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Chronological Classics


Swinging Swede

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The latest batch is out now:

1460 Lucky Millinder 1951-1960

1461 Stan Kenton 1952-1953

1462 Red Nichols 1930-1931

1463 Wardell Gray 1950-1955

1464 Eddie Condon 1954-1955

Next batch:

1465 Benny Goodman 1952-1954

1466 Sonny Rollins 1951-1954

1467 Buddy DeFranco 1952-1953

1468 Pearl Bailey 1950-1953

1469 Tommy Dorsey 1939-1940

I'm glad to see new releases with 78 era names like Tommy Dorsey and Red Nichols. I think it's 4 years since the previous Dorsey volume and I hope it won't take as long until the next appears!

I can't say I'm thrilled by LP era material like Sonny Rollins, which has been readily available on OJC CDs for about 20 years. If such releases sell well and support the label's existence it's a different matter, but otherwise I would like to see 78 era releases instead. The remaining Woody Herman Deccas, more Barnet, Dorsey and other white big bands in particular.

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  • 4 months later...

The latest batch is out now:

1460 Lucky Millinder 1951-1960

1461 Stan Kenton 1952-1953

1462 Red Nichols 1930-1931

1463 Wardell Gray 1950-1955

1464 Eddie Condon 1954-1955

------

been following the thread this weekend, all 14 pages of it, and its been a great relief to hear the series is going strong. I had a panic attack this week when i saw on amazon someone's list of the jazz classics with this ominous introduction...

quote

'The CHRONOLOGICAL CLASSICS Jazz Series from France...

A Listmania! list by The Riviera Reviewer (the California Riviera.)

The list author says: "the Chronological Classics jazz series from France was an outstanding project. About a decade ago (c. late-1990s) many hundreds of discs were available--all on Amazon. Sadly, now only a handful remain--(although some can be obtained from 3rd parties). The French systematically assembled every esoteric jazz classic imaginable; cleaned them up for transfer to CD; and published them with excellent liner notes in a series of rainbow-coloured discs. Nothing like it has ever been seen before nor since. Many of the discs were absolutely wonderful; others were merely of historical interest. Still, the series remains an incredible effort, and a monument to art appreciation." .......'

unquote

-------

I've been a big fan of the Swiss/Italian Jazz King series, only could find 25% of the series in the mid 90s, and just before i put my jazz collecting hobby on hold, the French Classics series has been another fave.

the really strange thing with jazz collecting, if the hard core collectors like me had trouble finding things, how do we recommend the stuff to our friends? Nothing is more frustrating than getting incomplete sets of stuff, japanese blue notes, and impulses, trying to find a store that had or could order ESP-Disk jazz albums.... and for my money, the best recommendation is for the jazz music to stay perpetually in print, making sales and interest, a long term thing. Knowing you can easily get All the Archie Shepp albums from Japan and the USA from Impulse, means you can collect them, recommend them all to your friends....

one lesser symptom of 'out of print jazz' that few record companies see is a hard to get album gets pirated too, and that goes for all the 'limited editions' too.

My forte was coltrane and hard bop era of jazz, and i got hooked on the classics series.... getting into jazz is a gradual thing, and well as long as the stuff stays in print, there will be a following for the product. In my own experience, buying all the Count Basie albums from classics, i discovered my own best of's and recommendations that i could never have gotten from a 'compilation set of hits'...

Even if you're picking a total unknown or obscurity with jazz 78's, one out of eight songs will grow on you, though there was a time where going before 1956 for jazz recordings unless it was ellington was perilous jump for me......

and NOTHING makes the journey into jazz easier than a label that aims to keep all they make in print!

waiting for the day when anyone can order from amazon without an 'out of print phobia' for:

a. Jazz King - Swiss series by Alessandro Priotto, i think and a comment by George Akavian the famous record producer about historical legacy of older jazz (the holliday disks which i had half of had a touch more hiss than anything columbia had but sounded way more alive, and balanced)

b. Jazz Classics France - been happy with them, and like their fidelity and transfers generally to 'anyone', regardless what the Penguin guide to jazz said about them

c. Bird's Eyes - pure joy to dabble into, and i'm not a huge parkerite, and the variability of the disks go from awesome to scary, and it gives you a feeling for the music and era you just dont see much at all. One interesting memory i think was bird's eyes 2 perhaps where it was 1937-39ish with Jay McShann and Parker soloing, and the roughness of the wire recording, and to me, i said why does this feel so much like 1960 Ornette Coleman? I never based older jazz or poor sound quality from them on.... *well usually*

d. Impulse albums - Japanese CDs in jewel cases , US CDs with extra tracks and extra liner notes - started with coltrane and grew into the label, for the recording quality and style, and the cover designs.

