had him sign in 1988, though: 78rpm on HMV (from his RCA small group sessions), "Steppin' Out 1942-44" (MCA Jazz Heritage Series) and Gene Norman concert 1947 on MCA, plus one (perfectly legit one) that he may in fact not have seen before: a 50s 10-incher on German Philips (1954 concert recordings).

+1

Maybe one way to get things moving HERE would be to give us forumists an idea of what styles of jazz/labels/artists/recording periods you are PREDOMINANTLY getting rid of. Not an exhaustive list but just stating where the focus/focuses is/are.

I can think of at least one Lionel Hampton west coast concert recording of the early 50s that DID crop up on numerous budget labels. Not with different artist credits but with fancy reshuffling and renaming of part of the titles. Not any less confusing overall. But so what about criteria like this - Freddie Mitchell's recordings had second lives under other "artist's" names (AND different titles) elsewhere on budget labels too, so what you noticed with this percussion release looks to me like it was just another case of the "wider" marketing policies at work with these budget labels.

About this specific recording - no. But weren't there a LOT of recordings that made the rounds of whatever budget labels there were in the US in the 50s? So is this label-hopping a specificity of this particular percussion session? I doubt it.

I don't think so (thankfully - because as you say a lot of Vogue material has been "around"). I have only about 25 of the CDs from this series (concentrating on French artists and recordings that I did not yet have - to fill gaps ) but as far as I can see these reissues mostly came from Barclay (often!), Versailles, Philips, Polydor, Vega, Blue Star, CfD, Fontana. So as you can see most of these labels were far from small (at least by French/European standards). Incidentally, wonder who's got the rights to the Ducretet-Thomson label - another major player in French 50s jazz - (disregarding that those from the key period are in the public domain now anyway).

Which is very laudable and has got me, for example, taking note of various of the mid-century modern bachelor pad musics (to explore them a bit more one day maybe). As for Vogue, discussing things that may otherwise fall through the cracks of the obvious and predictable is always a good idea and I am all with you - and in the case of the first box set this was one of the aspects that got me to buy it as an impulse buy (realizing I have a lot of it already but being disappointed that I already have THAT much in fact, after checking my "black cover" CDs). The second one, however, still has me puzzled. Considering what's on there this is not a case of "falling through the cracks" (except if you assume these cracks to be a mile wide). But like jazzbo said when he mentioned the "target groups" .... I for one - on first seeing the"American" theme - would have guessed they had seen fit to reissue a LOT more of "Americans in France" (recording for Vogue in concert or in the studio). There would have been lots of items that did not make it to the first box set ... Or Americans recorded in the USA for Vogue/Swing (by Henri Renaud, etc.)

Well,i was just going by what part of your collection you seem to mention most often here.

René Thomas. No doubt. Edit (after qwuick online research to confirm): Photo taken in 1973 and discussed on the Les Paul forum.

I'd bet that in field of bachelor-pad lounge and exotica you ARE one (of the latter). At least compared to most of the others around here.

The first of the two box sets shown in the starting post actually is made up of FRENCH masters. Probably recyclings of the remasterings from the "black sleeve" reissues. I've just checked the track listing of the second (Americans) set now (I had not heard of this one before) and am baffled. What's the point of reissuing such a hodgepodge today where the market is flooded with almost everything? Dial, Roost and King masters, some Blue Notes, some PJs, Jerry Newman live recordings, and so on ... Showing a sampling of what Vogue leased back then. Vogue leased a lot, yes - but hasn't virtually ALL of this been around on the reissue market very, very often and don't we all have most of this already? (Probably more so than in the case of the first box set) A box to take along for your car player or on holidays? No doubt it would be convenient for that. I just cannot quite see what GAP it fills.

"Vaste sujet", as Brownie might perhaps say , but we are getting off course, I think ...

That's the ones I was alluding to. The web seems to say it is not DMM per se that is the problem but how the records in question were actually produced. And I've just noticed after a quick check even on the S. Hoffman forum there are some who in this kind of debate say they are quite happy with the aural quality of their 80s DMM BN's. Just to check , after Shrdlu's first post I spun my copy of Lou Donaldson's "Blues Walk", and honestly, i cannot complain (though of course I do not have another issue to compare - but who among us mere mortals in the collecting fraternity has any number of different versions of one and the same record across the bulk of their collection?). But maybe that Donaldson session wasn't extremely bass-heavy anyway?

