Big Beat Steve

Before anyone else pulls it up:

FWIW, the Mercury LP with the soundtrack of Rock All Night was reissued in the late 80s with the original cover and Mercury label number (MG 20293). I have a hunch this was NOT a reissue done by Mercury (they would not have kept all the original details and catalog no. but mentioned the then current "major" affiliation of the label instead etc.). But whoever reissued this went to great lengths in duplicating the original LP (including the label with the Mercury head and the MG catalog number repated in the dead wax), except the paper of the sleeve. My guess it came from the Netherlands (there were a fair number of compilation or repro reissues of 50s records - basically bootlegs, in the end - from that country that hit the record stalls on the Rockin' scene circuit at that time).

You mean where we approach the center of the disc in the case of the original vinyl, then? I will try to listen closer the next time I spin this.

Honestly - search me. This is something that I can't tell. See my above disclaimer. How would YOU tell on a technical level? (Discounting shoddy bootlegs where you can hear the needle being dragged off the platter at the end of the tune but before the very last fade-out tone has faded out ... - or musings on who may or could possibly have had access to source or master tapes at all)

Centigrades or Fahrenheit?

I do not have a high-end audio setup but I am pleasantly surprised. Last Sunday I spun my original stereo copy of the "Inside Sauter-Finegan Revisited" LP which reissues part of the first S-F 10" LP and did not find the sound bad at all to start with (the stereo doesn't detract) and then, last night, listened to the same tracks (from that first 10") on the CD and found the sound nicely full and bright. They claim on the CD the tracks have been remastered and give a name (not one I am familiar with and I am not at home but in the office right now so cannot check) so my impression is they clearly did some work on these tracks. (Disclaimer : This is just some subjective impression - this is the first Avid CD I ever bought, I am no extreme sound frequency analytics geek and do not spend hours and hours comparing this or that reissue, repressing or remastering of one and the same track for some finicky details but rely on my general listening impressions for what I personally want to get out of the music overall )

Received my copy of the AVID CD containing the Sons, Adventure in Time, Goodman/Miller (and their first 10") albums last night. The Adventure in Time album is heavy stuff (for my listening habits), though, that I need to take (and take in) piecemeal. So please bear with me and be patient ... It's all about percussion, reminding me of the Persuasive Percussion and Provicative Percussion albums in places, but more ambitious still ... As for the Sons of S-F, a first listening-in confirms what Larry Kart said above, though I don't find it quite that "marginally S-F" only. It all depends which part of the recorded spectrum of S-F charts you approach this from.

Just getting into the details of this one now ... This actually is a reissue of their first 10" album of 1953 (RCA LPM-3115) and also has a few tracks from "The Sound of Sauter-Finegan". The only new track seems to be "Exactly Like You", a "leftover" from one of the sessions that yielded the "Concert Jazz" album. Some of the contents of this will crop up again on "Inside Sauter-Finegan Revisited" (RCA LPM/LSP 2473). I am still trying to figure out your angle as I do not seem to be able to grasp it all yet. But that moment will come ... One remark anyway about your review of "Stop! Sit Down! Relax! Think!" My reaction to listening to this one right now (for the very first time for ages) was totally different. It certainly is no Glenn Miller novelty (unless you lump in any danceable white big band swing under "Glenn Miller"). Miller may have been there if he had been around after 1944 and active in the 50s, but do we know? And vocal novelties IMO start a bit farther down the line. To me it is a surprisingly nice example of danceable swing of some more "progressive" (and actually fairly space-agey IMO) 50s style. I'd love to see a few couples of swing-loving dancers do a relaxed, easy going jive or lindy hop to this one but am afraid not many would be hip enough, at least in those circles I am familiar with. Just like "The Honey Jump" (from the "Sound of S-F" album that you unloaded) is an entertaining and danceable period piece even to those who are familiar with other versions of that time (and don't take their music not all that stylistically seriously), starting with Oscar McLollie's original for Modern or the cover version (by one totally unknown called Jody Webb & His Round Up Boys) for the hillbilly market on the Modern subsidiary Flair. I'd rate it as a sort of sauterfineganish equivalent of the Shorty Rogers gang (under the Boots Brown moniker) or the Lighthouse men (on "Big Boy" etc.) having a not quite that serious go at R&B. Both something for hip enough space-agey bachelors to dig if they for once want to get out of their lounge chair and out on the dance floor to move a leg to something more sophisticated and less raucous than real R&B or the burgeoning rock'n'roll sounds of the day. As you can see there is more than one way to approach some of this music even from the points of reference of the times.

