Big Beat Steve

I had to smile when his (AAJ) nick "Christiern" was brought up. He sometimes used that over there to try to pull new forumists' legs (thinking the newbies were unaware of his true identity, i guess) - mine included at one itime - but not always to much avail. Sobered him at least momentarily as it seems. As for his posts, yes he got carried away from time to time and may have alienated some (and i can understand the "bitter old man" remark - let's hope WE fare better at that age) but he DID speak his mind and backed it up with personal experience and exposure so it wasn't just some mud slinging (in most cases as far as I can tell) but rather a case of "setting the record straight". And if this involved putting some (who had seen thesmelves differently and would have liked others to do so too) in their place then in the overall picture this wasn't the worst thing IMHO and added some insight that the interested observer otherwise never would have gotten. I am not sure if he realized all the time that alienating others by extreme candor (even if the facts were 100% on his side) is not the best way to get what credit will be due you (because there always will be some who have more clout and an agenda of their own that may run contrary to your interests) but I think from what I read in his posts and on his blog he personally took it in stride in most cases. And if he still took a swipe at whoever he felt was trying to rake in credit without being entitled to it then he was perfectly entitled to do so IMHO. And yes - if nothing else were to remain of his statements - his description of when a photographic document can be considered to have been "drigged" will remain in my vocabulary forever. His (apparently quite justified) target wasn't the only one of that kind in that publishing business.

As far as I know - yes. The recording date places them all in the 50-year P.D. department. At any rate, I don't think these recordings (most of them with Tony Sheridan) were ever OOP for any lengthy period from sometime in the early to mid-70s onwards. There have been tons of repackaged reissues of them, many on labels that have nothing to do with Polydor, the original label. There even is a fairly recent vinyl reissue of the tracks on LP on a label called Wax Love Records (sounds very PD-ish) that reproduced the cover artwork of the original Tony Sheridan/Beatles "My Bonnie" 45. https://www.discogs.com/de/Tony-Sheridan-And-The-Beat-Brothers-Tony-Sheridan-and-The-Beat-Brothers-My-Bonnie/release/13498728

Ok, so it's actually a couple months' material more that has gone P.D. than I had thought.

To sum up the gist of it, in 2012 the European copyright laws were changed and the protectionn period that had been 50 years up to that period was extended to 70 years from the time the law was passed sometime in 2012. But the law did not become applicable retropactively. I.e. released recordings (IIRC previously unissued recordings are a differnet kettle but I think it's a grey zone the way this is actually handled) that were 50 or more years old (from the date of recording) by that date in 2012 remained in the public domain whereas those that were not yet 50 years old will only fall into the public domain after 70 years have passed. As Cliff Richard and Paul McCartney were instrumental in getting this copyright extension in law (guess to protect which recordings) this lw has often been referred to as the "Cliff Richard" or "Paul McCartney" law over here.

This ran here in a pop culture/"zeitgeist" mag in 1984: "Woodstock 15th anniversary reunion".

Hans, NOW you are treading extremely closely to getting REALLY political. Let's not pretend it is all a bed of roses here the way the EU ACTUALLY works (or not). Besides, the above statement said to have been made by Ken Peplowski sounds rather weird. It seems to me like Mr Peplowski is unaware of what exchange rates are all about and that it is not the natural course of things for exchange rates to remain stable all the time. Years ago (before there was the Euro) we had a freelancer duo from the UK occasionally working for us in our small agency. One day they bluntly told us it no longer was of interest to them to continue working for us as over time the GBP-DM exchange rate had become increasingly unfavorable for them so they more or less bluntly told us to go beat it. Well ... that's life and this happens with exchange rates in all directions over time and sometimes requires decisions to be made ... But blaming touring in the UK all of a sudden becoming no longer worth working in the UK due to a Brexit-induced drop of the exchange rate? Might have happened at other times too if you hit a bad moment. IIRC the slump of the GBP vs the Euro after Brexit became official was not even enough to all of a sudden make it exceedingly interesting for me to re-start buying stuff through ebay.co.uk again. So maybe Mr Peplowski ought to get out of his US$-centric filter bubble.

If you really consider "162 EUR" for a CD to be just "not cheap" then you must live on a planet all of your own.

The reason I thought so was that through the years I have had two cases of records (vinyl, admittedly) where for some reason a label had been stuck on top of another one in whatever attempt at relabeling but I was able to lift it off without much effort and without any damage caused to the label underneath by the remainder of the "glue". Either the glue had become bone dry to become totally non-adhesive at all or the glueing had been insufficient in the first place. At any rate, what would have been the point of relabeling a record for sale by the NEW owner/label if you "update" one side of the record only?

