"MODERN" records from Los Angeles is more important than you

[paul secor]

I know that I bought Crown and later Kent LPs in the 60's and 70's - mostly blues sides - and was very happy when Ace released the Modern/Kent catalogue. The sound was improved, the pressings were better - far better - and the music was better documented. The Biharis recorded the music, but I don't think that they had any respect for it.

Edited January 16, 2008 by paul secor

[John L]

I know that I bought Crown and later Kent LPs in the 60's and 70's - mostly blues sides - and was very happy when Ace released the Modern/Kent catalogue. The sound was improved, the pressings were better - far better - and the music was better documented. The Biharis recorded the music, but I don't think that they had any respect for it.

As I recall, those Crown/Kent LPs didn't even come with dust jackets. Is was easier to find them in drug stores than record stores.

Edited January 16, 2008 by John L

[JSngry]

I used to buy them at a Firestone store. Really.

In fact, the very first jazz record I evr bought was a Crown/Dave Brubeck thing at that same Firestone store, . I remember feeling like I had crossed some sort of major threshold, almost like Art Pepper felt the first time he shot up, all like "This will forever more be my life, and things will never be the same again". Back then, actually buying a record, especially an album, was an act of committment and investment, since my high-school-freshman-allowance in 1970 was about $1.00 a week. I had only been hearing jazz for for about 4-5 months, so to do the spending thin, hey, that was a life-decision, dig? In facct, when I bought my next one a few weeks later (a Capitol Duophonic issue of Kenton's Artistry In Rhythm with a 60s cover but the original 40s back), my buddies were all like, "Wow, two of those jazz records in a row, what's that all about?"

But the Crown was the first, and I'm wanting to place the date at December 26, 1970. A Saturday early afternoon, and I had some Christmas money and the Firestone store was just a few blocks away (they also carried two Woody Herman Cadet sides too, I eventually got one, and my buddy got the other, which I borrowed from him and never returned since he got shot a few later attempting to hold up a 7-Eleven by using the old finger-sticking-out-of-your-pocket-looking-like-it-might-be-a-gun trick, and no, I'm not making any of this up...) So the Crown came home, and Side one was some weird version of Angel Eyes NOT by Bruneck- George Nielsen or somebody -, but there were two nice cuts after that, one of which was the very special "Sacre Blue" that didn't even have Brubeck on it, but I dodn't know that and thought that he must've been playing the french horn-sounding thingy because how do you have a Dave Brubeck album and have cuts without Dave Brubeck on it, huh Crown? But the pressing was SO bad, and Desmond played SO good, that it really was some form of junkie-isitic buzz, beleive me.

And when side two of that Crown was the sidelong "At A Perfume Counter", well, that was that. A whole side of a record with just one song of guys just making it up as they went along, especially that longass bangy piano solo that was really REALLY out, with an audience that made noise. That was some cool shit right there, jack, and almost immediately, I started buying more jazz records everywhere they existed, which, musch to my surprise, was more often than not in the cutout bins.

Thanks, Crown!

[Big Beat Steve]

also don't miss the two (2) two (2) cd sets of Meteor Records.

R&B, Gospel

Hillbilly

neither of which contain a single side that would "sound better" if fucking Joe Lovano or Hank Jones played on it, or Oscar Peterson wasn't dead.

AMEN TO THAT!

Elder Don Clementine speaketh righteous words!! :tup

[flat5]

Chewy, I got the Crown records mostly at "Ralph's Supermarket" on Woodman Ave.

in Van Nuys, Ca.

JsAngry, that Brubeck record had "Jazz at a Purfume Counter"?

That track is wonderful! Also a french horn, as I almost remember :-)

Probably Julius Watkins.

Fat Jazz, for me, was on Dizzy Gillespie 's label, JayGee (GeeJay ?) Records.

Edited January 16, 2008 by flat5

[Dan Gould]

AMEN TO THAT!

Elder Don Clementine speaketh righteous words!!

