Fer Urbina

For Bix tributes I'd recommend Randy Sandke. I can't remember which CD(s), I think he's played in two, at least. Beautiful tone and phrasing. F

(I still hope that Crouch's Bird bio will come out, but thanks for this)

No wonder you were blown away! I'm listening to that session right now (hadn't listened to this for a while, I was writing off the top of my head) and even though the ensembles are a bit loose for my taste and there are rough spots here and there, some of the solos are very good. Also, not to be overlooked in this kind of vintage, the sound is excellent (I have the Genius boxed set). And Jo Jones... maybe the hi-hat went out of fashion just because no one could play it like him. Another thing about this session, because it is a small combo and the sound is so good, it's very convenient to appreciate the details, like how Jo Jones plays differently depending on the soloist. I'll shut up now and keep on being blown away. F PS The thing about the Spirituals To Swing tracks is that both Prez and CC are magnificent. Also, there's no piano and the rhythm section are Jo Jones, Walter Page and Freddie Green..., and the excitement, I guess, of playing Carnegie Hall, second or third time for the Basie-ites who had already hit the big time, but only second time for CC, and on top of that with his idol (Prez)... as far as I know that combo was not programmed (there are stories of Goodman not being happy about having "his" new star play without him on stage) and it was a group of musicians, all black, that knew each other from way back...

Anyone knows anything about Crouch's Bird bio? F

Mmm... for the Prez-CC combination I prefer the live tracks from Spirituals To Swing 1939 (even though CC half misses his cue to solo on "Way Down Yonder...", you can hear him turning up his amp). As for small groups, the October 28, 1940 has a very promising line-up, but personally I think that some of the tunes recorded by Goodman and his Sextette featuring Jo Jones and Basie are tighter. Personal favourites are both takes of "I Found A New Baby" and Jo Jones' hi-hat on... I think it is "Gone With What Draft", the one where CC plays Eddie Durham's guitar break from Jimmie Lunceford's "Avalon". F (Edit to exchange a set of cymbals for a hi-hat.)

Hi - Best online resource on Charlie Christian is Leo Valdés's site (http://home.elp.rr.com/valdes/). Don't miss his discography. Prez and CC recorded twice together, one live (From Spirituals To Swing, Christmas Eve of 1939), one in the studio (October 28, 1940, a pick-up group that possibly fed the rumours about Benny Goodman taking over Basie's band... it didn't happen). The details you're looking for are here. IIRC Chris Albertson was involved in the first issue of those studio recordings. F

Hi Jazzdisco.org are unlikely to be better than the Ruppli-Cuscuna books, and the latest edition on CD-ROM is very likely to improve on the previous books (from what I've seen in the Capitol and ABC-Paramount/Impulse CD-ROMs). Are you interested in a particular musician or session? I'll have the CD-ROM soon, we can run a few searches and compare if you want. Best, F

Hi again The new edition of THE BLUE NOTE LABEL 1939-1999 by Michael Cuscuna & Michel Ruppli on CD-ROM is €60, including p&p, registered priority airmail (you can order direct from Names&Numbers) . The discography is presented in searchable .pdf pages, simple but effective enough IMHO. F

Hi If it is the Michel Ruppli - Michael Cuscuna book, you'd rather wait for the new edition on CD-ROM, which is about to be published by Names&Numbers in Holland. Do remind me if I forget to post the price and contact details to get it (they do PayPal). I have checked Ruppli's new Capitol and ABC-Paramount/Impulse discographies on CD-ROM (also by Names&Numbers) and they're very good, and comparatively cheaper than the books. F

Hi Bluenote82, Not really. We don't have statues of Satchmo, Dizzy, Red Allen, Fats Navarro... (you get the idea). Wynton is good friends with the Vitoria Festival guys, which is fair enough, but I wouldn't take that as a musical accolade. F

