Shorty Rogers: The Swinging Mr. Rogers

[bebopbob]

Aside from its appearance on Mosaic's Complete EMI/Atlantic Recordings of Shorty Rogers back in the late 1980s, which was before my time, it seems like this album has never been issued in its entirety on compact disc either in the U.S. as part of the Atlantic/Rhino, Collectables, Koch-Jazz, 32 Jazz-Label M reissue program or in Europe or Japan. A "Giants of Jazz" CD compilation from Italy contains only three of the eight pieces on the LP.

What's up with this? With so many different companies (Collectables, Koch, etal issuing the Atlantic back catalogue on CD), why hasn't this album been reissued in its entirety by someone other than Mosaic? This has created a major gap in the reissuing of classic Atlantic records from the 1950s and 60s. After more than twenty years since the appearance of CD technology. this album hasn't seen the light of day as a single disc issue on CD. What a shame since there's plenty of us who dig Shorty and his Giants.

While there's many other great Atlantic dates IMHO that still haven't been issued anywhere on CD (Charles Bell and the Contemporary Jazz Quartet - Another Dimension), Cy Walter Plays Richard Rodgers and the Newport Jazz Festival All Stars (late 1950s set)), Shorty Rogers was such an important figure in west coast jazz that his first Atlantic record deserves to be issued in its entirety on compact disc. I'm willing to overlook the Bell, Walter and Newport sets not being issued on CD, but what's up with not having the Swinging Mr. Rogers on compact disc?

A great set - let's have it on compact disc. We've waited long enough.

[P.D.]

Sorry, this doesn't help with the Atlantic problem.. but

For those not familiar with Shorty Rogers, there's a nice 2CD set going the rounds of the cheap record ( Half Price Books)... type stores

It's selling for around $7.00

Takes a Biographical look at Shorty

Disc 1 has tracks with the Woodchoppers,

Red Norvo

Herman

Kenton

Ferguson

Shorty's Giants.. the tracks with Pepper..including Over the Rainbow

Lighthouse All Stars

Louis Bellson

24 tracks

Disc 2 has 20 tracks from the RCA catalogue, including the four pieces for the Brando.. The Wild One.. movie

It's a great introduction to Shorty, at a great price

The Album is called..

Shorty Rogers, The Sweetheart of Sigmund Freud .. label.. Giant Steps GST 009

I had this music elsewhere, but still bought this.. nice to have the first disc pieces assembled together.

My only complaint is that they put as many tracks as possible onto the CDs and the space between the different tunes is so short that they seem to follow each other far to closely.

Edited August 14, 2004 by P.D.

[ghost of miles]

I'm still searching for THE SWINGIN' NUTCRACKER, which (last I checked) was still out of stock at Fresh Sounds.

[JohnS]

A little off thread but I've just discovered Shorty Courts The Count. I can't believe I've passed this one by so often. Lovely set, more enjoyable than Blue Express imo.

[neveronfriday]

Because of this thread, I hunted around for some Shorty Rogers at the various second-hand sites I frequent.

The first one arrived today:

Shorty Rogers and His Giants. The Big Shorty Rogers Express. RCA Victor Jazz Classics (BMG), 1994.

Paid 5 Euro. They had it at one site .... spankin' new for 4.99 Euro.

Great stuff. Excellent arrangements. Amazing how much swing and pure power you can get out of a ten-piece horn section. Wow. Sounds like they just had tons of fun at these sessions. Nice sound as well!

Cheers!

[ghost of miles]

A little off thread but I've just discovered Shorty Courts The Count. I can't believe I've passed this one by so often. Lovely set, more enjoyable than Blue Express imo.

Superlative record indeed, featured it just a couple of weeks ago.

[Bluesnik]

Another real good one is Shorty Rogers and His Giants, with Art Pepper, Jimmy Giuffre, Hampton Hawes, JOe Mondragon, Shelly Manne and others. Wonderful swingin West Coast stuff.

RCA Spain put out a lot of Shorty Rogers reissues some years ago. And they don't sound bad.

[bebopbob]

WOW - My prayers have been answered!

Collectables will be issuing "The Swinging Mr. Rogers" on November 9th which is up and available for "pre-order" on their webpage.

Less than eight weeks away!!

Edited September 19, 2004 by bebopbob