"Bad" is fairly relative. I have a feeling the ones that some have their problems with are later than from the 70s - I have only a few of them but these do sound quite listenable. Audiophilistic geeks may have their bones to pick with these pressings (but what would satisfy them 100% anyway once a different reissue marketed as being the ultimate in "upgrades" hits the market? ) but if you consider how even "reputable" reissues by the heros of (re)mastering have been altered sonically in the CD era with the tendency to remaster them really LOUD compared to the original releases or earlier reissues then "bad" can have many facets.

I've recenty had the occasion of directly comparing parts of two of the CDs in the first of the thread starter's box set with the corresponding reissues from the "black cover" CD series (A. Hodeir and Jimmy Raney) and found them rather on the same level, as if they had recycled the masterings from the black cover reissues for this box. No complaints, then. Except that - as many others have pointed out before - their selection of the "usual suspects" for this box is rather unimaginative. Vogue would have had A HUGE LOT of other good recordings form that period that could have made up a set that is just as impressive without forcing passably astute collectors to buy that many duplicates. I have quite a few black ones but VERY FAR from all and even my number of duplicates is sizable which made the box set just "acceptable" price-wise even at the discount price - under the premise that the duplicates can always go in the car and/or with the regret that the "black cover" duplicate CDs will probably be impossible to shift now except at a giveaway price (annoying considering the price tag they had at the time). (So in the car player again?)

I.e. translate my question as "download/streaming statistics" or whatever the industry uses to verify who is a "hot act" in the world of digital music consumption.

That would have made Peacock Records a #1 contender for signing all the artists.

If African-American jazzmen had flocked to VeeJay instead of BN?

IMHO Francis, Duvivier and their likes had a valid point. No doubt they were sincere in their "role model" life. They just did not need those kinds of scandals or excesses to perform their art and no doubt were embarrassed by how others gave their community a (pun very intended) "bad rap" by the way they behaved. And the unfortunate voyeuristic and scandalizing tendencies of some of the (white?) media AND "intellectuals" at the time no doubt contributed too. As for this ... Rap is for performers who can't sing or play a musical instrument. ... well, I don't like rap at all and get nothing out of it but just like with hip hop I'll concede this is a major strain of TODAY's R&B that is valid and relevant to today's youth audience and therefore another evolutionary step in the overall history of R&B, like it or not ... Which reminds me that from the mid-50s onwards many (who had the clout to get their opinions into print) claimed exactly the same thing about 50s r'n'r (including a lot of black r'n'r FKA R&B). Now what does THAT say?

Me 3 As for Chinese megastars, I wondered about what GA Russell said too. Are there any statistics on what their sales are e.g. in the US or key European markets?

Ordered a book online from the FNAC headquarters in Paris a handful of years ago - no problems. Prompt processing and delivery. Other than that, I've "only" bought in their shops in France here and there.

Their reissues of 78rpm-era recordings weren't THAT bad ... And compared to labels such as Ajax/Ajaz any Trip items were just audiophile!

A nice one for the r'n'r jivers/hepcats. Billy Mitchell jumping on the George Williams/Boots Brown/Dan Drew/Claude Cloud/Alan Freed Orchestra et al. bandwagon - jazzmen trying to grab a bite of the teen dancing market in the second half of the 50s. (For my taste, Satelite Beep Bop is a bit too much like other "occasional instrumentals" done by other acts at that time, though) Billboard sez this: My impression is that this was an instrumental cover of a vocal recording of that tune by the Five Stars (Hunt 318) reviewed by Billboard about a month earlier. Not to be confused with either Billy Mitchell, lead singer of the Clovers, or with Bobby Mitchell.

I'll tell you what ... I've listened to it a long, long time ago at someone else's collection and then somewhere else again (hard to avoid it totally) but due to its "ubiquitousness" I've never been tempted to buya copy in any format. Then about 2 years ago I finaly took the plunge when I found a copy in a stack of newish reissues. Gave it a spin, just taking it in while stretched out in my lounge chair - and you know what? It's almost "easy listening" by today's standards. Post-edit upon listening again: Not "easy listening" - make that "late night mood music."