Dan Gould

I've seen so many of these bitch-fest threads and I just have to say ... I've never had a problem tearing these things off: Find the side with "pull here". Pull across the length of the jewel box. 9.5 times out of 10, it lifts all the way off. Now turn the jewel box and get a handle on the part that is over the spine (it should lift off easily). Pull along the length of the jewel box and the rest of the label comes off. At least 99% of the time, no problem. And I have never even given a second thought to any left over gunk. Did I mention that I no longer keep jewel boxes but have switched to a three-ring binder CD storage system?

I'm pretty sure that the expression 'you don't miss your water.....' was used in the blues long before William Bell's wonderful recording. I was going to say that I am almost certain that B.B. King used the line in one of his '50s Crown recordings.

That's what I always thought about Concord. There were plenty of African American artists around in Concord's early days - you have only to look at the records that Muse issued - some of which were pretty funky, I'll agree - to find a load of them making all kinds of music. Sure, there were people like Kenny Burrell, Plas Johnson, Red Holloway who made albums for the Concord. And sure there were a bunch of Afro-Cuban musicians like Mongo Santamaria on Concord Picante. But the feeling I had was that Concord saw its business as making records for middle class white customers. That, naturally, affected the artists it signed up. And, equally naturally, it affected sales to me. MG I am troubled by the implicit charge of racism, either on the part of Carl Jefferson, or on the part of the people who purchased Concord records. I don't think anyone should doubt Carl Jefferson's love of the art form and its players, and the fact that he gave record dates to Holloway, Plas, Ray Brown, Art Blakey, etc., at a time when Jackie McLean was recording Monuments, ought to be applauded. Perhaps the perception of a "lily white" roster in the under-40 age group was a function of the prominence of Scott Hamilton and Warren Vache, but you might also want to consider that they are two guys who played the music Carl wanted to record and put out. Its also a fact that James Williams recorded three times for Concord at the start of his career, and Jefferson also gave the Clayton brothers their first recording opportunity. And from 1992-1995, Rickey Woodard recorded three times for the label. But all of those recordings fit into the Concord approach of mainstream-to-bop.

Soon as you join the work force, Aric, you'll learn the difference.

The Sports Guy's youtube favorites. Highlights: Bill Shatner Delivers "Rocket Man" as a soliloquy. (has to be seen to be believed!)

Even better than Clearwater? Wow ...

Its linked in Garth's post directly above yours. Nice article, but I have to wonder about this statement: First of all, how much was it common knowledge among fans or observers that Brownie abstained? Only if it was widely known would it even be possible for such a change to be affected. Secondly, if we accept that Brown could have this effect, how much of an effect on the "reprobate image of musicians" can one man have, especially considering how short his time was in the jazz spotlight? I think the writer is reaching here. Perhaps if Brown had lived though ...

You obviously know nothing about employment law in the US, or what kind of protections exist and don't exist for most employees. That's what I said. So, go on... MG Do you really want me to? Most employees in America are "at will" - I can quit whenever I want to, you can fire me whenever you want to. This doesn't mean that employers don't make some allowances regarding notice of termination and severance pay. But most employers are free to give the notice they feel like giving, be it 0 days, 3 days, two weeks, or whatever, and pay severance if and only if they want to.

You obviously know nothing about employment law in the US, or what kind of protections exist and don't exist for most employees.

John, I bow to no one in my contempt for the management of Concord, post-Carl Jefferson. But I don't think that the current owners feel a need to get rid of someone just because, if massive deletions happen, they don't want someone around who will object. I think they'd just say "tough noogies" and delete away. If that is what is coming to pass, maybe its best for Ms. Hinte that she is let go now instead of watching the catalog get eviscerated. Does anyone know that Ms. Hinte was deeply involved in selecting reissue projects, or keeping low-selling OJCs in print? Her job title was PR, and she obviously knew a lot about the Fantasy labels, but no one has explained why she needed to go in the context of some presumed decision to delete most of the back catalog. I am sure she would have done a great job promoting whatever reissues they do put out.

You're not arguing with me, Ken, you're agreeing with me. Whether it was a matter of salary, or wanting to keep the people you've been working with, it is in all likelihood an internal matter necessitated by the takeover of Fantasy. Don't we all know of talented, hard-working individuals who lost their jobs after a merger and did nothing to deserve their fate? It happens all the time.

