The Complete Felsted Mainstream Collection

[Big Beat Steve]

More information now at the Fresh Sound site.

Tempting package indeed, but as I already have five of the LPs (still lacking the Rex Stewart, the Barney Bigard and both Dicky Wells) I think I'll pass.

[Fer Urbina]

Anyone notice there is a 9 disc set on Fresh Sound and the 5 disc set under discussion. You can check this out by an Amazon search for "Complete Felsted". So it seems the guys downstairs are now stealing from the guys upstairs.

Not the first time they overlap, but never in such a prominent way.

Anyhow, I did a quick check and the only difference seems to be that the FS has an alternate mono version of "Foggy Nights" (Budd Johnson album) that seems to be different (longer) from the stereo one. That and the slightly thicker booklet on the FS.

Ah, and the FS has a tune called "Trade Winds" that is replaced by "Danzon D'Amor" on the 5-CD set (both by Rex Stewart album). I presume it's the same tune(?)

F

Edited September 15, 2011 by Fer Urbina

[golfcrazy1984]

Anybody get this yet? Thoughts, opinions? I'm interested in primarily the Hodges (can this be gotten anywhere else?), the Budd Johnson and the Buddy Tate sessions. Thanks!

[Big Beat Steve]

Anybody get this yet? Thoughts, opinions? I'm interested in primarily the Hodges

???

[jazzbo]

Well the Hodges is a great session, I have it on a London cd.

I ordered this set via Worlds Records (not the Fresh Sounds version) and it is in the mail to me.

[Big Beat Steve]

So we are talking about the BILLY STRAYHORN LP, right? Because for the life of it I cannot see a Johnny Hodges LEADER date in this series.

[jazzbo]

Yes, "Cue for Saxophone," Cue Porter being the Hodges nome de plume. Sorry, I always think of it as a Hodges session.

[golfcrazy1984]

So we are talking about the BILLY STRAYHORN LP, right? Because for the life of it I cannot see a Johnny Hodges LEADER date in this series.

Sorry, it is a Strayhorn date. Just had Hodges on the mind.

[jlhoots]

Anybody get this yet? Thoughts, opinions? I'm interested in primarily the Hodges (can this be gotten anywhere else?), the Budd Johnson and the Buddy Tate sessions. Thanks!

FWIW, the Hawkins is one of his best ever IMHO.

[ejp626]

Anybody get this yet? Thoughts, opinions? I'm interested in primarily the Hodges (can this be gotten anywhere else?), the Budd Johnson and the Buddy Tate sessions. Thanks!

I got the 5 CD version. I had the High and Mighty Hawk in some other format -- it probably is the best of the bunch. I'm enjoying the Rex Stewart, but it is kind of old-timey even when it was recorded. Still Willie the Lion Smith is on 3 of the cuts. I wasn't as taken with the Cozy Cole or Earl Hines (as much as I had hoped anyway).

I am going to listen to the Budd Johnson and Strayhorn (Hodges) in the next day or two. I do have reasonably high hopes for them.

[golfcrazy1984]

Anybody get this yet? Thoughts, opinions? I'm interested in primarily the Hodges (can this be gotten anywhere else?), the Budd Johnson and the Buddy Tate sessions. Thanks!

I got the 5 CD version. I had the High and Mighty Hawk in some other format -- it probably is the best of the bunch. I'm enjoying the Rex Stewart, but it is kind of old-timey even when it was recorded. Still Willie the Lion Smith is on 3 of the cuts. I wasn't as taken with the Cozy Cole or Earl Hines (as much as I had hoped anyway).

I am going to listen to the Budd Johnson and Strayhorn (Hodges) in the next day or two. I do have reasonably high hopes for them.

I'm interested in what you think about the Strayhorn session!!!

[medjuck]

Just downloaded the Hawkins from Amazon for $4.52! (I already had the Strayhorn/Hodges.)

[jlhoots]

Just downloaded the Hawkins from Amazon for $4.52! (I already had the Strayhorn/Hodges.)

The High & Mighty Hawk is one of my favorite Hawkins ever!!

