"Shelly Manne" Signature Sides

[JSngry]

Fuller size back cover here: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Q2dEe-_Mu0I/S6LmVYUG-_I/AAAAAAAACmk/9fiVGLQr3H8/s1600-h/ShellyMBk.jpg

Bigard & Hodges each in a bass-less trio! Eddie Haywood meets & greets Don Byas. Some good stuff here (and none of it originally issued under Manne's name!)

Has the Signature label be the focus of an intelligent and well-organized comprehensive reissue yet? Should it be? Could it be?

Your thoughts welcome.

[Spontooneous]

Yeah, Signature deserves some serious attention. A teenager putting out 12-inch 78s of Hawk and Prez, for cryin' out loud!

I wonder if the disc masters stayed with Bob Thiele. The far-from-comprehensive CDs he was releasing in the '80s sound like they might have been from tapes made in the '60s or '70s.

[Rooster_Ties]

A teenager putting out 12-inch 78s of Hawk and Prez, for cryin' out loud!

:blink:

[brownie]

Bob Thiele reissued many of the sides he recorded for Signature on his Doctor Jazz label in the '80s.

The reissues included LPs by Shelly Manne, Coleman Hawkins/Lester Young, Johnny Bothwell, Flip Phillips, Anita O'Day among others.

Edited March 24, 2010 by brownie

[mikeweil]

Do the Bob Thiele label now belong to SONY/BMG or were these just distribution deals?

I have the Manne and O'Day LPs - nice stuff! Signature would deserve the Mosaic treatment.

[Fer Urbina]

Oh yes, the Signatures deserve a proper reissue, if only for those Coleman Hawkins sides, like The Man I Love.

Whether it's viable is a whole different story

F

[Joe]

I have these on the afore-mentioned Doctor Jazz reissue, SHELLY MANNE AND FRIENDS, which did make it to CD.

Track list:

1) How High the Moon

2) When We're Alone (Penthouse Serenade)

3) On the Sunny Side of the Street

4) Time on My Hands

5) Moonglow

6) Tea for Two

7) Them There Eyes

8) Sarcastic Lady

9) Night and Day

10) Flamingo

11) Step Steps Up

12) Step Steps Down

Question is, is this all of the original Signature sides in question?

Edited March 24, 2010 by Joe

[Chuck Nessa]

I have/had the following Signature material on lp or cd:

Hawk

Prez (Wells date)

Webster

Flip

Bothwell

Yank Lawson

Hodes

Shorty Sherock

Leo Watson

O'Day

Manne (Bigard/Heywood)

Jaws

Julian Dash

Garner

Hines

James P

[Spontooneous]

Thiele was cozy with BMG in the last couple of years of his life. But maybe he held on to ownership of his masters?

[mikeweil]

There doesn't seem to be an online discography of the label, but I found a printed one:

Porter, Bob: Signature record company ; master listing.

Zephyrhills, Fla. 1989. 289 leaves. Gives performer and titles only,

no personnel large pb EUR 19.25

Anyone here have this?

[Big Beat Steve]

My, my .... I really dont know how much reissue mileage has been squeezed out of these Signature sides remarketed under Shelly Manne's name in the vinyl days (as if by the 60s Barney bigard and Eddie Heywood had already fallen off the radar to THAT extent ...)

My copy is filed under "H" like "Eddie Heywood" (where it definitely belongs!!) anyway.

The most common LP reissue I am aware of was on a U.K. LP credited to "Shelly Manne & Co." (same titles, same sequence) on EMI-Stateside SL 10125 released in 1964.

Somewhat later (mid-70s) the same tracks cropped up under the same billing on the LONG-running Italian Joker label (SM 3260). AND no doubt there were many more.

And at any rate including just these 12 tracks on a CD makes for a CD with really measly, lousy playing time!

That EMI-Stateside 60s pressing must have been a big seller in its day (don't know how often I saw used copies at Mole Jazz in London in the 90s) and being on tha tlabel (with a subtitle "Licensed by Contact Records USA") this MOST DEFINITELY was an "official" reissue.

That said, yes - the Signature label would definitely warrant a comprehensive reissue in much the same manner it has been done for Keynote, for example.

[Chuck Nessa]

It would take 6 cds at the most.

[JSngry]

A perfect size for a box set of its nature, no?

[Chuck Nessa]

Y

[Stereojack]

This would make an interesting set, perhaps a little too broad in scope if they included everything. Signature issued records in several numbering series:

900 - Traditional jazz & blues, mostly reissues from Paramount label.

