Member ListeningToPrestige has published ... Listening to Prestige

[kh1958]

Its published by State University of New York Press, Albany, New York.

It's a real book published by a University press.

 

[Big Beat Steve]

The reason I was asking was that the publishing details on amazon.de indicate "Excelsior Editions" as the publisher, and that's all. Same as for the "Jazz With A Beat" book of 2024 (which clearly was a "print-on-demand" printing according to the "small print" on the final page). So this had me wondering about the distribution of this book.
I see on amazon.com (USA) now that "Excelsior Editions/State University of New York Press" is indicated on that site. 
Not that I find anything wrong with the print-on-demand process (at least for virtually all of the books I so far have received that way) but this maes me wonder if maybe they are not shipping actual paper copies to be stocked at Amazon warehouses around the globe to fulfill worldwide orders far from the USA but have a file at some printing certer (or several such centers) on other continents and print according to orders received and ship from there. 
Well, we'll see once it arrives ... My order is now indicated for delivery here on 12 January (next Monday), i.e. the originally indicated delivery date. OTOH it has not yet been marked "shipped". 

Edited January 6 by Big Beat Steve

[Dan Gould]

4 hours ago, kh1958 said:

Its published by State University of New York Press, Albany, New York.

It's a real book published by a University press.

 

The Don Byas bio uses print-on-demand (different Univ. Press). FWIW.

[Big Beat Steve]

12 minutes ago, Dan Gould said:

The Don Byas bio uses print-on-demand (different Univ. Press). FWIW.

Yes - my copy (published by University Press of Mississippi according to the title page) is marked "Printed in France by Amazon, Bretigny-sur-Orge, FR" on the final page inside. 

[Dan Gould]

and I just got a shipping update from Amazon ... another 8-9 days wait. 😟

[Big Beat Steve]

On 1/6/2026 at 2:27 PM, Dan Gould said:

and I just got a shipping update from Amazon ... another 8-9 days wait. 😟

I received my shipping notice yesterday (9 January), and delivery is still announced for next Monday (12 January). Keeping my fingers crossed now ...

Am really looking forward to that book.
Though I am sorry to say that the earlier "Listening To Prestige" session presentation Vol. 1 (1949-53) I ordered and received before Christmas, though really interesting, is a bit of a mixed bag (or "uneven", to put it another way) IMO and to the extent I've so far read it. 

[Big Beat Steve]

Happy to report that the promised Amazon delivery date was kept - I just freed my copy of this book from my mailbox. 
Contents look promising after quickly flipping through it - and it's a print-on-demand job indeed: "Printed by Libri Plureos GmbH in Hamburg, Germany". But a neat job, so nothing to complain about this printing procedure - which definitely seems to make delivery more reliable and speedier. 

Pity only that the Pacific Jazz book by James Harrod will take another 3 months or so to arrive. I am tempted to get started on this Prestige book very soon but OTOH would have liked to read both books one right after another or both in parallel. Seeing and comparing two appraches to two different label histoires would no doubt be interesting (and instructive).

Edited January 12 by Big Beat Steve

[Dan Gould]

On 1/12/2026 at 6:49 AM, Big Beat Steve said:

Happy to report that the promised Amazon delivery date was kept - I just freed my copy of this book from my mailbox. 

And update from me:  f-ing aggravated.

New "delivery update":  Now maybe next Thursday.  THREE weeks to get this book at least. Seriously, WTFH.

[Dub Modal]

13 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

And update from me:  f-ing aggravated.

New "delivery update":  Now maybe next Thursday.  THREE weeks to get this book at least. Seriously, WTFH.

"I'll make a few calls." 

[Gheorghe]

Is it only a discography or is also some stories or infos about the musicians and the music etc. ? 

[Dan Gould]

15 minutes ago, Gheorghe said:

Is it only a discography or is also some stories or infos about the musicians and the music etc. ? 

It is not at all a discography.

The title says it: Listening to Prestige.

[Gheorghe]

2 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

It is not at all a discography.