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

While all the Felsteds are at least interesting, IIRC the only ones that are top-notch are the Hawkins (which is sublime) and the Hines half of the one he shares with Cozy Cole, which I believe was the first recorded evidence in a good while that Hines not only remained a ferocious improviser but also might be getting more ferocious with the passage of time). Seemed to me that the roughly contemporaneous Prestige Swingville dates were a good deal more successful overall, not to mention the various John Hammond Vanguard albums of a while before (led by Vic Dickinson, Sir Charles Thompson, Jo Jones, et. al.) and the Columbia Buck Clayton jam sessions. If so, I think that's because the producers of the Felsted dates (Stanley Dance and, unless I'm mistaken, Albert McCarthy) were a shade too deferential to the sensibilities of the players involved in assembling the bands and in guiding the proceedings in the studio.

Sorry to disagree but while I have no doubt about the excellence of the Hawkins date I really have no complaints about the enjoyable standards of the Buddy Tate and Budd Johnson dates either.

As for the producers being too "deferential" (won't look it up right now but IIRC they explained their approach in more appropriate - and quite plausible - terms in contemporary issues of "Jazz Monthly"), I cannot really see what's wrong with letting the old men have their way instead of trying to coax them into a mold that may not always have been 100% theirs outside the recording studio.

Which is maybe what left me a bit puzzled with some of those Swingville dates (some of those I have heard more closely anyway). I can see the appeal of those Swingville dates to those who at the same time have explored the Prestige/Riverside etc. catalogs from the Hard Bop end of jazz, so sessions where (except on sessions like the "Basie Reunion" dates) the producers' rule seemed to have been to "let's make those oldsters show off to what extent - comparatively speaking - they have absorbed their hard bop" certainly will be fine for that target audience. Yet if you aproach "middle jazz" from a chronological/evolutionary point of departure of late 30s and 40s swing then the reaction would rather be "What's the point?". So the Felsted dates sound more like a logical evolution to me, but of course I can see why those weaned on Prestige/Swingville etc. will find them just not quite adventurous enough.

But in the end it all boils down to a matter of personal taste, I guess.

I think I don't agree with both of you (Except for Steve's last line, of course )

I got the Hawk in 1970. Now I was one who really was weaned on Prestige/SV/MV/NJ/TruSound. So Steve won't be surprised at me saying that 'High & mighty' didn't get to me the way 'Night Hawk', 'Soul', 'Hawk eyes', 'Blues groove', 'Hawkins/Garland', 'At ease', 'Hawk relaxes', 'Hawkins all stars' and the SV jam session albums. So I ditched it after a short time. Got a CD a year ago and did, indeed, like it better. I'm not going to say it ain't great stuff. But I still think it's weak compared to the Prestige material.

However, I got the 5CD boxed set yesterday and spent pretty well all day listening to it. The only session that kind of passed me by was the Cozy Cole; that kept calling to mind the old joke :

"The drums! The drums! I can't stand the drums!"

"Keep cool, white man. You have nothing to worry about as long as the drums keep playing; it's when they stop you have to worry."

"What happens then?"

"Bass solo."

Well, OK, so I'll give the Cole another go next weekend and pay more attention this time.

But, by and large, I found the other albums MUCH better than the Hawkins. Apart from Strayhorn/Hodges (and on their album it was Russell Procope who really knocked me out, anyway), and Rex Stewart, who seemed to record a bit, those guys really were being ignored in the fifties. I did have a strong feeling that the Felsted sessions may have been to them an opportunity of putting themselves forward, resulting in a high level of intensity in the proceedings.

Oh, and whose idea was it to put an organ with four effin' trombones? Well, Dance fingered Wells in the sleeve note, so maybe it's true. Anyway, I lurved it! (What would RVG have said?) Putting 4 trombones together sounds like nonsense, but they all had remarkably individual voices and really pointed up how bland almost all modern trombonists (apart from Tricky Lofton, Bennie Green and Fred Wesley) are.

Earl Hines is a man I've listened to much less than I'd have liked to. The only album I have of him is one with Hodges - 'Stride right' - and I suspect it really doesn't show him in his true light. He's certainly nothing like the dirty funly blues player he is on the half LP devoted to him. On the strength of these 3 cuts, I must get more Hines.

Buddy Tate and Budd Johnson are among my favourite tenor players (well, yes, I do like a very great MANY tenor players very much). This album really WAS the start of a Buddy Tate comeback. Ditto for Budd, though he didn't come back as far as Buddy. And you can hear why these guys got more sessions after this.

Rex Stewart - well, I'd never knowingly heard him before, though I probably have heard him. He really got to me. Again, an utterly personal sound and ideas. And he was really pushing on this session. I must try to get his Swingville stuff.