Yeah, but I got one problem with Ace. They own the Duke catalog, right? I know they've put out some fine Gatemouth comps - but where is the full-on, we-love-him-and-he-deserves-it treatment of one JUNIOR PARKER???

I've seen one lousy Ace LP, and he's not even listed on the site under "artists" at all. And Junior Parker, from the start of his career to the end, was one of the very greatest blues/R&B/soul singers of them all. Is it possible Ace doesn't own all of the Duke recordings? I know that MCA put out some Junior Parker comps on CD - did they lease or do they maintain the rights? And what of his label-mate and co-concert attraction, Bobby Bland?

Personally, every single thing I've heard by Junior Parker rates as nothing less than "good" and most of the time is flat-out GREAT, from the Duke sides to the Mercury LPs and even what I've heard of the Groove Merchant years at the end of his life (haven't heard the Beatles covers, but that's about it).

Call me crazy, I like Bobby Bland but LOVE Junior Parker. It would be nice if Ace felt the same way.

[paul secor]

Universal owns the Duke catalogue. I believe that Ace leased some Bobby Bland Duke sides, & the Junior Parker material that Ace released was very early stuff from Modern.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

chewy-- rub the belly of yr big john patton statue & praise be the limeys that ACE ** did ** get the rights to Crown, Modern, etc... & not some worthless, witless fucktard scumbag conglom... in which some good people woulda strugged a few years to do some cool stuff (see Capitol, Sony, RCA etc blues offerings of mid-90s to early 2000s) & then... THE VOID.

about the worst thing ya'll can say about ACE is that their early '90s cds were skimpy on discography & photographs; they've beefed stuff up quite a bit. the real heads-- in between Firestone & ACE-- scooped up lotsa stuff on the Route 66 family of labels, not all Modern by a goodly amount.

sidenote: anybody who ain't heard Donald Woods and the Vel-Aires "Man From Utopia" on Flip... needs to.

also don't miss the two (2) two (2) cd sets of Meteor Records.

R&B, Gospel

Hillbilly

neither of which contain a single side that would "sound better" if fucking Joe Lovano or Hank Jones played on it, or Oscar Peterson wasn't dead.

Woooooo!

Is that Jimmy Wright on that R&B/Gospel compilation the same one who recorded WAY OTT screamin' and honkin' tenor sides for Rama a little later in the fifties, Clem?

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Yeah - now Mosaic can get Universal stuff. Good idea for a Bland Duke box or select - don't know how much there is, but a lot I think. And a Junior Parker select. It really is a fuckin' pain when you've got 90% of what's on every fucking compilation there is and there's half a ton of stuff that never makes it. Mosaic has done T-Bone, Amos, Charles Brown. Bland and Parker rate at least as good treatment as Amos.

There was some Bland on Modern, too, with Ike Turner's band. And some on Chess. Haven't heard any of that.

MG

[Big Beat Steve]

Woooooo!

Is that Jimmy Wright on that R&B/Gospel compilation the same one who recorded WAY OTT screamin' and honkin' tenor sides for Rama a little later in the fifties, Clem?

Nah, that's Jimmy Wright from L.A., a WHITE drummer who had a scorching R&B band (his Rhythm Makers, the bandleader's name was also spelled Jimmy WRIEGHT on some releases) that tore up the West Coast from '53 to '56. Porkey Harris who received featured billing on some of the tunes was his guitarist. Regular saxists were Art Reed and Russ Young. But Chuck Higgins also recorded with him.

Check out his "Let's Go Crazy Crazy Baby" LP on Saxophonograph BM-1301!

Edited January 16, 2008 by Big Beat Steve

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Woooooo!

Is that Jimmy Wright on that R&B/Gospel compilation the same one who recorded WAY OTT screamin' and honkin' tenor sides for Rama a little later in the fifties, Clem?

Nah, that's Jimmy Wright from L.A., a WHITE drummer who had a scorching R&B band (his Rhythm Makers, the bandleader's name was also spelled Jimmy WRIEGHT on some releases) that tore up the West Coast from '53 to '56. Porkey Harris who received featured billing on some of the tunes was his guitarist. Regular saxists were Art Reed and Russ Young. But Chuck Higgins also recorded with him.

