Big Beat Steve

Since you linked to the "Science Fiction" 45 on YT you must have come across the comment posted there: I'm glad Bill Finegan had a chance to write for himself.While with Miller,he was intimidated by Miller over his charts.Miller would run one down and say "Bring it down to OUR level!" Billy May,who was arranging and playing trumpet for Miller then,once said that his heart bled for Finegan because of Miller's constant fiddling with his charts.Miller was considered to be more of an "idea man". Do we know if what S-F did with their reworkings of the Miller tunes, for example, maybe went into the direction of what Finegan had originally been required to cut out? Reason enough, maybe, to do it at all ... At any rate, I don't feel what they did was "regressive". Not even with the Miller/Goodman reworkings (at least those I have heard on YT now). They "progressed" from the original charts and as I said earlier, they could have been more "adventurous" for my taste - meaning more "modern" or daring, in the sense of what typical "progressive" jazz big bands of that time stood for, hence the term applied to them. But they chose just to embellish their original charts here and there and make them sound a little "edgier" (for want of a better term, this from just a listener, not a musician). So what? That's their choice and isn't it ONE legitimate way of doing things? Copying the original charts just to redo them in "Hi Fi" was a different matter in those days. (Van Alexander or George Williams (et al.), anyone? ) As for the original charts, they stand on their own and are what they are but being the living end of progressiveness or adventurousness 15 years after the fact? Come on ... They WERE "progressive" in their time but hardly 15 years later. And though they remain timeless within the context of swing-era jazz, is this a reason to make them taboo for later reworkings - by the original creators, of all persons? It's not even a question of "improving" on them but just of treating them in a (somewhat) different way. For the listener (me, for example, anyway) they brought out some features of the originals in a different and differently accentuated way. Why not? One may like their treatment or not but - again: So what if these 50s reworkings can be enjoyed for what they are? Regardless of whether you manage to listen to them with the same "reference points" as someone in the 50s would have. At any rate, if one manages to capture those period reference points then it is the reference points of the genuinely interested and reasonably aware (and not just "consuming") listener that matters, not that of whatever musician (or musicologist). The approach is different yet the musician's angle is largely irrelevant to the main listening and record buying audience. The musician angle is an add-on and may give additional interesting insights to the interested listener but it is not the main (and even less, the only) angle. Musicians who listen with nothing but musicians' ears, dissecting everything into tiniest shreds, are another example of what is commonly labeled "professional deformation" and risk losing the overall picture.

I don't feel they were misleading. To me they read like they're quite in tune with how to see the S-F orchestra and place that record within the S-F opus of that period. As for those Youtube clips, I for one do not feel they are novelty-ish. The originals are the originals and these are these. They could indeed have been more adventurous and by S-F standards they ARE relatively restrained and conventional IMO. But "clever"? Nah. Just a bit edgier. But what's that "cover" that Youtube character put up there? Why would anyone want to dig out a Jim Flora cover of "Bix and Tram" on Columbia when there are so many great (and REAL) Jim Flora S-F covers around? Silly ... and pointless ... Anyway ... this thread prompted me to spin "Inside Sauter-Finegan" again last night. Quite a bit of variety, some more straightforward, some more adventurous ...

Who or what's a "typical S-F fan"? I don't consider myself one but I do have a soft spot for those 50s (and 40s, as it may be) "progressive" big bands too. And I confess I also have a soft spot for what Eddie Sauter did here in Germany, e.g. with the Südwestfunk radio big band. And this IS a "jazz point of view". As for "clever" (a rather abused term in this kind of debate IMHO), I take this to mean "overly calculated for effect" here. In some instances I cannot disagree but where would anyone draw the line ("one man's meat ...") about who'd fall into that category, particulary since I have also seen it used as the sort of musical antipode to "blowing sessions throughout".