Thaks a lot, everybody. This is really appreciated. And an odd story indeed that fills a gap in the "post-Keynote" Keynote story. As for the Mercury label being on one side only, I wonder if maybe the pasted-over Mercury label had already peeled off and got lost on the other side that now has "only" the Keynote label left?

Your link leads to the FB starting page of that feller. Not more. Seems like you have to be on FB to see the contents of the actual post. Too bad. So ... No Go.

Captain, personally I am not worried about Jack McVea myself - I have the essentials of his output from that period both on Jukebox Lil LPs and on one or the other of the Blue Moon reissues (which ARE a subsidiary of Fresh Sound but this is no drawback as - again - they go where hardly anbody else - the Chronological Classics series excepted - has ever bothered to tread, US reissue labels included, in particular). But I just find the swiping generalization of Jack McVea as "R&B" (and therefore - from their apparent point of view - implicitly and underhandedly "unworthy" of inclusion) to be rather dumb coming from a reissue label that sees itself as such a connoisseur label. Jack McVea may straddle the fence but does fit in BOTH camps - 40s small band swing AND 40s jump blues. And I do wonder about who else of the less obvious artists permanently overlooked in reissues they won't include in their attempt to make sure the the obvious candidates (and selling eyecatchers) ARE included. Ho hum ...

Yes, I understand, but if the risk of being selective is that you are back to the usual suspects, is this really in tune with what USED to be the Mosaic policy (I am NOT refering to "Selects" here, of course).

I was fascinated by the prospect of a B&W box set (though I have a fair share on older vinyl reissues and also a handful of 78s) but this sort of selectiveness is begining to cloud things seriously for me. I am afraid with this kind of policy they will go for the "obvious" suspects (including everything that seasoned collectors have on the Storyville LPs - I'd certainly not be the only one among the target audience for this kid of set who'd then be heavily into duplications) but omit less obvious items that have never seen reissue (Phil Moore, for example?).And like you, I'd challenge the assertion that Jack McVea is that much R&B (or is R&B the new "shame word" within jazz again these days?). Or is it that we see an outdated approach to jazz from that period here that denigrates entertainment and tries to go for the "lofty arts"? I'd have thought those who run Mosaic know better than that by now.

Which is why I had a hunch from the time I started working my way through some of that blog-blurb that he was trying to pull someone's leg. Though on THAT "academically" plastered-over level humor really is in the eye of the bereader (something every author ought to be aware of). And it also is a matter of where exactly humor is called for (or not) if you really are serious about getting your point across - as in the case of the Kyser picture (you do not put up a picture of Perry Como either if you want ot stress how commercial rock'n'roll had become ). Unless, of course, it is all about self-centered navel gazing of "see how academically cute I am with all the meanderings of what what I put to paper" (or web,. these days).

I've read that book and would not even have disagreed that bands like his COULD swing every now and then - most sweet bands could. But does that make him an arechtypical example of what the author of that blog tried to express (or rather, what I think he tried to express )?

This discussion finally has made me curious enough to have a go at the blog myself but past the first few (several) paragraphs I gave up and still not sure if someone's been pulling the readers' leg(s) with THAT much (pseudo-) academic blurb or not. FWIW, what made the writer think that the bandleader pictured under "Swing music's intellectual purge" was EVER considered a SWING (hence, jazz) musician?? THAT one was outside swing most all of the time. So what point was he trying to make or IS he trying to pull someone's leg after all? And this is only one such moment from the few paragraphs I have read IMHO.

So THIS is the "Eric T. Vogel" who for a long time was the resident New York and/or USA in general) correspondent for the German JAZZ PODIUM jazz magazine in the post-war era, bringing regular news from the U.S. jazz scene to the readers. Vey interesting background info ...

Am just listening to that CD now. There sure have been worse jump blues guitarists than him.

Blue Moon (much-maligned Fresh Sound subsidiary ) has this to offer in the inlay notes of BMCD 6028 ("The complete recordings 1947-1955" of Jimmy Baby Face Lewis): This info seems to be based on the Baby Face Lewis entry in Leadbitter (Vol. 2).

Well, at the latest notice RSD is about VINYL record shops and paying homage to them still catering to that format and to THAT format still being marketed. (After all,despite its resurgence it stil is a niche product) Regardless of the marketing hullaballoo, local RSD events can be nice and can give some push to a shop, even though I personally am not usually attracted by the RSD releases either (even our main local record store that does RSD calls the prices of some of the items just insane and sometimes refuses to play the game - which doesn't harm his business, BTW). I would have been tempted by the Wes Montgomery release this year but am not prepared to pay huge money for the gimmick of having an RSD item. But if others jump on it - why not?

