Any first-time reissues around?

[Big Beat Steve]

Summing up a few threads on recent and not so recent reissues, a recurrent topic has been that this or that among the Jazz music from past eras that's on currently hailed CD's has been reissued over and over again before in various combinations.

As a result, anybody who already has a relatively substantial Jazz collection (and who - like myself - is certainly NOT ready to dump his vinyl!) is faced with the problem that he will almost never be able to add any new jazz reissues from the 78 rpm era where he does not already have a good deal of the music in his collection. So you actually are buying CD's for only about half the worth of the music (or even less).

However, browsing through the usual discographies you come across a lot of never-reissued tracks and sometimes even artists whose recorded output has almost never found its way onto any reissues (vinyl or CD) yet, at least not any reissues that are not totally obscure (I think I am aware of a lot of what's been on the market since the late 60s/early 70s, although may have missed quite a few Japanese obscurities).

Back in the vinyl days the problem existed too but at least there were some collector labels that even went so far as to proclaim in their liner notes that this and that title or session had expressly been omitted from any particular reissue on a single artist (or a compilation) because it was available elsewhere (even though that other label may have come from a totally different country and may even just have gone out of print at that time of release). So obviously those who compiled those vinyl reissues assumed that their buyer target groups were discerning and astute enough to have covered the entire market and would consciously like to avoid doubling up too many tracks, even if this meant that they would not be buying a "Greatest Hits" compilation of an artist's past work.

Somehow I feel that whatever new reissues from the 78 rpm era are resurrected today (either in the field of small-band swing or bebop or R&B) will always be hidden among an even larger chunk of well-known and often-reissued material.

The only exceptions I am aware of are certain reissues of European jazz from that period.

So my question is this:

Are there any (maybe not all that common) current reissue CD'S or labels featuring jazz from the late 30s, 40s and early 50s that really are compiled in a manner that does not recycle the usual stuff yet another time but consciously tries to dig out previously unreleased music in a rather consequent manner, e.g. sessions originally released on those numerous "indie" labels from the 40s?

The music is there at any rate and is just waiting to be resurrected.

Thanks for any hints on not so obviously marketed reissue labels you may have.

Edited December 20, 2006 by Big Beat Steve

[jazzbo]

Uptown is one to check out if you're not already familiar with their Mingus, Eager, Parker/Gillespie and Parker releases,

[Big Beat Steve]

Thanks for your suggestions, Jazzbo.

Can' imagine there being a lot of 40s Parker or Gillespie studio recordings that have not been reissued and I don't have already.

Quite a few early Baron Mingus sides have been reissued on vinyl on the Swingtime label. (Yeah, there we go again, you see? )

As for Allen Eager, the Uptown release sounds good as far as the description on their website goes. Seems like these are live recordings. Nothing wrong with that at all (I immensely like the Serge Chaloff CD done by Uptown) but it makes me wonder why lots of unreleased recordings are issued for the first time while at the same time hardly anybody seems to bother about REISSUING records for the first time ever that had NEVER been available on anything but 78s.

No, I am not that hard to please at all, but it really looks like I am searching for labels that are daring enough to reissue sort of "The overlooked ...." single-artist or regional compilations aimed specifically at filling those permanent gaps that remain for anybody who does not have the original 78s.

Anyway, any other suggestions warmly welcomed!

Edited December 20, 2006 by Big Beat Steve

[Chuck Nessa]

Quite a few early Baron Mingus sides have been reissued on vinyl on the Swingtime label. (Yeah, there we go again, you see? )

The Swingtime lp you mention only has 4 of the 24 sides contained in the Uptown cd. The rest of the lp contained Mingus sideman appearances.

[Big Beat Steve]

Yeah, I admit I did not have the Swingtime LP on hand when I wrote that (as tracks like "This subdues my passion" rang a bell). 20 new ones out of 24 is an acceptable score BTW, I half expected hearing from you, seeing that you were involved in the production of the Baron Mingus CD on Uptown.

Will definitely check it out and try to get it.

Any other rarities labels/series besides Uptown?

Edited December 20, 2006 by Big Beat Steve

[John L]

A few points here:

a) European labels like Chronological Classics have done fairly comprehensive reissues of studio recordings from the 78 era. So most studio recordings from this era new to disc would have to be something newly discovered and pulled out of the vaults.

b) Due to copyright laws in Europe that put all of this music in the public domain, and a number of pseudo-pirate labels that are waiting to steal immediately anything new that hits the market, there is very little incentive to invest time and effort in searching the vaults for something new.

So don't expect much.

[kh1958]

My most recent Chronological Classics CD is No. 1349. They started wihn No. 500--so that is over 800 CD compilations from the 1920s to early 1950s. If you have all or most of this material, you really do have a large collection. Otherwise, this seems like the most abundant source of 78 era jazz.

[Big Beat Steve]

John, I realize all that.

Yet it is only part of the overall picture:

1) What Chronological Classics has done mostly concerns "name" artists and bandleaders (even those minor-league stars they feature were at least that, i.e. minor-league STARS). And these chronological series just highlight the key problem: If you are just after one or two sessions that may have been routinely omitted elsewhere in reissues of an artist's body of work (because they were on some more unknown label) and have all the rest you might have to buy 2 CD's to add maybe 8 or 12 new tracks from 2 or 3 sessions. Fine for those who do not have anything yet or who are keen on dumping what they have to start all over again but disgusting and frustrating for the others. I may have missed some goodies from the Classics series but sadly had to skip quite a few others for exactly that reason.