This can be a WIDE field. The reason I was asking: I recently bought two (cheaply priced) period copies (one for a collector friend) of Crown CST 332 released in c.1963 (Whitey Pullen, here doing mostly country songs, but a "cult" figure among rockabilly collectors) from the special offer Country bin in a local secondhand record store. Both vinyls look fairly shiny and OK and do not show much visual signs of wear and use, yet the sound - of which we did not expect any miracles - - is rather muffled and low, maybe even more than what I'd expect from a Crown. Figuring this may also have been a case of dirt I cleaned them with alcohol and test-played them at once. Surprisingly the sound of BOTH brightened up distinctly while the surface was still wet but got dull and muffled again when the alcohol had flashed off. As a long-time collector, have you ever noticed anything like this on a Crown? I have come to expect all sorts of things from Crown vinyls such as bubbling spots in the surface and inclusions of foreign matter but have not experienced such a difference of wet/dry fidelity before.

Thanks for the review. I also have several S-F LPs here (including the "Directions in Music" LP so will listen in on the sample track you mention) and am still looking for "Sons of S-F" (admittedly for the Jim Flora cover too ). Generally I like their charts but may well have passed up the "Memories of Goodman and Miller" LP when I saw one as I did not feel like needing another Goodman/Miller rehash (they were not the only ones in this field at the time). But your review definitely prompts me to make a note to check closer next time.

How's the pressing of this one?

Thanks! Some interesting reading and useful information there ...

Not so very long ago I bought a very early deep groove pressing of Cannonball Adderley's "Somethin' Else" for the huge investment of 1 EUR from a used record dealer - probably because the party (and maybe frisbee?) past of the vinyl was evident, including something that looks like candle wax and won't shift - though the vinyl does play through and surface noise isn't even overwhelming. And apart from one smudged area even the cover is fairly acceptable. But imagining what the vinyl must have gone through made me cringe inside too.

Pulled out this one again and am reading it piecemeal once more. Some of it is rather dated (even by nostalgia standards), some (a lot in fact) is a priceless image of that era. BTW, @jazztrain: Thanks for bringing up that Bluegrass book. That looks rather interesting for a friend of mine (a keen old-style country music collector and musician).

I know I'd pick up ANY such press kits for LPs (that as such are of interest to me) from the 50s without flinching. The sales blurb can be very, very entertaining. And from what I used to see on eBay they ARE collectable. I don't know about Marsalis but generally I'd say that with all things paper the longer they are preserved the more they will "appreciate". I remember I obtained two sets of the Pablo press kit for the '77 Montreux festival releases at a local record shop way back when the LPs hit the shops (they had a stack just set up free for customers to take away). A folder with a huge poster (styled similarly to the typical covers from that LP series, nothing that appealing but anayway ...), a set of some 6 or 8 or 10 pages of typed promo blurb and about six glossy prints of the featured artists (Eldridge, Gillespie, Peterson etc.). I hung the photos from one set on the wall in my student room for a time, then both got filed away and eventually ended up in the "music items" box of my fleamarket stuff as they really were too "recent" to keep by all means. One (the better-preserved one of the two) found a new home rather fast at an OK price, the other I dont remember, in fact it MAY still be in the box.