I've knowingly heard plenty of Russell Procope before and liked him a lot. But in the Strayhorn session, he really caught my attention something powerful. I was waiting for the next clarinet solo, through all the other guys - sorry!

But it was Buster Bailey who REALLY got me. I've heard quite a lot of Buster over the last few years, with one band or another and I've always liked him, but this session was different. Not just his playing on 'Memphis blues', though that's something like a funk masterpiece, but the whole session was just commanding.

Compared with the Prestige material Esmond Edwards producing at about the same time, I think Steve's right in saying that there was a feeling at Prestige to show what these old guys could do. But also, Bobby Weinstock liked tenor players. (Quite right too!!!) These Felsted records don't have such a limited focus and are, perhaps, more representative of what was going on at large amongst these older players. The other thing that's interesting is that the Hawkins is about the only session on which Dance, or the musicians themselves, didn't try to put together a band (or use one already in existence as with Tate). That session is just a routine two horn + rhythm deal, which is what you got most of the time with Prestige (and many other jazz labels, of course).

Finally, one funny thing. On 3 Feb 1958l, Dance produced the first session of Dicky Wells' 'Bones for the king'; then he flew to San Francisco, gaining four or five hours, and produced the Earl Hines, also on 3 Feb '58; then flew back to New York, (losing the time he'd gained on the westbound flight) and produced the second session of the Dicky Wells LP, on 4 Feb 1958. I've checked in Lord, and those are the dates given there, too. Was this possible in 1958?

MG

[BillF]

Great write up, MG!

[tomatamot]

Since a few months I started to collect these Felsteds on vinyl (mono).

Many thankx for your opinion M-G !

And as said before it`s also a matter of peronal taste.

The standing now is four out of nine, but I`m sure to find them all. ( by life & well-being )

[medjuck]

What is the Rex Stewart session called? He's not even listed as a participant on the website.

[mjzee]

What is the Rex Stewart session called? He's not even listed as a participant on the website.

It's called Rendezvous With Rex. Song titles: Tillie's Twist, Pretty Ditty, Tell Me More, Danzon D'Amor, My Kind Of Gal, Blue Echo. Rex Stewart, cornet; George Stevenson, trombone; Haywood Henry, clarinet, baritone sax; George Kelly, tenor sax; Willie "The Lion" Smith, piano; Leonard Gaskin, bass; Arthur Trappier, drums. 1/28/58.

[paul secor]

While all the Felsteds are at least interesting, IIRC the only ones that are top-notch are the Hawkins (which is sublime) and the Hines half of the one he shares with Cozy Cole, which I believe was the first recorded evidence in a good while that Hines not only remained a ferocious improviser but also might be getting more ferocious with the passage of time). Seemed to me that the roughly contemporaneous Prestige Swingville dates were a good deal more successful overall, not to mention the various John Hammond Vanguard albums of a while before (led by Vic Dickinson, Sir Charles Thompson, Jo Jones, et. al.) and the Columbia Buck Clayton jam sessions. If so, I think that's because the producers of the Felsted dates (Stanley Dance and, unless I'm mistaken, Albert McCarthy) were a shade too deferential to the sensibilities of the players involved in assembling the bands and in guiding the proceedings in the studio.

Sorry to disagree but while I have no doubt about the excellence of the Hawkins date I really have no complaints about the enjoyable standards of the Buddy Tate and Budd Johnson dates either.

As for the producers being too "deferential" (won't look it up right now but IIRC they explained their approach in more appropriate - and quite plausible - terms in contemporary issues of "Jazz Monthly"), I cannot really see what's wrong with letting the old men have their way instead of trying to coax them into a mold that may not always have been 100% theirs outside the recording studio.

Which is maybe what left me a bit puzzled with some of those Swingville dates (some of those I have heard more closely anyway). I can see the appeal of those Swingville dates to those who at the same time have explored the Prestige/Riverside etc. catalogs from the Hard Bop end of jazz, so sessions where (except on sessions like the "Basie Reunion" dates) the producers' rule seemed to have been to "let's make those oldsters show off to what extent - comparatively speaking - they have absorbed their hard bop" certainly will be fine for that target audience. Yet if you aproach "middle jazz" from a chronological/evolutionary point of departure of late 30s and 40s swing then the reaction would rather be "What's the point?". So the Felsted dates sound more like a logical evolution to me, but of course I can see why those weaned on Prestige/Swingville etc. will find them just not quite adventurous enough.

