Big Beat Steve

I somehow agree with you with these "name" artists. It takes some figuring out to find out what to buy to close gaps in your collection (if you want to minimize overlaps with other reissues). OTOH, i think Dan Gould nailed it when he spoke of the "new to CD" camp. Since you mentioned Wynonie Harris, their CDs reach back to the time in the 90s when vinyl and CDs coexisted in the record shops. I remember picking up one of the Ace CDs (Women Whiskey and Fishtails) and was pleased to see that in adition to some inevitable overlaps they had included a fair share of tracks new to reissue and not to be found on the then-current vinyls - as if to specifically fill a few known gaps on the reissue market. However, I'll give them lots of credit for the way they explore even more obscure artists and give them their "reissue due". Their compilations from the Modern/RM stable (e.g. the Mellow Cats & Kittens series) or the John Dolphin labels are second to none. They take chances that hardly any other labels do. Bear Family and the like took chances with their box sets that maybe Ace find them to be too much of a good thing and therefore of limited marketability (according to THEIR criteria ..). Different strokes ...

So read here if you will: https://news.allaboutjazz.com/solving-the-metronome-riddle.php @Justin V: See the above link too. The man who made the #1 slot is given there. No Cecil Payne in sight, though. As for what "jazz fans" can do, overall this must have leveled out pretty much over the years and each one got his turn eventually, but odd results reflecting "popular" tastes that did not seem to match the tastes of those with more "sophisticated" tastes occurred rather often through the decades. Whenever I read a poll in old jazz magazines it somehow seemed to be second nature to the scribes to comment on this or that "odd" choice and try to find explanations (or excuses). But no doubt you are aware of the 1947 Esquire promotional hubbub about the "best" jazzmen that certainly was NOT fans' (or critics') polls. You wouldn't want to have it that way either, would you?

I for one am VERY interested in such obscurities and am very, very glad they brought them up in most cases - not so much the alternates (which sometimes one can do without and sometimes they are nice add-ons) but tunes that were never issued at the time. There must be a lot out there - in many fields of music. Just for comparison (outside the field of operation of Ace, but the problem no doubt existed in early post-war R&B or R'n'R fields too): If you run through the entries in the discography below .... https://www.amazon.com/Discography-Western-String-1928-1942-Discographies/dp/0313311161/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1532599828&sr=8-1&keywords=discography+of+western+swing&dpID=41CxhILI2jL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch .... you OFTEN find tracks marked as "unissued" that - if the titles are anything to go by - must be very, very lively, uninhibited, danceable and entertaining, as opposed to a fair share of issued tracks that apparently were dictated by heavy-handed A&R men who wanted something "for all the family" along the lines of a "something old something new something borrowed something blue" aproach. (Cliff Bruner wasn't the only one who explicitly complained about this later on). No doubt many of the unissueds were found to be too raucous for "healthy, clean-cut" all-round appeal. I guess many of those pre-war unissueds for the majors are lost forever and only are documented by these ledger entries. so if Ace decides to make them available now at last in THEIR fields of reissues then all the better (I know I have discovered quite a few gems there that leave me puzzled as to why they never were released at the time). I agree that some items that may need to be re-reissued so far might not have been and in a few rare instances I have found the share of alternate takes a bit frustrating too (but which recordings exactly that need to be reissued are YOU thinking of?). However, I do not think this is matter of trying to protect at least part of their releases from being "P.D.-ed". The same policy has been followed for DECADES (way back in the vinyl era when these P.D. problems did not exist yet) by other British reissue labels such as Flyright and Krazy Kat and - sometimes - Charly - (in addition to Ace) and may very well be a quirk of British discographers' and reissue producers' approaches in addition to a possible desire to bypass familiar master takes that HAD been reissued before elsewhere.