Good points, but the Discogs listing of the "Historical" series is a HUGE mess. They haphazardly mix the US Prestige and German Bellaphon releases (and other pressings of the same LP) instead of listing them as different pressings of one and the same release/reissue, as they (correctly) do with other LPs. .This would have given a much better overview as each release would have appeared only once in the listing linked above. BTW, the listing is still incomplete. "Trumpet Jive" feat. Rex Stewart and Wingy Manone (PR7812/BJS40159) is missing, for example. I remember this series well and bought many of them in the shops in my early collecting days (they remained in print for a long time as you may remember). A lot of these reissues were my introduction to the artists (e.g. "Mating Call"), though quite a bit of the material was also reissued elsewhere (e.g. on the Prestige/Milestone twofer series) in more compehensive form soon after, so if i had the choice I went for the twofers. The "older music" recorded for "other labels" is quite an odd mix IMO. The "Trumpet Jive" LP mentioned above features 4 Rex Stewart tracks done for (UK) Parlophone and 8 WIngy Manone tracks done for the Joe Davis indie. Where's the link there? It still is FINE music and was an ear opener at its time. E.g. the Walter Foots Thomas LP (that also had material from the Joe Davis label) and includes what still are some of my favorite late swing era small band sessions. Of course the Joe Davis reissues have long since been superseded by the LP reissues on Krazy Kat. I never quite figured out how the French Vogue releases ended up on Prestige either. This created more discographical messes. I remember I more than once pulled the Clifford Brown LPs from the bins, hoping for new material, only to find all this had also been reissued comprehensively on a UK Vogue 3-LP set that I had bought years before and Prestige added nothing new. Reissue redundancy wherever you looked ... and so much more unreissued at that time ... (e.g. the material that Prestige leased from Metronome in their early days).

You're talking about Prestige 7650 that you showed the above cover? I would have thought this reissue happend before OJC ... I bought this LONG beore there were any OJC's (at least in OUR record shops). It's the German license pressing (exactly same cover, Bellaphon label, i.e. probably pressed in the 70s) and I think I bought this in 1985 or so along with one or two other Miles Davis "classic quintet" reissues on Bellaphon.

Apart from a few other Erskine Hawkins LP, I've in fact owned the five LPs by that band that were reissued in the Black & White series on French RCA in the 70s for about 20 years now and they have been among my favorites from the swing era ever since. Just recently, though, I grabbed Vol. 1/2 of the "Complete" Erskine Hawkins double LPs from the French RCA "Jazz Tribune" series (did they ever go beyond Vol. 3/4?) at a local secondhand vinyl shop in mint condition for a price you just could not resist - figuring at that money a duplicate set of the music would not hurt. On comparing closer I found there were quite a few newbies because whereas the Black & White series gathers all the essentials, instrumentals and dance floor fillers as well as a select few vocals, the Jazz Tribune "Cmplete" volume has quite a few more vocals, not all of which are on the ballad side. While no desert island discs, their versions of "Big Wig In The Wigwam" or "Do You Wanna Jump Children", etc. are quite enjoyable too as "30s flashback" fare and deserve not to be forgotten.

You never heard of the Singleton-McCoy songwriter duo?

Check out "Charlie Parker & Jazz Club Memorabilia" (The Norman R. Saks Collection) published by JALC in 2007. It shows a Royal Roost menu as exhibit 247 but it's way too small to scan and reproduce here. From what can be deciphered they did serve chicken soup as well as Southern Fried chicken as part of the special dinner at $1.85 as well as broiled chicken, various cutlets, steaks, sea food etc. on the main menu, Hot Turkey sandwich in the "Sandwich" section etc. Exhibit 253 of the book shows the brochure shown by Makpjaz577 in the opening post, BTW.

So this coincides with the date my aunt visited the club. Regrettably I never thought of asking her about the club and the gig itself (though I guess her recollections would not have been very specific).

This may have been in the late 70s? An aunt of mine went there one " night out" as a tourist during a cruise trip that included a stay in NY. This was in April 1979 and, though not a jazz fan at all, she bought one of his LPs (MK Records 1001, looking like one of those Boris Rose things and including a collection of far earlier live recordings featuring Suillvan, Cutshall, Russell, Wettling et al. if the cover info is correct) and thoughtfully got it autographed by Max Kaminsky himself as well as a handful of his then band embers (whose names I cannot decipher). She later on passed it on to me and that platter has been residing in my collection for some 20 years now.

