Great Finds

[Kurt Anderson]

16 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

Agreed about your assessment of the contents of the Keynote box set.

The Keynotes have long been a favorite here, and it is true they contribute to highlighting how the "condensed" and "concentrated" statements made by the artists within the 78 rpm playing time limits do have their special appeal.
Some of the artists did indeed fall by the wayside reissue-wise (as it happens so often with labels from that era), but overall there were quite a lot of reissues in the LP era by Mercury and (in Europe) on the Fontana label throughout the 60s and 70s. Very welcome when found one by one ... but it did not keep me from springing for that 21-LP box set when that occasion presented itself. (Though I also had acquired the CD box set by Fresh Sound when this hit the market a couple of years earlier. )

Let's not forget, too, that Harry Lim had a marvelous second act with his Famous Door label of the Seventies and early Eighties,  which adhered to a similar swing-to-bop ethos as Keynote, or its seventies rival Pablo, led by another empresario who cut his teeth during that transitional era. 

I love the series of Bill Watrous small group records that Lim put out, the best of which featured the fantastic Danny Stiles.   And I've heard many a Scott Hamilton record, but IMO none captured his tone as Zootably as Swinging Young Scott on Famous Door.

Edited August 1 by Kurt Anderson

[HutchFan]

On 7/31/2025 at 8:21 PM, Kurt Anderson said:

Let's not forget, too, that Harry Lim had a marvelous second act with his Famous Door label of the Seventies and early Eighties,  which adhered to a similar swing-to-bop ethos as Keynote

Speaking of Famous Door, this is another Doozy:

It features Hank Jones and Papa Jo Jones on side 1 and Jimmy Rowles and Donald Bailey on side 2.

 

[Big Beat Steve]

Back to "great finds made" ...

Here's a great music find not in the grooves but between the pages …

The other day I met up with a high school classmate from our “Class of 79” who had told me she had started selling off the jazz record collection of her deceased father and wondered if I was interested.

Purchases from that collection will be on the back burner for me for the time being, but in her dad’s jazz book corner the below item caught my eye …

 

So I offered her 50 Euros outright for this book, which she was pleased to accept (in fact she had intimated earlier that she did not expect to make much money from disposing of her father’s books – jazz books included).
As a bonus, a free copy of the “Eddie Condon Treasury of Jazz” (1^st edition of 1956) came my way too. 
The Bird book is in NM condition (no scuffing to speak of, no splits of the box, no loose pages - which I understand can happen with this book), just some very minor fading of the box spine.

I’ve now placed an order with a specialist shop for a premium cardboard archiving box of the right size to hold the book and maintain it in its current condition on my bookshelf for the rest of my days.

Needless to say, I was (and am) pleased with this find – even if the vinyl part of my inspection of that collection should come to nought.

[clifford_thornton]

Damn, well done!

[HutchFan]

Great find, BBS!