Harlequin CD issues

[Big Beat Steve]

On 1/22/2023 at 7:37 PM, Late said:

I like how a compilation featuring Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster has Walter Thomas on the cover. (Though it is Thomas's orchestra that's featured.)

Honor to whom (leader) honor is due. 😄

Actually this is the photo also used on the Prestige reissue. Which of course can unsettle the clueless: I remember when I bought my copy (as mentioned in my earlier post) and carried it back into the classroom for the afternoon high school classes one class"mate" who probably considered himself enlightened in matters jazz, seeing the cover called out "Walter "FOOTS??" (pronouncing this something like "feets" in mockery, and making fun of Thomas' fancy tie), as if Thomas was even less than an also-ran. (Oh well, what can you expect from someone who in those late 70s considered fusion and jazz rock the beginning and end of all jazz? 😁 Certainly no familiarity with the long-standing lineup of the Cab Calloway orchestra 😆)

Seriously, I find it nice to see that Harlequin saw fit to use an appropriate illustration for the record. Which shows that they relied not only on flashy names to grab the dollars of chance buyers but preferred just as much to attract the connoisseurs. Like they (and, above all, their sister label Krazy Kat) did with loads of other reissues of that period that were billed to artists far off the beaten tracks of the "name" suspects.

Anyway ...haven't there been more, way more than enough reissues where the large-letter "name" billing on the cover had nothing to do with who actually was the leader (indicating the style of music on the platter) of the recordings reissued? Remember those reissues of small-band swing sessions by Eddie Heywood from the same period (for the Signature label) that on more than one later reissue were billed to "Shelly Manne & Co."? (Just because Manne was the drummer on those Heywood leader dates) And there were tons more like that to confound the easily guiled ... 😉

Edited January 24, 2023 by Big Beat Steve