Not similar, but a statue nevertheless. It's in Vitoria (Spain's Marciac, jazzwise). Possibly the only statue of a jazz musician in Spain... and they had to use Mr. Marsalis as a model... As they used to say ages ago, "Spain is different". F

McKusick film here Apparently there's a feature-length documentary coming. F

In Europe, Disky (a Dutch label) did reissue recordings licensed by EMI for a few years (don't know if they still do). Among those, there was a series of compilations called The Story Of Jazz which contained Blue Note and Capitol recordings (I remember seeing a Horace Silver and a Jackie Davies compilations). Also, at least in the UK, EMI launched a "HMV" collection mainly devoted to classical music, but also to jazz, country, easy listening, etc. F

Solo Scene is very good. Not as romantic as I expected, and quite a heavy touch, IIRC. About Fresh Sound and the RCA reissues, apart from doing his own reissues on Fresh Sound, Jordi Pujol has produced quite a few reissues for BMG Spain. He also did at least one ABC-Paramount LP for Spanish WEA (Vinnie Burke) in the 80s. F

Bill Crow still posts anecdotes (not all of them jazz, but mostly hilarious) in his Band Room column in the AFM 802 paper. See this for an index. This one is particularly funny, IMHO. F

This is well on the beaten track, but just in case anyone is interested, SonyBMG have released the following "Original Album Classics" 5-CD sets (in Europe, apparently - CDUniverse lists these as "imports"). They look like a repackaging of the latest CD reissues of the relevant albums, with extra tracks, in cardboard LP-facsimile sleeves, but without any booklets. Virgin have them at £14 each. George Benson Stanley Clarke Miles Davis Duke Ellington Mahavishnu Orchestra John McLaughlin Thelonious Monk Weather Report Sonny Rollins F

Soon. At the moment it needs some cleaning up and there are a few loose ends, but the first three years (1954-1956) are almost ready. I had some problems with BRIAN, but the rest is also beginning to look like something decent. Problem is, this is one of many items in my to-do lists. Thanks for the interest, Chas. F

good point. Is it not possible to edit mistakes out from an overview list of performer names? Yes, it is possible to look over a list of performer names and edit. I'm not sure whether one could merge performer data or not if there was a misspelling. (I'm not a "power user.") I guess I'm not sure how one (and it is one person, who does this for free) would program the conversion of data to end up in all of the right places. The instrument abbreviations might be different between the 2 programs. Brian also associates a default instrument with a performer as well, though I guess that can be left blank. While having to reenter data is a drag and time consuming, my own experience with importing & altering dubious data (not with Brian) sometimes leads me to just start fresh & enter it myself, as after having to closely inspect & alter data it seems like not much time is saved. For what it's worth there are plenty of Brian users who are willing to share their data. I've never asked as I'm not a researcher, just someone who for a time was entering some of my collection into the program. So I felt a little funny about asking given my amateur status. Also just like with math homework from childhood, I thought I learned more about my collection & the sessions by doing the work myself, than if someone else had done it for me. When you import data, personnel for instance, if it's not already there in the database, it shows in red. I have imported personnel to a BRIAN database and, basically, if a name that I expect to be there shows in red, it means that there's some spelling mistake and it has to be mended. Tedious work. Problem is, software and computers are not clever, and any, almost invisible, spelling difference will be noticed by BRIAN... and bear in mind Lord is not consistent within itself. F

That's not the point, or at least, I wouldn't do that. I've checked data with Lord's discography for my own research, and there are some mistakes and a lot of inaccurate or incomplete things, as well as some things he doesn't have. AFAIK, what's in Mike's site is more reliable than Lord's. well, it is the point as you seem to have overlooked the word "edit" in my post. Get the bulk from Lord and then check it and correct it. Oops, sorry, I missed that, you're right. However, although I have used Lord for my research and have had to check and correct it, and I'm sure other discographers must have done the same, I don't think there are enough people ready to spend the time, effort, etc... especifically to make Lord better. To correct data he has in his discography while doing work on a certain artist, yes, but to take on a Lord-based project... don't think so. As for what Brownie says... well. it's a free world, I guess. I've very rarely needed Lord's (except for research purposes). If and when I buy something I'll go for the Bruyninckx. F