The title says it: Listening to Prestige.

thanks !

[Peter Friedman]

Just began reading my paperback copy yesterday morning. The beginning gives a nice summary of early independent jazz labels, the start of Prestige/New Jazz, and Bob Weinstock's early life.

I expect to continue reading this book a few chapters at a time so as to try to listen to some of the recordings mentioned along the way.

[andybleaden]

I am SO grateful for this coming up as I have now (in a fit of utter recklessness(not for the first time)) ordered the paper back volumes 1 to 4. 

 

I have to say I have been pouring over Volume 1 since they dropped and I am so impressed and a huge thanks  @ListeningToPrestige for your effort, passion and notes - fantastic - absolutely fantastic idea. 

 

 

[Big Beat Steve]

15 hours ago, andybleaden said:

I am SO grateful for this coming up as I have now (in a fit of utter recklessness(not for the first time)) ordered the paper back volumes 1 to 4. 

I have to say I have been pouring over Volume 1 since they dropped and I am so impressed and a huge thanks  @ListeningToPrestige for your effort, passion and notes - fantastic - absolutely fantastic idea. 

 

 

I am very sorry for spoiling the fun a little, but for all the sound concept of this book series and with all due respect, after reading Vol. 1 (1949-53) of this series of four I find it a bit hard to enthuse quite as much, unfortunately.

The idea of a session-by-session guide with personal impressions and background information is a very interesting one. There are a lot of points raised by the author that are rewarding to absorb and will widen the listener’s horizons when he spins the record in question while taking in the book chapter dealing with the respective session. Regardless of whether the reader agrees with all of the author’s personal assessments and judgments or not.

But OTOH, to start with, there are several aspects of the basic concept that I find irritating (not to use another term …):

1—The author often states that he has been unable to find this or that track on the internet and was therefore only able to listen to selected tracks from a session. Why?? In most of these cases there are easily accessible reissues on vinyl and CD out there and have been so for decades. There are numerous cases like this throughout the book that left me puzzled how these reissues could ever have been bypassed …
So I’d guess for someone who professes to a passion for “listening to Prestige” it should seem natural to either want to own these records outright or solicit a network of fellow collectors who no doubt would be able to make these available for “aural examination”. Not to mention that it is debatable IMHO if a session can really be assessed adequately by listening to only 1 or 2 out of (typically) 4 tunes. Particularly in a book that is supposed to „cover virtually every tune in every recording session for Prestige“.

2—It quickly becomes evident that this book originated from a series of entries on the author’s blog. Nothing wrong with that, but it is irritating to read over and over again throughout the actual BOOK about “doing this blog” and references to “that other entry on the blog”, and the like. Would it really have been such a daunting task to revise the text from the blogs in a suitable way for publication as a BOOK? Surely it cannot have been a case of just moving the blog text into a manuscript to be printed and leave it at that? Blogs (more open to random jottings) and books (that by nature have a more definitive character) don’t work quite the same way, after all.

3—There also are countless instances throughout the book where the author wonders and speculates about who wrote or arranged what tune or who was present on what session. In most cases, here too, these speculations and uncertainties have been settled a long time ago, and reading the liner notes to the respective reissues (or consulting certain biographies) could have clarified these queries and, in passing, would have solidified the purported status as a “reference book” stated on the back cover and in certain promotional statements for the book. This “reference” status leaves to be desired, however, if the reader is ever so often confronted with the vagueness resulting from such unnecessary speculations, though he remembers himself having seen the questions settled in a number of source texts by creditable authors. If doubts remain (nobody is infallible and some more recent research may contradict earlier findings) then at least pointing out awareness of these liner notes or source texts and the conclusions drawn from, maybe, conflicting statements by others would have lent credibility to what the author still wonders about (and why).