Check out his "Let's Go Crazy Crazy Baby" LP on Saxophonograph BM-1301!

Thanks Steve.

MG

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

(a Capitol Duophonic issue of Kenton's Artistry In Rhythm with a 60s cover but the original 40s back

????

[JSngry]

Maybe it was a very early 70s front cover, but this was it.

[JSngry]

JsAngry, that Brubeck record had "Jazz at a Purfume Counter"?

That track is wonderful! Also a french horn, as I almost remember :-)

"...Perfume Counter" was a live 4tet cut (and a dandy one, only my second exposure to lenghty improvisations that weren't rock "jamming". The first was The Mothers "Little House I Used To Live In" from Burnt Weenie Sandwich (and boy, in retrospect, that band and that album - along with a few otehr tings - in particular came along at just the right time to facilitate the transition from rock to jazz for me), but "Sacre Blue"(sp?) I later found out, was from a Paul Desmond Fantasy date w/Don Elliot on mellophone.

The other Brubeck cut on that Crown thing was some "cute" variant of "For Dancers Only" with Desmond and either a bassoon or Brubeck on some weird squueze-y sounding keyboard or soemthing. Anybody know what I'm talking about?

[John L]

AMEN TO THAT!

Elder Don Clementine speaketh righteous words!!

Yeah, but I got one problem with Ace. They own the Duke catalog, right? I know they've put out some fine Gatemouth comps - but where is the full-on, we-love-him-and-he-deserves-it treatment of one JUNIOR PARKER???

I've seen one lousy Ace LP, and he's not even listed on the site under "artists" at all. And Junior Parker, from the start of his career to the end, was one of the very greatest blues/R&B/soul singers of them all. Is it possible Ace doesn't own all of the Duke recordings? I know that MCA put out some Junior Parker comps on CD - did they lease or do they maintain the rights? And what of his label-mate and co-concert attraction, Bobby Bland?

Personally, every single thing I've heard by Junior Parker rates as nothing less than "good" and most of the time is flat-out GREAT, from the Duke sides to the Mercury LPs and even what I've heard of the Groove Merchant years at the end of his life (haven't heard the Beatles covers, but that's about it).

Call me crazy, I like Bobby Bland but LOVE Junior Parker. It would be nice if Ace felt the same way.

Ace does not own the rights to the Duke-Peacock catalog, UNFORTUNATELY. They have only leased material from this catalog on occasion, and very infrequently. In fact, Junior Parker has fared relatively well in resissues compared to most other artists on Duke/Peacock. At least MCA gave him two full discs before ending their Duke reissue program altogether.

I was a bit disappointed when the Ace O.V. Wright CD came out. Even though it is an outstanding one-disc collection, Ace decided to duplicate a good part of the previous one-disc MCA reissue, as opposed to focusing on the great material that has never been on CD. I patiently waited for a follow-up, but it never came. Only a small fraction of the Peacock gospel catalog has made it to CD. Even the Spirit of Memphis have no CD release of their Peacock recordings (although Acrobat put out a tremendous 2-disc set of their King recordings a few years ago). A high quality good-selling biography of the Dixie Hummingbirds led to a movie, but not to any releases of their best recordings, which are on the Peacock label.

When will James Davis' great Duke recordings make it to CD? Probably never.

I get the feeling that the Duke-Peacock catalog is under lock and key. The leasing price is evidently too high for companies like Ace to break even releasing this material. Otherwise, I am sure that they would. This is one of the saddest reissue stories in American music.

Edited January 17, 2008 by John L

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

so the had OLD backs that were left over and put later front covers on, i did not know capitol did that....

i have one lp Kenton/Christy those kenton years, that kinda looks werid on the back compared to front...now that u mention it...

[Dan Gould]

Thanks for the correcting my misunderstanding, Paul and John.

[flat5]

quote:

"Sacre Blue"(sp?) I later found out, was from a Paul Desmond Fantasy date w/Don Elliot on mellophone.

unquote

Right. Now I almost remember.