Big Beat Steve

Well, looking at the finer print on the shipment sticker I did notice that my Savory box set was shiped with an indicated value of $15. Conveniently overlooked by the customs people here, maybe because more stickers (by the 3rd party shipper and by Swiss Mail that was brought into play for no good reason at all) were stuck on the OTHER side of the parcel. All in all not better and not worse than how many US shippings fared en route over here. Sometimes you pay customs duties, sometimes the item slips through. And since the set still is not listed with Jazzmessengers and judging from how comparable Mosaic box sets are priced there, I ended up paying maybe 5 euros more (customs fees included) than what a purchase from Jazzmessengers likely would cost me. I guess I will survive that ... Yet these Asendia people need to clean up their act and learn something about overseas shippings and about dealing with their counterparts in the ACTUAL country of destination, not some third-party country that only causes detours and delays.

Thanks for putting into words what I really couldn't think of at the tine. Boxy and awkward dancing indeed. Whatever you tap your feet to, it's not to her dancing.

Listeing ot disc I now. I really cannot say I am underwhelmed by the Fats Waller tracks but apart from the fact that fidelity seems to be better on this one I'd rate this set set on a level with other live recordings of his that have been on the market for a long time, e.g. his "Live At The Yacht Club" LP on Giants of Jazz (GOJ 1029) which in fact was recorded only a few days before the Savory tracks at the same place. In short, Waller is what Waller is and the performances are very enjoyable (and a nice addition to his discography) but not out of this world. And I agree about the silliness of that "jolly joshing" remark. Where and what would Fats Waller be if he hadn't thrown in his bits of fun? So, Mr liner note writer - man, be glad he was no groaning Keith Jarrett!

"Handling fee" on top of the customs duties? They tried to cheat me out of that too here. If I had not wanted to go collect the parcel at the customs office (a 10 to 12-mile drive, except that today it was more due to several construction sites and detours en route) I could have had the customs clearance handled by the postal office - for a fee of a whopping 28.50 euros (on TOP of any customs fees - i.e. VAT - due). No thanks.

Prime candidate for the next Darwin Award ...

Was able to collect my set from the customs office today - exactly 4 weeks in transit. Oh well ... that was to expected, given the detour via Switzerland and Swiss Mail (discussed in passing in the Mosaic "trouble" thread). Two remarks: Very pleased to see some Basie recordings from that Randall's Island open air concert have finally come to light. Ever since watching that footage in the Ken Burns documentary where they say that unfortunately no recordings were known to exist I figured this was something you'd sure like to get the soundtrack of. Now this has been partially taken care of. On another aspect, I found the packaging box of the set a bit on the skimpy side. Well wrapped in bubble wrap but not so much round the edges but rather on top and bottom, and as the box set just oh so narrowly fitted very sungly inside the cardboard box, dinged or split corners really were only a small step (of postal manhandling) away. Beware, and something maybe to give some thought to (given how finicky most collectors - understandably - are about the condition of the Mosaic box itself too). A shipping box that is slightly larger, offering more space for all-round bubble-wrap really could not have done any harm. BTW, my set is #549 FWIW.

Why not do it the other way round? Do a discography of "collected accompanying noises". I think the grunts by Oscar Peterson would come in an honorary second. Seems to be a topic of some concern: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/the-groaning-jazz-pianists-thread.62376/ http://observer.com/2015/12/the-great-groaning-pianists/ etc.

Prestige LP 181 is on 12in LP 7085 (When Farmer Met Gryce) - along with the contents of LP 209. Prestige LP 177 and 193 are on the New Jazz LP 8258 you show above but also on Prestige 7665 with identical contents. Reissued often.

Say it in full: "Jo...! Que lío!" Well, nobody can say this is a championship for the faint-hearted ... I guess everybody over here who's halfway objective will have to say the German team had it coming to them. They just did not get their act together. My family watched while I was tinkering away intn he garage, and the way they just told me, sometime during the first half the speaker on German TV told the spectators "Make no mistake, you are watching the match in real time, this is NOT a slow-motion replay!" Isn't that telling?