Exactly the opposite to how i perceived him first. Initially i figured he was another of those 40s "warblers" who had faded into obscurity in the 50s. Until I heard about his MUCH later albums. Seems to me that - like in the case of Rusty Bryant - there is a fairly huge gap (at least on records - his GNP album excepted) between his "early" and his "later" career. (P.S. According to Discogs, his 1957 GNP album WAS reissued on CD - so there you have at least one reissue of material from a RELATIVELY early stage of his career)

Indeed ... I am no expert on this but have snapped up information here and there (as chronicled by French and German historians). It is true that there was not so small a part of French society that embraced what VIchy stood for (without being pleased by the defeat against Germany, of course, but still ...). As an aside and of added interest to those interested in this part of French history within the KEY area of interest of THIS forum, may I recommend for further reading: "Jazz et société sous l'Occupation" by Gérard Régnier (Ed.L'Harmattan, 2009).

AFAIK this is true. In fact, when I first came across his name (see hereafter) I figured this was another overlooked former star vocalist who had just faded into collecting obscurity (this was well before I became aware of his much later recordings). I have a handful of early Ernie Andrews 78s on Gem, G&G, Columbia and Excelsior (they were part of a 78s collection - likely the "remainder" of the original collection - that was heavy on 40s vocals and that I bought in one lot about 15 years ago). The vocals remind me of a somewhat rougher Charles Brown. The line-ups of the backing groups often are quite impressive.

If you take contemporary (mid- to late 40s) publications about jazz as a yardstick it was inaccessible to a LOT of jazz listeners (and fellow jazzmen) and alienated a LOT of them at THAT time. And I am not talking about (temporary or eternal) "moldy figs". So WITHIN jazz it was about as avantgarde as things had got at that time. FWIW, Lennie Tristano's early recordings (another "avantgarde" style of 40s jazz) certainly do not sound that avantgarde-ish anymore today either. Of course latter-day listeners like you and me will experience these styles of music differently to how 40s listeners reacted, and I also agree that a lot of what was given the "avantgarde" (or "free") tag in jazz from the 60s onwards has REMAINED inaccessible to a lot of the audience - but not just to the "average" listener in jazz. I can totally see the point that Jimmy Giuffre made who - when asked "where is the beat" about his 50s trio recordings - replied "It is understood" (and that Jimmy Giuffre music certainly is no easy listening) and I can see where Ornette Coleman's "Change of The Century" fits into the evolution of jazz as it had gone on up to that time (but I make no excuses for this LP being the stylistically most "modern" one in my collection). But at one point things thereafter IMHO went beyond an accessibility limit that not very many listeners will pass, regardless of who may put the marketing clout behind it. In fact WITHIN the jazz subculture a LOT of media and marketing exposure was given to 70s European free or avantgarde jazz over here in Europe (just remember how many still drool over these acts even today in jazz collector's circles), up to the point of touting this - along with jazz rock and fusion for other segments of the audience - as being the only "artistically valid" forms of jazz and everything else just being nostalgia. I've never been deeply into what the Marsalises did, particulary not when they came up, and I honestly do not know what comparative exposure they got over here on the jazz scene early on but I'd not be surprised one bit if one reason why they got to where they are was that this kind of the pendulum swinging back was more than welcomed by a lot of jazz listeners outside Europe too who just found that the kind of jazz they cherished was fine up to, say, hard bop, but who preferred any further evolution being gradual and based on THAT and not on disjointed "free" screeching.

Bebop was quite avantgarde in the 1940s but it became "mainstream" (not in the sense of "Mainstream" à la Stanley Dance, of course) in the general canon of jazz long, long ago, didnt it? To my ears, for example, even back in the mid-70s when I got into jazz as a youngster of 15 or so. As mentioned before, I got into jazz almost at the same time I got consciously into listening to and buying music in the first place, and starting at 15 found my muscial preferences in what lesser enlightened and more superficially minded ones would probably have called "nostalgia". Rock to me was REAL rock'n'roll (i.e. the 50s variety), the Beatles were the Meseybeat Beatles to me (not the psych stuff, although I was exposed to a lot of late 60s/early 70s hard rock etc.on school buddies' turntables, eager to listen to what common denominators betwen their tastes and mine there may have been), and jazz in the beginning was all swing (and early jazz) to me. I did get deeply into this, did a fair bit of reading and so was aware of Bird and Diz early on. Occasional listening to this on the radio had made me feel dizzy (no pun intended) but intrigued ... And then one day (at not quite 16 I think) I took the plunge and bought the Prestige twofer with the early Dizzy Guild and Musicraft sides, and from the very first moment it did sound like a logical, natural and linear and immsensely enjoyable continuation and expansion of what 40s small band swing I had been exposed to before.