It IS the same tune. I am not sure it is a transcription recording (but apparently was recorded at World Transcription studios). It was issued on Brunswick 80104 (coupled with Blue Skies) and was therefore reissued later on MCA. This was on the very first Red Norvo LP I ever bought way back at age 16 or 17 - a couple of years before I snapped up "The Changing Face of Harlem" when it hit the record stores. So the Norvo version is the one that got me hooked on this tune (which IS catchy ...). https://www.quora.com/Jazz-Music-Who-all-is-playing-on-Red-Norvos-recording-of-Dee-Dees-Dance https://www.ebay.com/itm/Red-Norvo-Sextet-BRUNSWICK-80104-Blue-Skies-Dee-Dees-Dance-E-E-/323255398020

Maybe when he wrote "album" he meant to say "78 rpm album" (i.e. 3 or 4 discs making up what "album" originally meant after all) and not an "LP album" (so an LP reissue was not what he was alluding at)?

Does that Persuasive Trombone album have cover art by Josef Albers (of BAUHAUS fame) too? Without wanting to derail this discussion I am kinda surprised that you (of all forumists ) find those Command albums lousy. I've had the Persuasive Percussion album for almost as long as I've collected records (I was given it at the time but every now and then it is a nice spin) and a couple of years ago happened upon the Provocative Percussion Vol. 2 album for next to nothing at a fleamarket. Admittedly the artwork (one for the museums) initially was my main reason for picking up the Provocative album to keep the Persuasive album company on the shelf but both are nice enough loungey late-night mood albums IMHO.

(Seeing this post only now ...) Why would she have laughed at that flick? Being aware of the existence of THAT segment of motor racing (drag racing as opposed to street racing and circuit racing) as I have no doubt she was at least superficially she'd probably have acknowledged movies of this sort (there were many) for what they were - a Hollywood version (B movie class at that ..) of the real thing, and with youth, youth entertainment (both r'n'r and, in this case, drag racing) and a hefty dose of J.D. all mixed in to milk a youth trend for cash, this was the likely result to be churned out by Hollywood. As with movies about circuit or road racing too. No doubt she would have had a lot to laugh about period movies somewhat closer related to HER activities in motor racing too. (I doubt that the plot of the Carrera Panamericana-related original The Fast and The Furious of the same period had that much more substance, for example ... ) The name of Denise McCluggage rings a bell to anyone halfway interested in motor racing of that period. By all accounts she was quite somebody and it is no surprise she would have taken someone like Allen Eager (whom I cannot find "somewhat obscure" though, BTW) under her wings (typical gender roles of the day notwithstanding), and her exploits have been covered elsewhere, e.g. here: https://www.amazon.com/Fast-Ladies-Female-Racing-Drivers/dp/1845842251/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1546785294&sr=8-3 Re- Hot Rod Girl, at the bottom of this page is the line-up of the musicians who did the score: Quite an all-star line-up, some with previous experience in this particular field of R&B-like studio outings. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049335/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm

Thinking about what records to dig out for this thread, here is a question I have often wondered about in this and all the other "album cover" threads: How many of the covers posted here actually come from the collections of those who posted them? (Generously enough, using a pic already available online for a record the poster actually owns will also count )

I like these sessions a lot and I can't find much wrong with Washigton either but FWIW both Ira Gitler (writer of the original liner notes) and John McDonough (writer of an update for the reissue on Prestige P-24109) find him "a bit rusty". Ira Gitler also stated in the original liner notes that Jack Washington can be heard soloing with the original Basie band on "Doggin' Around", "Somebody Stole My Gal" and "Topsy".

I certainly would not expect "academic" writing in biographies. On the contrary. I was just wondering about what the "workmanlike" attribute actually means when you get to the core of it. Maybe in the sense that given the proximity to the subject and to new source material some may feel that "a lot more could have been made out of it if only ...." (I've come across cases like this before, therefore I was asking)

A somewhat direct and open question: Would "workmanlike" be an actual, honest-to-earth description or a polite euphemism for what others might call "pedestrian"? I realize optinions of which is which may vary and boundaries are not all that precise. But I have come across cases before where interesting subjects were covered by people full of good intentions but with somewhat less than the required skills and craftsmanship in what and how they write. This can be tiring and potentially disappointing for the reader ...