Beyond this, there also are a number of factual inaccuracies, omissions and confusions throughout the book :

4-- Some sessions are not really Prestige sessions but were leased from other labels (Metronome, Esquire, Vogue). (Much in the same way, for example, that genuine Prestige recordings were pressed and released by Esquire for the UK market and Metronome for parts of continental Europe throughout the 50s and sometimes beyond – which does not make them actual Metronome or Esquire recordings, however). Often the author fails to point this out (making them look like Prestige recordings to the unaware reader). And if he does mention the origins, therefore considering them part of the Prestige recording heritage by virtue of them having been issued or reissued later on a Prestige record, then this means that the selection of recordings covered in the book becomes arbitrary as there are numerous omissions. (There were way more Swedish Metronome lease deals issued on those Prestige 10-inchers than the book shows.)

5—Some sessions were no Prestige recordings at all and were not even linked “tangentially” to Prestige through leasing agreements with Prestige yet are coved here. E.g. Serge Chaloff (p. 14) and part of the Swiss/French sessions by James Moody (p. 26). Including them just because they appeared decades later on some reissue in the 7500 series of the late 60s/early 70s seems a bit thin to justify their “Prestige label” status, or else there would have been a lot more “outside” sessions to cover if – again – you wanted to give a relatively comprehensive picture of THAT category of latter-day reissue appearances on Prestige.

This, to me anyway, results in a bit of a mixup in the chronology and lack of stringency in the overall conception, particularly since on the other hand there are other GENUINE Prestige sessions that are conspicuously absent:

These include one of the Sonny Stitt sessions (p. 93) where the Sonny Stitt quartet is mentioned in the headline but further details are nowhere to be found in the session details or the main text.

And then there is a gap for an entire bunch of 1953 sessions by Charlie Mariano, Al Vega, Zoot Sims and Sam Most (p. 238). The author’s claims that these are “unlocatable” do not sound convincing all the way, though:
The “unlocatable” Charlie Mariano session has been available on an OJC reissue since 1990 (i.e. long before this Vol. 1 appeared in print), and the admittedly never physically reissued Al Vega trio session has been accessible in its entirety (!) on Youtube (talk about online sources ) for more than 10 years now, so may well have been accessible too at the time this book was published.
And that obscure Zoot Sims session with a backing group including organist Chester Slater was actually reissued on one Prestige LP in the 60s and has been out on a Zoot Sims CD on Blue Moon (yes, them!) since 1995 (30 years now!).

Finally, that Sam Most EP on Prestige has more recently been reissued (at long last) by Fresh Sound (yes, them again! ) on a CD of his early recordings. 

In short, all four “unlocatable” sessions are available today, and three out of these four must have been accessible at the time the book was published (as was the overlooked Sonny Stitt session).

Which IMHO again raises the question of whether relying only on Spotify and similar online platforms to do a book intended to give the sort of comprehensive coverage claimed for this book really is the appropriate approach.

Then there are a number of rash assertions and factual errors:
By all indicators, that Eckstinesque ballad singer Junior Parker (p. 53 ff.) certainly is not someone who metamorphosed into the blues man of the same name so it won’t get the reader anywhere to even entertain the likelihood of this being the same person. The Discogs entry is very clear about this being two different persons, and Colin Escott’s Sun Records book “Good Rockin’ Tonight” gives a rundown of the early career of Little Junior Parker that does not read like it leaves any room for a quick trip up north to do a session in a totally different style.

Neither has the privately recorded Charlie Parker session involving Don Lanphere (p. 254/255) remained unreleased. This must be what has been known for decades as the “Apartment Sessions” released on Spotlite and elsewhere.

And then, referring to Tadd Dameron and Clifford Bown (p. 263) and the session of bebop standards including “Night in Tunisia” and “Donna Lee” reissued on the CBS album “Clifford Brown: The Beginning and the End”, there is another mixup: What the author says reads like these tunes were recorded at about the time of the first Clifford Brown recordings with Chris Powell in 1952. Yet the CBS album cover text clearly indicates that this jam session was the “End” of Brown’s recording career and was claimed to have been recorded on June 25, 1956! However, this date has been disputed by several experts and conclusive evidence in various discussions (including online sources such as an older thread here on Organissimo ) indicate that this session actually was recorded about one year earlier, on May 31, 1955. So it is not the “end” or final one. But even less is it anything like near the “first” recordings by Clifford Brown. How the author comes up with this claim is beyond me, above all because the album he refers to clearly indicates the 1956 date. So, regardless of which currently existing online sources that establish the 1955 date were accessible online in 2015 when this book was compiled, any claim for a date near 1952 has been incorrect all along. 

