Big Beat Steve

Except that the Jutta Hipp box is NOT from Bear Family but from Micha Gottschalk who runs the BE!SHARP and BE!JAZZ labels. He's the one I alluded to in an earlier post. His books are truly excellent that IMO rank on a level with those of Bear Family but he uses P.D. music material which is a financial advantage (and the saying goes that some were a bit underwhelmed when aurally checking some of the material on his BE!SHARP reissues). Though in fairness it needs to be said that apparently his MOD Records box set, for example, had the blessings of some surviving musicians from those sessions.

So you'd exclude the Reprise recordings?

What do you mean, exactly? As with any imported product, this product of course is more expensive if you buy it in an import country. And in my case the (domestic) cost in the US PLUS overseas shipping PLUS customs duties due on arrival here were a wee $5 above what the list price of the imported product was at Jazzmessengers (incuding shipping because their box set prices include shipping to other countries in the EU). I.e you pay more for the product but save on shipping and customs. In my case it almost was a draw between the two options. BUT - as discussed in the Savory thread, of course customs duties and associated "handling" (i.e. ripoff) charges vary (e.g. by country) and may make buying in the US substantially more expensive. OTOH it is a rare occurrence that a large box set slips through customs without any duties being charged (in which case you'd save by buying in the US). So that's that ...

Depends on how you go about it and what the actual box set is. I was eager to get my hands on the Savory box set and chose the cheaper US of the two airmail shipping rates quoted by Mosaic. Still got it several weeks before Jazzmessengers had it listed and in the end I paid about $5 more (INCLUDING our customs duties) than what I would have paid at Jazzmessengers all included. I'm fine with that.

Wait wait wait ... THAT can be said of a LOT of the Mosaic reissues too. So each buyer will have to work it out for himself if he sees substantial sonic improvements that warrant the outlay and/or if he wants to buy an item for its "superior" presentation. (I for one would be more interested in the other artists anyway ... yes, Ellington is around, but he isn't the beginning AND end of the Cotton Club history so a wider variety of artists is always welcome to flesh out the (Ellington) bones of this subject matter ) As for the price, in Bear Family tradition a good deal of it acounts for the book. 2 CDs with a 125-page full-size book with that lavish a presentation (if the photos are anything to go by) isn't standard stuff. And one final aspect about price and prior availability, yes that price is high (I am more tempted by the minute ...) but OTOH other publishers (even though SPECIALIZING in books and having a good reputation) have managed to almost ruin a truly excellent subject with sloppy printing and packing in random filler stuff that can be looked up elsewhere and does not add all that much to the actual subject, yet their book is expensive. (google "Bob Inman" if you are curious ) So "flaws" like the question of what's expensive and "not new" after all can be found all too often.

Yes I agree there. Though I wouldn't say the are "not" interested in the jazz market but rather that this is of low priority to them. So they go where they are more firmly present.

I sympathize with your approach (In fact I have filed my Louis Jordan - and Buddy Johnson - records in my blues and R&B section, not in the jazz section) but I am afraid that in part you are wrong. While his Mercury sides leaned towards R&B, the Decca output of his prime years definitely was part of the happenings in jazz. Lumping this in with an "R&B" market (before there was one as such) just because it was "popular" is one of those often-seen pigeonholing efforts that does not do the reality of jazz of the late 30s to early 50s justice. Same with a good deal of what Julia Lee did. You would not want to lump in Benny Goodman of the Carnegie Hall period with U.S "pop" music either just because was "popular", right? Beyond that comparison, if you look closer it is rather difficult to establish accurate stylistic boundaries and a good deal of R&B WAS part of post-1945 jazz in the way it MATTERED to the African-American audience.

50s and 60s country music will provide the background to only a small part of that Civil War "reenactment" fan scene (that has abated pretty much by now AFAIK). in the early days they did a fair bit of "contemporary" C&W artists playing in a more traditional style but this was more of a sideline to their R'n'R/rockabilly reissues that have alwawys made up the bulk of their stuff. Still they have never been cheap and their box sets above all rely on extremely high standards (to the extent that they often really are too much of a good thing - are there that many completists for some of these country artists?). The books that go with their box sets really are second to none (yes, even Mosaic pales in comparison) and the only others that I am aware of that come close in that respect come from a label that largely relies on Public Domain material for the music. @Captain Howdy: Their "jazz roster" isn't small but choice and VERY much "special interest" stuff even by jazz collectors' standards. https://www.bear-family.de/bear-family/deutsche-serien/jazz-in-deutschland/ They cannot have been big sellers yet BF hangs on to these items (I bought that Jazz Festival box set some 25 years ago - before I even had a CD player - and several others in the 90s and they are still listed today, even though some are temporarily OOP it seems). Others of their items such as their Julia Lee and Louis Jordan sets (offsprings from their deals with the labels they licensed for reissue) straddle the fence of jazz too. And then they have special items that are a "niche within the jazz niche" such as this one that I only became aware of now when I checked their site for this post: https://www.bear-family.de/various-history-cotton-club-2-cd.html Of course they can probably afford to cross-subsidize such items (which is a huge advantage compared to Mosaic) but it takes real dedication to put out something like that in the first place.