But in the end it all boils down to a matter of personal taste, I guess.

I think I don't agree with both of you (Except for Steve's last line, of course )

I got the Hawk in 1970. Now I was one who really was weaned on Prestige/SV/MV/NJ/TruSound. So Steve won't be surprised at me saying that 'High & mighty' didn't get to me the way 'Night Hawk', 'Soul', 'Hawk eyes', 'Blues groove', 'Hawkins/Garland', 'At ease', 'Hawk relaxes', 'Hawkins all stars' and the SV jam session albums. So I ditched it after a short time. Got a CD a year ago and did, indeed, like it better. I'm not going to say it ain't great stuff. But I still think it's weak compared to the Prestige material.

However, I got the 5CD boxed set yesterday and spent pretty well all day listening to it. The only session that kind of passed me by was the Cozy Cole; that kept calling to mind the old joke :

"The drums! The drums! I can't stand the drums!"

"Keep cool, white man. You have nothing to worry about as long as the drums keep playing; it's when they stop you have to worry."

"What happens then?"

"Bass solo."

Well, OK, so I'll give the Cole another go next weekend and pay more attention this time.

But, by and large, I found the other albums MUCH better than the Hawkins. Apart from Strayhorn/Hodges (and on their album it was Russell Procope who really knocked me out, anyway), and Rex Stewart, who seemed to record a bit, those guys really were being ignored in the fifties. I did have a strong feeling that the Felsted sessions may have been to them an opportunity of putting themselves forward, resulting in a high level of intensity in the proceedings.

Oh, and whose idea was it to put an organ with four effin' trombones? Well, Dance fingered Wells in the sleeve note, so maybe it's true. Anyway, I lurved it! (What would RVG have said?) Putting 4 trombones together sounds like nonsense, but they all had remarkably individual voices and really pointed up how bland almost all modern trombonists (apart from Tricky Lofton, Bennie Green and Fred Wesley) are.

Earl Hines is a man I've listened to much less than I'd have liked to. The only album I have of him is one with Hodges - 'Stride right' - and I suspect it really doesn't show him in his true light. He's certainly nothing like the dirty funly blues player he is on the half LP devoted to him. On the strength of these 3 cuts, I must get more Hines.

Buddy Tate and Budd Johnson are among my favourite tenor players (well, yes, I do like a very great MANY tenor players very much). This album really WAS the start of a Buddy Tate comeback. Ditto for Budd, though he didn't come back as far as Buddy. And you can hear why these guys got more sessions after this.

Rex Stewart - well, I'd never knowingly heard him before, though I probably have heard him. He really got to me. Again, an utterly personal sound and ideas. And he was really pushing on this session. I must try to get his Swingville stuff.

I've knowingly heard plenty of Russell Procope before and liked him a lot. But in the Strayhorn session, he really caught my attention something powerful. I was waiting for the next clarinet solo, through all the other guys - sorry!

But it was Buster Bailey who REALLY got me. I've heard quite a lot of Buster over the last few years, with one band or another and I've always liked him, but this session was different. Not just his playing on 'Memphis blues', though that's something like a funk masterpiece, but the whole session was just commanding.

Compared with the Prestige material Esmond Edwards producing at about the same time, I think Steve's right in saying that there was a feeling at Prestige to show what these old guys could do. But also, Bobby Weinstock liked tenor players. (Quite right too!!!) These Felsted records don't have such a limited focus and are, perhaps, more representative of what was going on at large amongst these older players. The other thing that's interesting is that the Hawkins is about the only session on which Dance, or the musicians themselves, didn't try to put together a band (or use one already in existence as with Tate). That session is just a routine two horn + rhythm deal, which is what you got most of the time with Prestige (and many other jazz labels, of course).

Finally, one funny thing. On 3 Feb 1958l, Dance produced the first session of Dicky Wells' 'Bones for the king'; then he flew to San Francisco, gaining four or five hours, and produced the Earl Hines, also on 3 Feb '58; then flew back to New York, (losing the time he'd gained on the westbound flight) and produced the second session of the Dicky Wells LP, on 4 Feb 1958. I've checked in Lord, and those are the dates given there, too. Was this possible in 1958?

MG

I'm pretty much with you on the Felsteds, MG, though I haven't heard the Hines side.