This is unfortunate, obviously, for Ms. Hinte, but I fail to see how this proves that Concord is going to waste what they invested so much money in. Does it occur to anyone else that Concord had its own PR person, and that it usually happens after one company buys another that the people in the purchasing company end up keeping their jobs, and its the people in the company being bought that end up fearing, or experiencing, the axe? If Concord ends up deleting a lot of the catalog in favor of the big stars + a boatload of comps, it will have nothing to with the absence of Terri Hinte. And that remains an if. After all, wasn't there talk that Fantasy kept so much great but low-selling music in print partially because they owned the warehouse space, and how that altered the calculus? So what has changed if Concord bought them lock, stock and barrel?

I have nothing to do with it, but this recording has garnered some discussion about both its quality and rareness, and here is a Japanese pressing. High opening bid though ...

I don't know how tough it is to find or if Da Bastards re-stock, but my copy of Getting into Something came from an inexpensive vinyl reissue probably three or four years ago. As far as Lonehill goes, I do give them credit for being complete bootleggers, as the Bailey set includes "Brownie Speaks" which was only issued on Almost Forgotten, an almost forgotten 1983 comp of unissued Columbia tunes. Since then, most of the music has made it out on CD reissues, but Lonehill's the only place you can find that forgotten track.

Dan, they started cutting back on their braves games last year. If I remember correctly, they didn't start broadcasting games on TV regularly last year til June, and fans were really pissed. OK, but how come two games against the Devil Rays are broadcast this weekend, but none of the Red Sox series? The least they can manage is give a little more thought to what games to broadcast.

Excellent! In the words of those immortal hair-metal bards Cinderella, "Don't know what you've got till it's gone." Actually, I think this was coined by Chicago, in "Hard Habit to Break", their first step down the slippery slope to Hades, I mean Adult Contemporary pablum.

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Or maybe we should go back and call Parker's music "hard bop". After all, it was bop, and at those tempos, it was damn hard to play.

Please identify the specific bands/records which identified "soul jazz ... right from the start in the '40s". The early leaders were mainly tenor players: Illinois Jacquet, without whom there would have been no honkers; Gene Ammons; Ammons/Stitt (though half or maybe more of Stitt's career is Bebop); Arnett Cobb; Ike Quebec; Big Jay McNeely; Paul Williams; Willis "Gator Tail" Jackson; Hal "Cornbread" Singer; Wild Bill Moore; Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis (first tenor/organ records in '49). Other big names included Tiny Grimes & his Rockin' Highlanders. Among vocalists, Dinah was the Queen. In the early '50s, there was Wild Bill Davis and other pre-Smith organists like Milt Buckner & Bill Doggett. MG None of these people played "soul jazz" as the term is used. I'm not at all disputing that there is a continuum from those you mention to soul jazz as the term has been applied (by everyone I know save yourself). You might want to call those folks "pre-soul jazz". This is also the view of Bob Porter, a man whose views on this subject are not to be sneezed at, I reckon. MG I presume you mean that Bob Porter calls 40s R&B "soul jazz". Does this mean that everyone else doesn't count? The simple fact is that "soul jazz" was recognized and identified as such in the late 50s-early 60s. That does not mean that we go back to its antecedents and rename plain old R&B "soul jazz".

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This has already been noted and commented on. The bottom line seems to be that Alan is very busy with other things right now.

I know nothing about Macs and Ipods but I can tell you that if you are not careful when burning from Itunes, you can end up with completely different songs than what you intended, and that would really screw up a BFT. I know cuz I was the recipient of a custom made comp in which, despite the best efforts of the compiler, the tunes I wanted off of disc 2 came off of disc 3 and vice versa, and that wasn't what I expected.

Please identify the specific bands/records which identified "soul jazz ... right from the start in the '40s". The early leaders were mainly tenor players: Illinois Jacquet, without whom there would have been no honkers; Gene Ammons; Ammons/Stitt (though half or maybe more of Stitt's career is Bebop); Arnett Cobb; Ike Quebec; Big Jay McNeely; Paul Williams; Willis "Gator Tail" Jackson; Hal "Cornbread" Singer; Wild Bill Moore; Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis (first tenor/organ records in '49). Other big names included Tiny Grimes & his Rockin' Highlanders. Among vocalists, Dinah was the Queen. In the early '50s, there was Wild Bill Davis and other pre-Smith organists like Milt Buckner & Bill Doggett. MG None of these people played "soul jazz" as the term is used. I'm not at all disputing that there is a continuum from those you mention to soul jazz as the term has been applied (by everyone I know save yourself). You might want to call those folks "pre-soul jazz".

Since I'm up afterwards, I need to get back in the swing of things, so maybe people will want to hear mine too.