e. Prestige - a total fan of the whole Fantasy Catalog - preferred them more than Blue Note, yet one down from Impulse.

f. Blue Note - Japanese disks and US disks, more accurate colour and better paper for the japanese disks, and the 88.5 khm mastering did those albums justice.... just like some of the K2 japanese impulses that are *as* good as the LP - and with graphic design and colour of Blue Note, why would anyone want to 'bootleg' a CD? *same goes for the neat colours of the Classics set too in a more understated way*

g. ESP-disk - the best of the free jazz era, the first 10 years... all the experimentation of the sixties

h. Saturn Records - Sun Ra's strange label 1954-1972 were his best years for me....

once i complete more of the above, i'll probably wander into the classics Blues and Rhythm series and the UK Document series for blues.....

then again, nothing about a scare about a jazz label disappearing, to get me here *laugh*

It's been an enjoyable and interesting discussion to watch for 14 pages the hopes and joys and fears and worries of other jazz people and seeing how damn difficult it is for people to find neat music out there, that should be 'easy' to find..... Classics are still my staple for 'early' jazz, and they should be considered in the same catagory as Document Records and their unique offerings to the blues community.

now could someone *please* out there put these lists for the titles on a website out there, or at least someone should repost the whole list once or twice a year on here....

Jazz series

500 Ella Fitzgerald 1935-1937

501 Jimmie Lunceford 1930-1934

502 Chick Webb 1929-1934

503 Count Basie 1936-1938

504 Count Basie 1938-1939

505 Jimmie Lunceford 1934-1935

506 Ella Fitzgerald 1937-1938

507 Art Tatum 1932-1934

508 Teddy Wilson 1934-1935

509 Louis Armstrong 1934-1936

510 Jimmie Lunceford 1935-1937 etc

Blues and Rhythm series

5000 Ray Charles 1949-1950

5001 Marion Abernathy 1947-1949

5002 Dave Bartholomew 1947-1950

5003 Ruth Brown 1949-1950

5004 Professor Longhair 1949

5005 Earl Bostic 1945-1948

5006 Tom Archia 1947-1948

5007 T-Bone Walker 1929-1946

5008 Muddy Waters 1941-1948

5009 Big Jay McNeely 1948-1950

5010 Walter Brown 1945-1947 etc

-----

originally i thought jazz classics would stop about 48 with copyright, and i wondered what about going to 54-56 for some of those difficult periods in jazz with jazz on 78 and 10 inch disks.... amazing what can happen in a decade since i last bought a penguin guide to jazz!

Thanks to all of you for the good news about the record label!

keep us posted if there will be a jazz classics and R&B print catalogue available.....

if not a simple web site listing the albums by series/by artist and photos of the albums....

....a fan site or company site (not necessarily sales only).....

imagine seeing all the ellington next to each other like a strip of postage stamps.....

every different artist's CD cover looking like a different colour of Smarties candy.

write reviews on amazon, and tell people that new volumes are available soon... (or tell some with listmanias with classics up there)

and maybe even do the rash thing....

tell your friends....

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The latest batch is out now:

1460 Lucky Millinder 1951-1960

1461 Stan Kenton 1952-1953

1462 Red Nichols 1930-1931

1463 Wardell Gray 1950-1955

1464 Eddie Condon 1954-1955

....

Because of the reasons mentioned in my last post, it is still pending whether this was the latest or last batch !

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Hi Swinging Swede,

I can't add much to what you wrote. You put it all in a nutshell. Basically, it's very simple: How can you make ends meet when new issues of Classics (or any other CDs for that matter) pop up days (not weeks) after their release on notorious internet-sites where they can be downloaded for free ? With fully scanned booklets, of course...

And yes, to the best of my knowledge, not even Gilles Pétard knows exactly how to carry on. As I wrote here several times before, I'll let this forum know when there are NEWS not RUMOURS.

Keep swinging !

Those sites are not legal so they are probably not doing this for too long:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tees/7057812.stm

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I notice that box set collections have also been issued in the Classics series.

Does anybody have information about which these are?