Didn't Jack McVea have a VERY long "residency" there? From 1966 into the 90s

I've watched that movie several times (for other period-related aspects than the music score, admittedly) but never noticed that statement. Will have to pull out my video copy again ...

Maybe a bit what the Martians were to Shorty Rogers at about the same time? Not yet - but hopefully soon. (I confess I took the plunge and just ordered a copy of the "Four Classic Albums" CD on Avid the existence of which I discovered this morning when, following your plug of the "Adventure in Time" LP, I did an online search for sources of that album and was pleased to see this CD fills my primary gaps among the S-F albums (Sons, Goodman/Miller) just spot-on. (Yes, I bow my head (somewhat) in shame and promise that when I find affordable vinyl copies of these the CD will go into the car player ... )

TTK, are you referring to Legrand Jazz or to the Demoiselles? I guess it's the Demoiselles and maybe the strictly instrumental version IS way more bearable - but to me much of the singing just came across as rather contrived and unconvincing, maybe because it is evident the actors - and actresses, in particular - just were no singers, including Deneuve and her much too early departed sister (I see only Danielle Darrieux did her own singing). To me somehow their "moves" just didn't match the (overdubbed) singing (not even by the yardsticks of typical musicals, which admittedly I am no huge fan of either) - maybe - again - because this film must have been a one-off excursion into musical territory for most of the actors/actresses.

Watched this film a couple of weeks ago when it came up on TV and found it unbearable and impossible to watch to the end - though I love the period flair/aesthetic of many French movies from the 50s/60s. Michel Piccoli lipsyncing and pretending to be singing - holeee sheeettt! And this was just the tip of the iceberg (but maybe what pushed the movie over the edge for me). It wasn't the fault of Michel Legrand's basic score, though ... BTW, how come nobody has mentioned this one yet? (a 5-ar DB item, IIRC) https://www.discogs.com/de/Michel-Legrand-Legrand-Jazz/release/783641 https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legrand_Jazz

Sounds a bit like what might have been said about Raymond Scott in some circles quite a few years earlier.

Thanks TTK. I am not an extreme S-F fan either but appreciate them and like listening to them every now and then (as to other "progressive" (there's that word again! ) 50s orchestras, and as one part of the overall "50s jazz sound legacy" (if you know what I mean). It seems I approach these reordings not the way you do and am not too familiar with Esquivel anyway but I can see where you come from. And from MY point of view I agree with most of your assessments (though your comments read like I am more forgiving with what you call "corny" whereas on the other hand I was slightly underwhelmed by the fairly straight vocal tunes). As for this RCA series, I do not know how LJM and LPM (that was often used for their jazz LPs in the 50s) related but they must have coexisted for a while. I also have LJM 1018 (Shorty Rogers/Andre Previn - Collaboration - Jim Flora cover too) and LJM 1023 (Barbara Carroll - Lullabies In Rhythm - cover by Oppenheim, not Flora) but this latter one has a black label with colored nipper. I have seen the silver label with the dark reddish lettering on other RCAs but the only one I was able to locate quickly in my collection is LPT 1003 (Bunny Berigan) - i.e. no LJM. So maybe this was just a specific pressing run? According to Bruyninckx, this LP was recorded on Feb. 24-26, 1954, so it is not a collection of previously issued singles and EPs.

I'll be looking forward to it. I wonder what exactly you file under "corny". Maybe some of the (comparatively straightforward) vocals ...? I know some ofthem don't do much for me in this context but I'd consider them a concession to some common denominators among the general public's taste.

I doubt this was typical for "our" generation. It all depends on what style of jazz struck you initially (e.g. through radio) and what you preferred to stay with thereafter. I knew I had no big problems stacking up on the pre-50s styles of jazz (funds permitting), but then the choice was easy in those mid-70s, with jazz rock/fusion on the one hand and avantgarde/free on the other being touted all over the place as what "jazz" (per se) was (supposed to be) all about (and "dixieland" thrown in for the easier listening habits within jazz) you just HAD to go exploring and searching extensively for what immediately appealed to you MORE, i.e. swing in my case (and bop very soon after). And once you started digging you did find stuff. 30s Fletcher Henderson was indeed a bit difficult to get hold of at that time, though. 20s Henderson was easier.

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.