1000 - Blues - Dickie Thompson, Walter Brown, Cousin Joe, Leo Watson, etc.

15000 - Mainstream jazz and big band - Yank Lawson, Bill Stegmeyer, Johnny Bothwell, Hazel Scott, Will Bradley, Mary Osborne, Sam Donahue, Anita O'Day, Flip Phillips

28000 - Mainstream jazz - Coleman Hawkins, Yank Lawson, Dicky Wells/Lester Young, Nat Jaffe, Shorty Sherock, Barney Bigard, Dicky Wells

90000 - 12" 78's - longer tracks from above sessions

Thiele retained ownership of the catalog and many of the sides saw reissue on Brunswick, Contact, Bob Thiele Music, Dr. Jazz, and other labels over the years. While many are familiar with the Hawkins, Wells/Young, O'Day, Phillips, and Lawson sides due to their multiple reissues, there's a lot of really interesting music that deserves to be heard. I've got a lot of the 78's, and I know that the sessions by Dickie Thompson, Nat Jaffe, Bill Stegmeyer, and Mary Osborne, to name a few, would please fans of music from this period.

That's Y.

[Big Beat Steve]

Honestly, Stereojack, I sincerely hope that the majority of halfway ambitious and serious jazz collectors would NOT be narrow-minded enough to find the scope of jazz you describe too broad for their tastes (well, those geeks to whom hard bop is the beginning and possibly end of all valid jazz and who are largely ignorant of pre-Miles, pre-Trane jazz would be a different matter but I've never really grasped their stance on jazz anyway).

As you said, some Signature tracks have been reissued so often they are really extremely difficult to avoid in any passably decent collection but a LOT of others have fallen unjustifiedly by the wayside and have hardly ever been resurrected.

So maybe it's actually the umpteenth reissues of the "usual suspects" (Hawk/Pres, Heywood/Manne, Phillips etc.) that would prevent such a project because if you are highly likely to get a "I already have 50% of the contents of that box" from most potential purchcasers you are not likely to pursue the matter further. And doing an "uncollected" box gathering specifically the overlooked "collection gap fillers" would really demand too much of a keen collector's attitude to make it a viable route. Unfortunately ...

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I don't have any Signature recordings, except Ray Bryant's "Little Susie" pts 2 & 4 (I think those parts - I seem to have misfiled it somewhere).

MG

[Big Beat Steve]

No, MG, I did not mean to denigrate the scope or coverage of your collection. Not by a long shot ...

It's just that the examples that Stereojack named really "are around" and you are bound to stumble (literally) across them once you dig into 40s small band (and some big band) jazz.

Edited March 25, 2010 by Big Beat Steve

[Stereojack]

The Signature label that MG refers to was a late 1950's venture by Bob Thiele, which in its short existence released records by Ray Bryant, Steve Allen, Eddie Lawrence and a few others. This discussion was focussing on the 1940's catalog, which was much larger and for the most part is unrelated except in name (and founder, of course). The proposed boxed set would be concerning the 1940's productions.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

The Signature label that MG refers to was a late 1950's venture by Bob Thiele, which in its short existence released records by Ray Bryant, Steve Allen, Eddie Lawrence and a few others. This discussion was focussing on the 1940's catalog, which was much larger and for the most part is unrelated except in name (and founder, of course). The proposed boxed set would be concerning the 1940's productions.

Thanks Jack - I didn't realise Thiele had closed it down and reopened it.

MG

No, MG, I did not mean to denigrate the scope or coverage of your collection. Not by a long shot ...

It'a just that the examples that Stereojack named really "are around" and you are bound to sumble (literally) across them once you dig into 40s small band (and some big band) jazz.

Probably up The Smoke but not around these parts.

MG

[Fer Urbina]

A list of Signature 78s

F

Edit for typo

Edited March 26, 2010 by Fer Urbina

[brownie]

A list of Signature 78s

F

Edit for typo

Thanks for the link.

Would love to see those Art Hodes sides reissued!

[mikeweil]

That Signature 78's list was just what I was looking for - another proof of how great this forum is! Thanks all!

One more vote for a 1940's Signature Mosaic box set.

Edited February 12, 2012 by mikeweil

[mikeweil]

There is a Signature Discography online, but still a work in progress, it's a lot of reasearch due to Thiele's frequent re-compiling procedures ...

http://www.bsnpubs.com/new/thiele.html

[AllenLowe]

some of the best Dickey Wells is on there, IIRC.

Edited February 12, 2012 by AllenLowe