Discography (and much more) on assorted (in fact, most) blues and R&B labels of the 1945-60 era from Chicago: http://campber.people.clemson.edu/rsrf.html

Not all that surprised. Taking chances on "niche recordings" WITHIN this niche market is not for everybody. A bit of a pity anyway that they feel they have exhaused their material. There MUST be more (of the meatier kind) from the 78 rpm era. In 2005 I bought a "job lot" of 40s and early 50s U.S. 78s (lots, though not exclusivelly, of jazz and R&B - many singers). Among the lot were one or two Luis Russelll 78s on Apollo. Of course I figured I had some obscure finds on my hands, but listening proved a harsh deception. About as sugary, syrupy, square, stiff and straight as they come ... No doubt most if not all jazz fans would not have recognized the Luis Russell band known from the 30s (even taking all stylistic evolutions in the jazz field into account) The records went straight into the fleamarket/trade box of 40s U.S. pop 78s (from that lot) and sit there ... In short, if his entire output on the label was like this, then no regrets here ...

(Continuing the off-topic exhanges, but it IS interesting ... ) Thanks very much for this info. I must admit I had not thought of checking the Delmark website for information. From the above text it seems , though, that the Apollo reissue propject has lain dormant for some time and the text you extracted has not been updated for a while. The "new" Piney Brown CD mentioned (the one co-featuring Eddie Mack) has a copyright/production date of 2002. The reason I was asking about the recording/issue year up to which Delmark had secured the rights to the jazz recordings was that I was wondering if maybe items like this one (below) would be reissued too: https://www.discogs.com/Angelo-Di-Pippo-The-Jazz-Accordion/release/10048481 Though I figure that this would be likely only if Delmark had taken the "leave not even the tiniest pebble unturned for reissue material" approach as Ace did/does with the Modern/RPM catalog.

The pleasure was all mine.

But in the same vein, don't forget the 80s vinyl series released by Mercury (Japanese pressings) under the title "The Complete Dinah Washington on Mercury" which ran to NUMEROUS LPS, and then there also was the "Complete Dnah Washington" LP series on the (not quite that "official") Official label from Denmark in the late 80s. I remember seeing even the Japanese LP series in the local record stores at the time (but never picked it up). Those were the days when any decent reord shop had a Japanese import section (and in the 80s the prices weren't even that far beyond all the others yet). As for Columbia and "complete" collections, if you go beyond the singers, then they look like trailblazers to me (cf. the Duke Ellington twofer series released from the mid-70s - and there were others),

@Larry Kart: Agreed, that's quite possible. But when you come across a session in this context that - regardless of how great it is - somehow seems to be a "staple" of small band swing reissues to you then you are a little bit baffled. That's all. And I would not want to step in your way either.

Very interesting to hear these first-hand recollections. I am not aware of all the reissues that Demark did and don't know if you are, but would you agree that there should be a LOT more in the vaults? And do you happen to know up to what recording year the jazz masters were included?

Yes, excellent tracks. Though, truth be told, they have been around a VERY long time for those inclined to seek them out and listen: 1971: RCA LPV-578 1990: RCA NL82180

OK, so I'll quote from the fine print inside the booklet to the "West Coast Jive" CD (DD-657),published in 1992, hoping that you will accept this statement as being a "statement of fact" (or do you think they would expose themselves to ligitation THAT easily?) "Delmark has acquired the rights and surviving source material of the long out-of-print blues and jazz masters, and is presenting them in this Apollo series, including numerous unissued performances and alternate takes." Sounds similar to what Ace did with the Modern/RPM masters,except that Ace admittedly resurrected a LOT more.

It looks like they do - at least they did during the 90s when they reissued several compilations of Apollo recordings.

Indeed ...

I guess I like the Nash car publicity about best in this ... That trumpet player has done his share of listening to Clyde McCoy, it seems ... A glimpse at how the media establishment would have liked the teen-aged 50s to be and evolve ... Things evolved differently, as we know ... But he deserves credit for having an integrated audience at this early date of 1952. Cannot have been that common at that time.

That's the "L'Interrogatoire de Julien" track discussed earlier in this thread. IMO this is one of those cases where the soundtrack cannot really stand on its own without the movie. I guess they also omitted it BECAUSE it has no horns (i.e. no Miles Davis as the leader of the session).