That's not the point, or at least, I wouldn't do that. I've checked data with Lord's discography for my own research, and there are some mistakes and a lot of inaccurate or incomplete things, as well as some things he doesn't have. AFAIK, what's in Mike's site is more reliable than Lord's. If you use Brian, there's a "hidden" field (something the user of the database can see but not the reader of the published discography) where you can (and should) indicate the source of the data for each session (more for provenance than anything else). For Pettiford you can use this http://themenschmidt.de/don.htm Also, the guys from www.jazzdisco.org have a lot of stuff that although it's not 100% reliable, it's good enough for an online, gratis resource, IMHO. F

Stichting Names and Numbers have just released the following. MICHEL RUPPLI & BILL DANIELS: The ABC Paramount / Impulse Labels. About 1050 pages, EUR60.00 (postage included) MICHEL RUPPLI, BILL DANIELS & ED NOVITSKY (with the assistance of Michael Cuscuna): The Capitol Label Discography. About 6500 pages, EUR120.00 (postage included) Two separate CD-ROMs. Files come in searchable pdfs. Very easy to work with. Research done from master files, artist files, session listings, catalogues (old and recent), album/CD liner notes, magazines/books of all kinds including discographies & record listings/reviews, artist discographies, etc. For more info, STICHTING NAMES AND NUMBERS Reine Claudestraat 15 1326 JC Almere THE NETHERLANDS Email: gehojazz(at)planet.nl (They take PayPal) Norbert Ruecker should have these too. F

What Lord does is a collating job, not research, or at least, not primary source research. As long as we're clear with that, I don't have a problem. Actually, if you go to his website, there's a large bibliography (http://www.lordisco.com/tjd/help/author/v.jsp et al). What I'd have a problem with (if I bought Lord's work) is the sloppy job he does at collating. From what respected users and reviewers have said, he seems to be quicker turning out new updates than actually implementing the corrections that would give some meaning to said updates. That doesn't work for me. Arguing that any discography is bound to have mistakes, in this case, sounds like a pre-emptive excuse to me. Also, sometimes I have the impression that what Lord does is provide a user-friendly database, fills it up with info from the bibliography above *without checking*... and the gracious readers are expected to provide corrections (and effectively do the checking for Lord)? As for ripping off previous authors, one thing is to use previously published material for your own research. What Lord seems to have done is selling an old book with new covers, tackling the same (or almost) project as Jepsen did and Raben was doing. The frustrating thing is that Raben was doing a sterling job and Lord does a so-so job. Raben has had to give up and Lord keeps on putting out updates for sale. A triumph of style over substance? Personally, I don't like the discography by genre because of the grey areas (there'll always be someone disappointed). I find it more interesting (and easier) to make it by artist (and see what one person was involved in) or label (to have a cross-genre picture, something that Allen Lowe's Devilin' Tune has helped me appreciate more, BTW). At the end of the day, what Lord does very well is being visible. I googled "Stichting Names & Numbers", the publishers of some serious stuff discography-wise. Not only they don't have an internet site, which is bad enough, but Google's first hit was actually Lord's site (the link to his bibliography). As they say, you not only have to be good, you have to look like it. F PS Doing a discography properly is a daunting, boring, unrewarding task and works wonders in making you look like a complete nerd or an idiot without a life. Still, I use BRIAN and completely support Mike Fitzgerald's approach. [Edit for very obvious second thoughts on rippings other off]

IMHO, the main problem with Lord is that his proofreading and fact-checking is substandard, especially for the money he charges. F

Thanks! It looks like a repackaging of already published CDs, though. There's stuff from the 1950s that's never been reissued on CD (AFAIK). F

As far as I know, Black Lion's Alan Bates is still reachable here Also, da music, German label that releases Black Lion albums can be contacted here. F