I have one of Basie's and one by Ellington. These are boxes of six Chrono Classics in a sturdy black cube-box, plus an additional booklet (giving much helpful information, such as soloist ids, but the two I have don't have full track-by-track notes).

The Basie is his first six discs, the Ellington I have is Vol. 3 and covers the 30s (up to 38 or 39). So there are at least two more Ellingtons, not sure what other artists got that treatment.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Hi Swinging Swede,

I can't add much to what you wrote. You put it all in a nutshell. Basically, it's very simple: How can you make ends meet when new issues of Classics (or any other CDs for that matter) pop up days (not weeks) after their release on notorious internet-sites where they can be downloaded for free ? With fully scanned booklets, of course...

I understand how frustrating that must be to see. However, the fact that some of them are illegally "available" as downloads, doesn't in itself mean that people who want Classics releases will download them instead of buying the CDs. I know how to download them, but I buy the CDs instead, both because I want the permanent physical product, and because I think it is the right thing to do, especially if I want the series to continue (which I dearly want). And I don't think I'm alone. I am sure there are many both here on the board and elsewhere who think likewise.

I think many of those who download from those sites (or that one, since I think it is one in particular) are people who wouldn't have bought it anyway. They just download a lot of stuff because it is free. There may be some who download instead of buying, but there may also be some who discover the label and then buy Classics CDs they wouldn't have bought otherwise. I'm not defending it in any way, but I'm just pointing out that the downloads there can't immediately be equated to missed sales.

Also, have you tried asking them not to put up Classics releases? I know some sites say that they will take down material if the rightful owners ask them to. Especially if the refusal to do so may lead to a label's demise they may be willing to oblige. I think that some of the people on those sites really are jazz lovers, but they just don't understand how their actions are hurting the possibility of new releases. They probably have a view of record companies as large entities, for whom it doesn't really matter if only they download, and they don't realize how small operations a label like for example Classics is. I'm sure they too would like to see new releases. It might be worth a try. That large record companies don't take action to close down those sites in the first place is another thing I don't understand though.

I also have a suggestion. Why not set up your own Classics homepage and sell directly from there? Many smaller labels offer that option: Hep, Frog, Timeless, Jazz Oracle & Retrieval to take a few examples of other reissue labels. That way you can take a larger piece of the pie, and there will always be a clear source for customers to buy from, something I think is lacking today. I may know what French Amazon marketplace sellers to buy from, but not everyone does, and some releases that actually are available may show up for large sums on US Amazon marketplace for example. A homepage may also give information about what other places customers can buy from.

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The latest batch is out now:

1460 Lucky Millinder 1951-1960

1461 Stan Kenton 1952-1953

1462 Red Nichols 1930-1931

1463 Wardell Gray 1950-1955

1464 Eddie Condon 1954-1955

Because of the reasons mentioned in my last post, it is still pending whether this was the latest or last batch !

I sincerely hope it won't be. For example, the planned Benny Goodman release in the next batch (1952-54) will include BG's last 78 rpm releases, after which we will have reached the LP era, and with that Classics will have completed an incredible feat, so at least that batch must come out!

But there really is so much more to do. Woody Herman's 1941-44 Deccas with the earliest First Herd recordings, not covered by the Mosaic, is one obvious example that immediately comes to mind.

So here's hoping we can look forward to more wonderful Classics releases in 2009! Rest assured that there are many Classics fans around the world hoping the same!

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The latest batch is out now:

1460 Lucky Millinder 1951-1960

1461 Stan Kenton 1952-1953

1462 Red Nichols 1930-1931

1463 Wardell Gray 1950-1955

1464 Eddie Condon 1954-1955

Because of the reasons mentioned in my last post, it is still pending whether this was the latest or last batch !

I sincerely hope it won't be. For example, the planned Benny Goodman release in the next batch (1952-54) will include BG's last 78 rpm releases, after which we will have reached the LP era, and with that Classics will have completed an incredible feat, so at least that batch must come out!

But there really is so much more to do. Woody Herman's 1941-44 Deccas with the earliest First Herd recordings, not covered by the Mosaic, is one obvious example that immediately comes to mind.

So here's hoping we can look forward to more wonderful Classics releases in 2009! Rest assured that there are many Classics fans around the world hoping the same!

I'm with you on that! Classics has also released material that is not available like the collection with the great Tom Archia. A brilliant in-depth article here on this underrated artist by Robert L. Campbell, Leonard J. Bukowski, and Armin Büttner.

http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/archia.html

The Classics release is referenced to at the end.