2) What I was primarily thinking of was what you would call "minor" jazz leaders - not in a sense of artistical quality but rather those sidemen who only had relatively few sessions as leaders, and there were many of those in the late 30s to early 50s.

This music mostly was found on those "indie" labels so it is not a matter of searching any "vaults" (because in most cases there aren't any). It would rather be a question of entreprising souls who round up decent 78s that will lend themselves to at least a decent level of mastering. One case in point that comes to mind now and then are the recordings by Ray Linn from 1946 (for the very simple reason that I once missed one of his 78s on eBay ). As far as I know only two of the eight tracks he recorded commercially were reissued (on a fairly oscure German LP from the 80s). And there are LOTs more like that. In short, this would concern MANY of those 4-track sessions done throughout that period for a great many labels and would make some pretty nice compilations such as the "Bebop Revisited" LP series on Xanadu and similar releases on Onyx, etc. etc. Is there really no incentive for compiling anything like that anymore? After all this always addressed a minority taste only and production costs probably were higher for vinyl than they are for CD's today.

As for the question of "pirating" and the 50-year "public domain" limit, I'd rather not go into that here. It's not as clear as one might assume and it's no one-way business.

So it really boils down to the question of whether the times of reissue labels such as Xanadu and Onyx or of the Japanese Pea-Vine LP's and others that were really covering mostly new ground on the reissue market are definitely over? (Except for labels such as Hep and Uptown, that is ...)

Edited December 20, 2006 by Big Beat Steve

[John L]

John, I realize all that.

Yet it is only part of the overall picture:

1) What Chronological Classics has done mostly concerns "name" artists and bandleaders (even those minor-league stars they feature were at least that, i.e. minor-league STARS). And these chronological series just highlight the key problem: If you are just after one or two sessions that may have been routinely omitted elsewhere in reissues of an artist's body of work (because they were on some more unknown label) and have all the rest you might have to buy 2 CD's to add maybe 8 or 12 new tracks from 2 or 3 sessions. Fine for those who do not have anything yet or who are keen on dumping what they have to start all over again but disgusting and frustrating for the others. I may have missed some goodies from the Classics series but sadly had to skip quite a few others for exactly that reason.

2) What I was primarily thinking of was what you would call "minor" jazz leaders - not in a sense of artistical quality but rather those sidemen who only had relatively few sessions as leaders, and there were many of those in the late 30s to early 50s.

This music mostly was found on those "indie" labels so it is not a matter of searching any "vaults" (because in most cases there aren't any). It would rather be a question of entreprising souls who round up decent 78s that will lend themselves to at least a decent level of mastering. One case in point that comes to mind now and then are the recordings by Ray Linn from 1946 (for the very simple reason that I once missed one of his 78s on eBay ). As far as I know only two of the eight tracks he recorded commercially were reissued (on a fairly oscure German LP from the 80s). And there are LOTs more like that. In short, this would concern MANY of those 4-track sessions done throughout that period for a great many labels and would make some pretty nice compilations such as the "Bebop Revisited" LP series on Xanadu and similar releases on Onyx, etc. etc. Is there really no incentive for compiling anything like that anymore? After all this always addressed a minority taste only and production costs probably were higher for vinyl than they are for CD's today.

As for the question of "pirating" and the 50-year "public domain" limit, I'd rather not go into that here. It's not as clear as one might assume and it's no one-way business.

So it really boils down to the question of whether the times of reissue labels such as Xanadu and Onyx or of the Japanese Pea-Vine LP's and others that were really covering mostly new ground on the reissue market are definitely over? (Except for labels such as Hep and Uptown, that is ...)

Don't get me wrong. I am not giving a blanket condemnation of the 50-year public domain limit or so-called legal "pirating" (although I think that these laws might be carefully reconsidered). There are costs and benefits associated with any such policy. I was just pointing out some of the costs.

Some labels like Retrieval, Timeless, and Frog have released a number of compilations of more obscure or less recorded artists from the 78 era, particularly from the 1920s.

But there is a commercial problem with seeking out and releasing obscure 78s. Either there is no real market for it, or there is a small market that can be captured by the "public domain" labels after release. In any case, the question of how to finance serious endeavors to release this kind of music on CD is a complicated one.

Edited December 20, 2006 by John L

[bichos]

......

As for Allen Eager, the Uptown release sounds good as far as the description on their website goes. ......

can you please give the link to the uptown website (i know only the "teaser" www.uptownjazz.net with the christmas greetings and bird/diz townhall announcement).

btw what happend to the project "detroit before motown" cd. is it coming in 2007?

thanks and keep boppin´

marcel

[Big Beat Steve]

Actually, it wasn't the Uptown site itself (sorry).

I checked this release here:

http://www.cduniverse.com/sresult.asp?styl...29&cart=506

http://www.jazzreview.com/cdreview.cfm?ID=5818

As for the BEFORE MOTOWN project, that sure sounds interesting and really would fill a gap. The BEFORE MOTOWN book by Lars Bjorn and Jim Gallert is just fantastic and really makes you want to hear the music of the local combos and bands mentioned throughout the book. I wouldn't even mind listening through the noise of some extremely lo-fi actates in a case like this ...

Boppin' Xmas regards

Steve

Edited December 21, 2006 by Big Beat Steve