Despite his mishap, Rudy's had his share of leg pulling (again ... ) in the media here: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/sport/rudy-wm-maske-1.4030305 For those who don't understand German: (subtitle:) "Sebstian Rudy is looking forward to his protective face armor. Not just because of his broken nose .... " Pic 1: Mail for little Rudy: "Hey Rudy, your face mask has arrived!" (Rudy: "At last ...") Pic 2: "Cool! Such a gleaming, black nose armor sure will make me look much more martial and intimidating ...!" Pic 3: (No words needed ... )

Just listened to a discussion panel of experts on this match on French radio (my radio in the garage is always tuned to Europe 1 for background entertainment and distraction - and keeping up with the language too - when I work on one of my collectible cars - my other collecting hobby ). Though I only listened with maybe half or two thirds of an ear , the key points in the experts' views (incuding Guy Roux, a legend among French coaches) were that apart from the fact that the Danish team appeared to be very "solid" (meaning, from the way they stressed it, that they were very ... eh ... broad-shouldered compared to the Latin-type team of French players ), the French team lacked a real team effort, as if the motivation of the individual players, many of whom earn top star salaries in their league teams, wasn't quite what it ought to have been in the national team. Dembelé, for example, was singled out, and one commented that given the huge millions he earned from his transfer to Barcelona one would have been entitled to see a bit more action from him in this, the national team. Another one commented that the match may have been all about tactics, with France specifically playing for a draw so as not to risk losing the match and ending up in a group they do not quite want to be in. So that's a bit of what they think in their home country ...

It's already been introduced in the German Bundesliga - with mixed results, reactions and satisfaction.

Now that you describe it, I do remember that scene. So I pulled out my VHS cassette and watched that sequence. Somewhere through that sequence piano and bass come in too but the drummer is very much in the foreground throughout. The music is effective as background to that film scene but on its own? Not so sure. A criticism that had been levied at the soundtrack in period reviews, BTW. Personally I tend to disagree in the case of the other tracks but here it indeed is so that the music on its own doesnt do much overall IMO. In short, a track for completists only.

Indeed. I bought the 26-track CD (single CD, including everything from the item above except 'L'Interrogatoire de Julien") from a rack of budget-priced CDs in a shopping center in France last year. Same cover pic as on the set under the Discogs link above. I cannot make detailed comments about the sound quality (whcih basically is OK to me). The only other reissue of this I have is on an LP I bought new in 1983 (Italian Philips) - the 10 soundtrack tunes on one side and the soundtrack of "Des Femmes Disparaissent" on the other. I haven't listened to other reissues so do not feel qualified to judge.

I doubt that they sent me your tracking number. My item is still listed as being in transit. My point is that to the best of my knowledge Swiss Post does not do parcel deliveries on German territory. So even if Swiss Post in turn has some sort of cooperation agreement with DHL for cross-border shippings, involving them in this case where they have no point being involved at all because Switzerland is no transit country for US-German shippings can only mean detours and delays. Senseless ....

Weeelll .... I was half tempted to add a post in the Savory box set thread about eagerly waiting for the shipping to arrive, but seeing this post by neveronfriday (hey, never knew you live in this neck of the woods, more or less ... ), I just had to chime in with another status report re-Mosaic shippings: Ordered the Savory set on 31 May, received an order confirmation from Mosaic on 1 June, an order forwarding (shipping) confirmation from Mosaic on 7 June, communication with Scott Wenzel was good and prompt , no complaints at all. Spot on. Then on 7 June a shipping notification from this William B Meyer company arrived, including a tracking number which initially did not show up any details of the actual status of the parcel. So far, so good - was to be expected that this would take its time. Then, on checking 2 days ago, the tracking details (handled by "Asendia" - who??) said that after receiving the shipping information on 12 June (what hapened to the parcel between 7 and 12 June, but never mind ...) the shipment seems to have left the "origin border point" (read, the US of A, innit?) on 14 June. But then ... while no more status info has been added to the page since then and though the destination country "Germany" is clearly indicated, the info under the "Postal tracking #" now reads: " Asendia has partnered with Swiss Post for final mile delivery of your parcel ", and when clicking on the POSTAL tracking number a page comes up with the logo of SWISS POST at the top (i.e I am on a website in Switzerland now) WTF?? I am of course keeping my fingers crossed about the parcel showing up eventually and safely but I am more than a little surpised by this turn of things. Do those who handle shipping "stateside" realize that these are two different countries? What's the business of SWISS Post with delivering a parcel coming from the US for delivery to Germany? What kind of order processing is this? In about 18 years of ordering regularly from the US I have never seen such bizarreries. DHL (operating internationaly) - yes, but Swiss Post for an item that does not even go though Switzerland? As for having to go to the customs office showing an actual invoice and pay the fee, no big surprise, this can happen and I am more than half expecting this here with an item of this bulk. It just is anybody's guess which parcels slip through under the customs radar (including if the value ahs been declared low or not at all). I've been lucky a number of times so the overall ratio is bearable but the delay this will inevitably cause (King Ubu is right about the 2 weeks' span - same here) is annoying indeed.