Edited by jostber
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looking for the Blanche Calloway and the Ethel Waters (first volume). Anyone have any they want to sell?

This probably doesn't help you, but I've looking for that Blanche Calloway CD for the past 5 years and recently gave in and purchased the digital version via emusic:

http://www.emusic.com/album/Blanche-Callow...d/11337469.html (I believe it's only available to those outside the US)

I'd prefer the actual disc, but at least I can listen to her now.

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On eMusic Europe there are now 98 albums out in the "Complete Jazz Series", which seem to be identical to the Cronological Classics discs (same titles, same tracks, exact same sound as far as I can tell). Anyone know what the deal with this series is?

Anyone know the answer to this?

New ones appear virtually every day. Is this Chronological Classics putting out their discs in a new way or a blatant case of copy and paste?

Edited by Bev Stapleton
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On eMusic Europe there are now 98 albums out in the "Complete Jazz Series", which seem to be identical to the Cronological Classics discs (same titles, same tracks, exact same sound as far as I can tell). Anyone know what the deal with this series is?

Anyone know the answer to this?

New ones appear virtually every day. Is this Chronological Classics putting out their discs in a new way or a blatant case of copy and paste?

Doesn't matter, does it? The music's out of copyright (in Europe). This might persuade me.

MG

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On eMusic Europe there are now 98 albums out in the "Complete Jazz Series", which seem to be identical to the Cronological Classics discs (same titles, same tracks, exact same sound as far as I can tell). Anyone know what the deal with this series is?

Anyone know the answer to this?

New ones appear virtually every day. Is this Chronological Classics putting out their discs in a new way or a blatant case of copy and paste?

Doesn't matter, does it? The music's out of copyright (in Europe). This might persuade me.

MG

Without treading once more into this minefield...

It just seems a pity if the people who put the series together didn't have first shot at its download version. The trouble is, they have little else to offer - the Jazz Chronological Classics packaging was always minimalist.

Early jazz is not always cost effective on e-music. Because they charge per track and early jazz tracks are short you eat up a lot of credits that way. I have an extravagant £40 200 credit monthly package - that would get me 8 of these discs (whereas I think at my last refresh I ended up with about 20!). About £5 each. Obviously with the lower packages the prices rise so you'd end up paying around £7-8.

If it's the only legal way to get the music then it doesn't break the bank. I know I used up 100 credits last year to get the JSP Eddie Condon set which had disappeared as a CD box. It would have been cheaper to buy as a CD set had it existed.

I tend to check places like iTunes for discs with over 20 tracks - they can often be cheaper.

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On eMusic Europe there are now 98 albums out in the "Complete Jazz Series", which seem to be identical to the Cronological Classics discs (same titles, same tracks, exact same sound as far as I can tell). Anyone know what the deal with this series is?

Anyone know the answer to this?

New ones appear virtually every day. Is this Chronological Classics putting out their discs in a new way or a blatant case of copy and paste?

Doesn't matter, does it? The music's out of copyright (in Europe). This might persuade me.

MG

Without treading once more into this minefield...

It just seems a pity if the people who put the series together didn't have first shot at its download version. The trouble is, they have little else to offer - the Jazz Chronological Classics packaging was always minimalist.

Early jazz is not always cost effective on e-music. Because they charge per track and early jazz tracks are short you eat up a lot of credits that way. I have an extravagant £40 200 credit monthly package - that would get me 8 of these discs (whereas I think at my last refresh I ended up with about 20!). About £5 each. Obviously with the lower packages the prices rise so you'd end up paying around £7-8.

If it's the only legal way to get the music then it doesn't break the bank. I know I used up 100 credits last year to get the JSP Eddie Condon set which had disappeared as a CD box. It would have been cheaper to buy as a CD set had it existed.

I tend to check places like iTunes for discs with over 20 tracks - they can often be cheaper.

Hm, yes. I thought they charged per album, as well. Thanks Bev.

MG

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It just seems a pity if the people who put the series together didn't have first shot at its download version.

But seriously, whose fault is that? Chrono could've done this themselves years ago.

I believe they are a very small operation who, perhaps, are not in a position to do this. I always found it strange they never had an online catalogue - they put out a very detailed paper catalogue some years back that I still refer to. Always very hard to know what the state of play is with them.

I'm wondering if they have just got The Orchard to do the job for them. Or if they've been gazumped.

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