That's it. And that's why they have milked labels to the very last drop that on the face of it are not prime targets for cult reissue fetichists, e.g. Mercury. And apparently they did not license the EmArcy branch of it, or else they would have been able to add a lot to their jazz reissue roster.

Yes, esoteric sometimes is the word. The Buddy Johnson box is a case in point. These Mercury recordings can get repetitive if listened to in larger batches. (A good chunk of them was reissued on LP on Official and they were around for a while so there was a chance for many to listen in or cover their needs). You really have to be a dedicated completist to grab this. For another example, the country music clientele may be a larger one than the jazz faction but people all falling over themselves wanting to grab a 5-CD box set of Tommy Collins' works? (and so on ...) But let's see how they continue in the longer run now that Richard Weize has bowed out.

At any rate, it seems like they are about to lose a bit of goodwill here. Wonder if this is worth it ...

Running through the Decca congolomerate including its subsidiaries already mentioned here, the above quote reminded me I have the below one a.o. (which the AAJ guide saw fit to give 3 stars - that much for its all-out "easy-listening" character ): Checking the shelves further, there's this, taking buyer information one step further .... But then ... pulling out the one next to it I am beginning to wonder if they were that serious about that "accompaniment" thing after all: Piano by Dick Marx, bass by John Frigo, who'da thunk it?

I just checked the few period U.S. Decca originals with vocals that I have and wonder by what criteria they did or didn't include that "Vocal with instrumental accompaniment" statement on the cover. DL 74045 and DL 74046 have nothing, whereas the more recent (if the numbers mean anything) DL 74640 does include that statement on the back cover. And among the even older 10'" LP releases DL 5564 has nothing on the cover either (nor on the label) whereas DL 5567 (from the same series of LPs) says "Singing with instrumental accompaniment". It cannot be a matter of whether the LP includes vocals THROUGHOUT either. DL 74046 is all vocal, whereas all 8 tracks on DL 5567 in fact are instrumentals!

They say there is a resurgence for everything in due course ... Well, and sometimes they even go one better!

You mean these below? U.K. "original" pressing (Philips) from the 50s. Your LP shown above seems to have a combination of tracks from the two volumes marketed initially.

Is it really so that they will only press the pre-ordered quantity?

The wind-up gramophones that I have seen (at least the VERY common HMV ones produced under license elsewhere and remaining in proudction for a long time) had a control lever that you could slide to the left or right of the (standard) center position to slow down or speed up the turntable. And this altered the sound and pitch noticeably so I do think the difference between 78 and 80 rpm was reached easily.

It seems like variations of that name have been used in other (minor) niches of the music biz too:

Anyway, Babalu Ball would have sounded catchier than Babalu Arnaz.

Yes you might almost think so ... September 1988 (Méridien, Paris) As for that new Verve release, not so sure if I'll bite (though I am a Gaillard fan). Beyond the alternates, ther are only about 4 tracks or so that have not been on the vinyl reissues on (French) Verve and on Official from the late 80s.

And a bit mouth-watering.

You can do this via Google Books. https://books.google.de/books?id=PCMEAAAAMBAJ&hl=de&source=gbs_all_issues_r&cad=1 E.g. here for a copy from 1955: https://books.google.de/books?id=PCMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA5&hl=de&source=gbs_toc&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false But scrolling through the individual pages and enlarging them piecemeal to find what you are lookng for can be a bit of a pain the you-know-where if you do this for any length of time.

Exactly my approach. Making sure they don't lean too much for too long, wiggle them every now and then, etc. For quite some time I had my 12in LPs stuffed way too tightly (having run out of space) but last winter I finally shifted my 78s to the room next door, shifted my 10" LPs into where the 78s were and now have quite a bit more looseness and hope this will last me for a while. My shelves have a combination of 95, 75 and 45 cm width (chosen to be able to fill up one complete wall in my music room with the LP shelving and not waste any space). No dividers (none suitable available with that shelving system bought from a specialist shop - not cheap) yet the boards have not warped significantly during the 18 years the LPs have sat there. Board thickness is close to 20 mm, so not quite an inch as suggested above. But solid wood throughout. BTW and FWIW, my 10-inchers and 78s sit on standard IKEA BILLY bookcase modules with 35 and 55cm wide shelves. Perfect as far as I am concerned (provided you assemble the elements carefully and make sure the pins that hold the shelves are a snug fit in the predrilled holes in the side walls) and they have not shifted one bit though. And visually they match my LP shelving very nicely. I have used these much-sneered at BILLY bookcases in other instances where they really were crammed full with books or magazines and yet they haven't yielded under the (over)load. So these records should not be a big deal for them to hold. Though the 78 shelves are fairly full (and the records virtually upright throughout, without being squeezed) I still have to come up with some sort of solid dividers for the 55 cm wide 78rpm case, though (I've had two 78s - both Capitol, incidentally - warp significantly through upright loose storage in one of those 50s record wire racks - way outside sun or heat radiation - and would hate to see this happen again).

Don't mind or care too much about masonry. If they want to engage in that, so be it ... But that Orion Cube thing ... now come on ...

Mitch Miller an extraterrestrian? Well, who knows ... Maybe Men in Black ought to have been made much, much earlier?