I understand. I have no idea how and on what licensing basis they actually compiled this set but considering how open-handed they were about who was behind the project and where they operated from I figure it would have been rather too risky if this had been an all-shady affair. Maybe some French forumists can shed some light on this set. Someone must at least remember this set.

No kidding? You're at my hometown tomorrow? At the Jazz Open? Would be nice to meet you for a chat. Though I will be out of town tomorrow evening. Passed by the downtown venue of the Jazz Open this evening, BTW. (I'll confess: We caught a local rockabilly group at a live gig at a club just around the corner. )

Wel, there actually IS a CD featuring Bud Powell, for instance.

Well, as of now the EU hasn't crumbled to pieces yet ...

I have no idea. They were produced by "Editions ATLAS" (a French editor that does a LOT of series of collector's editions - sometimes distributed via newsagents - in a wide variety of fields) with affiliates in Belgium and Switzerland. There also is a very small imprint in the paperwork of the CDs that says "Guilde Internationale de Disque" (a record club AFAIK). The recordings span a rather wide time frame and at the time this edition was released (1991) cannot have been a matter of public domain recordings as some of the recording dates go up to the mid-70s. The recordings they selected are a bit of a helter-skelter affair. E.g. Art Pepper is represented by some of his very earliest 50s recordings (on Discovery etc.) whereas Dexter Gordon has both some of his Dial sides of 1947 and some 70s recordings, the Art Blakey disc has his "Hard Drive" LP on Bethlehem BCP6023 plus part of BCP6027 (not his most representative items, I'd say), and the John Coltrane disc includes live recordings from Birdland from Feb. and June 1962. But this is what I find interesting as you get some nice items overlooked elsewhere. And who's to complain at THAT price ... At any rate the books that go with the CD sets include full bibliographical and copyright details (also stating that the original publication came from Spain) as well as the names of those involved in the production and cannot possibly have gone under the radar of the rights holders if this had been a production that tried to go the "public domain, no licenses due" route.

Thanks. Sounds like a book that indulges in clichés. Any other opinions? BTW: I had to snicker when I saw the "second" pic of the author you linked in the comments section of your review. THAT photo seems to say "Oh my god, what book did I write there??"

As bad as Joe Buzzard and John Tefteller? If I got your impressions right they must be prime candidates for this category. @medjuck & Paul Secor: Would you mind elaborating on your impressions/mixed-feeling reactions? To me, at first glance this sounds like a fun book to read, even (or particularly) if it is fictional. I guess I can poke fun and laugh a bit at myself and my (probably not THAT terminal) collectionitis and probably don't take myself 100% seriously in that respect. But I am eager to listen if my impressions I got from your comments are way off. So ... what is it that annoys you with this book? Where does it get unbearable? (Thx ..)

No problems here. The booklets of my set are all the same. Not too tight, not too loose. But as I've been annoyed a bit before by booklets waaay too loose and sloppy and slipping out as soon as you open the jewel case I would not even have complained about somewhat tighter fits. While we are at it - re-fidelity: Very good indeed. But I do wonder - recording buffs being what they are, I wonder how long it wil take for someone to tackle that Stuff Smith track on disc III (Crescendo in Drums) that has noticeable interference from a neighboring radio station and really dissect it to listen THROUGH the music to find out and transcribe what EXACTLY was broadcast on that other station? And as for the discographical details: Session P by Count Basie: Could it be that the recording date of May 19, 1939 is incorrect? The Basie band did a studio session for Columbia on May 19 so how likely is it that they had a live gig the same day? According to Ken Vail's "Jazz Itineraries" book on Count Basie they started a 6-week residency at the Panther Room the day after, on May 20 (and broadcast from there most nights). Just sayin' ...

Liquidatzia! Ha! And this collection does not seem to include other early films by Bergman films that were shown, for example, many moons ago on TV here in a retrospective of the early years of Bergman. Films you never had seen before and probably never saw again afterwards. E.g. Musik i mörker and Det regnar pa var kärlek Interesting, though, for cineasts as even these early films have a very special atmosphere.