Must have been a lot of Bluebirds. The reissues on French RCA (Black & White series) ran to two 5-LP boxes plus a full 23 individual LPs. Just checked these Bluebird twofers out on Discogs. I cannot consciously recall having ever seen them in shops over here at the time, contrary to those on many other swing bandleaders. Maybe the existence of the monumental series of the French RCA Black & White reissues left no place for them?

So I suppose you do not have any other plans for the weekend than to bury yourself next to your CD player, right? Enjoy!

I wonder how many airshots released for the first time in this set also figure in the listings in this chronicle of listening to swing on the radio: https://www.amazon.com/Swing-Era-Scrapbook-Teenage-1936-1938/dp/0810854163/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1529479502&sr=8-1&keywords=swing+era+scrapbook

If I got Larry Kart right I understand this to mean there was too much talk about HOW great the music is instead of analyzing WHY it is so great. Like Larry said - those who read the liner notes already HAVE the set so do not need to be sold on it - contrary to what the average sales blurb on the back of many LPs was intended for. Anyway ... one more reason to look eagerly forward to receiving the set. Lots of explorations to be done, including in the notes. That aside, I guess there can be times when liner notes just aren't quite what they usually are with a given collector's label that has set high standards. Compared to the explorations of every bit of historical details not easily accessible or not documented at all before that Uptown often managed to come up with in the booklets of many other releases, I for one find the notes to the Illinois Jacquet/Leo Parker rather a superficial hack job, for example. Those who buy such a specialist relase on this specialist label no doubt are aware of the key biographical details of the featured artists.

For a moment I was considering asking everybody who's going overboard in their praises here to PLEEEEZE have mercy on us overseas buyers who yet have to wait for a couple weeks more for the set to show up at our doorsteps, given overseas shipping lead times. BUT - your comment on the liner notes (coming from a pro in the field) has me wondering ... What happened in your opinion? Someone ran out of superlatives before writing the actual notes to THIS set? Newly discovered recordings too difficult to work into a reevaluated assessment of the featured artists' bodies of work of this period? Didn't the download instalments inculde "liner" notes too? Do they differ markedly form what's included here? In what direction? If so, I wonder why ... But coming to think of it, all this AGAIN raises the curiosity and anticipation to be be able to check for yourself. So nothing gained - and one MORE reason in fact to itch for the set to arrive ... oh well ...

Who "guys"?

Just to underline the appeal of Jimmy Smith at the time, if the record reviews in early 60s copies of the Bulletin du Hot Club de France are anything to go by, Jimmy Smith was one of those jazzmen commonly ranked under "modern jazz" that even inveterate anti-bop moldy fig Hugues Panassié really approved of (Erroll Garner was another one, BTW).

You have the entire series? I only grabbed Vol. 5 (The Rich-R-Tone Story) when the batch was available at a really affordable price here at a record fair long ago and regret not having picked up the others. Though I must admit I wouldn't pay big money for these (not that they wouldn't be worth it to aficionados, but to me they are more of a "nice to have" side line).