Talking about rash assertions, there is page 115 covering a (UK) Kenny Graham session (no Prestige session, as it might appear from the text, but a recording leased from Esquire): The author (jokingly or not??) is surprised at the existence of British bebop and suggests that to him Brit jazz from that era was „strictly neo-trad – Johnny Dankworth, Humphrey Lyttleton, Chris Barber“ (sic!!). WHAT?? With all due respect to „the Humph“ and Chris Barber as two of the musically more rewarding exponents of British Trad jazz – but lumping in Johnny Dankworth with Trad jazz?? Now really … No doubt all of you who read this will agree this is way off base.

And so on …

In short, hiccups like the above IMHO undermine the status of this book as a “one-of-a-kind reference book” claimed in the endorsement by Dave Grusin on the back cover. It can indeed become unsettling for the attentive reader if a feeling of being unable to rely on the accuracy of the contents all the way through creeps up inside him.

Which, for that matter, had had me at least wondering a bit about what I’ve so far read in the recent “Listening to Prestige” label history book too. My impressions so far are very positive about this book, yet what is one to make of the fact that a) the Serge Chaloff session is again presented as a Prestige session (p. 13), and that the author claims that “Weinstock also recorded a considerable number of Swedish musicians” (sic - p. 17)?
I.e. the slipups of Vol. 1 repeated … The Chaloff session was recorded for Mercer Records, and the only period connection with Prestige seems to have been that (according to a period trade paper note) Prestige for a time distributed Mercer Records; and all recordings from Sweden released on Prestige were leased from Metronome, nothing more.
Ho hum …

I realize that this “review” may not endear me to some around here because, yes, I did criticize the work of a fellow forum member. But to you all – please pardon my outspokenness (which was primarily meant to set a few details straight), and if you judge my statements, please do so on the basis of the facts and according to the criteria of factual accuracy desirable for a true reference work.

Edited February 5 by Big Beat Steve

[Eric]

3 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

I realize that this “review” may not endear me to some around here because, yes, I did criticize the work of a fellow forum member. But to you all – please pardon my outspokenness (which was primarily meant to set a few details straight), and if you judge my statements, please do so on the basis of the facts and according to the criteria of factual accuracy desirable for a true reference work.

On the contrary - thank-you for your thoughtful review.  A breath of fresh air.

[Stompin at the Savoy]

Thanks for the review.  I'm impressed with your command of Prestige details! 

[mikeweil]

Reading Big Beat Steve's thoughtful comments makes me wonder if Listening to Prestige ever bothered to take a  look into or even buy Michel Ruppli's label discography - which he definitely should. I already had such thoughts when reading his posts. I have full respect for his intentions and enthusiasm, but think for such a book you have to dig in a little deeper.

I guess that's the new generation, content with what they find on the web, or even think that's all there is. While reading many Wikipedia articles I often wonder if they are allergic to libraries.

[Niko]

16 minutes ago, mikeweil said:

I guess that's the new generation, content with what they find on the web, or even think that's all there is. While reading many Wikipedia articles I often wonder if they are allergic to libraries.

I've been dealing with members of older generations for quite a few years by now, the vast majority of older people sucks at discographical research, or any type of research for that matter - which is fine I guess..., still I don't think that there's much of a downwards trend in the quality of research that is being produced... Listening to Prestige was born in 1940 btw

Edited February 5 by Niko

[Big Beat Steve]

Thanks for your feedbacks, everyone. But I am very far from knowing everything about every Prestige session. It just is so that these "early" Prestige Sessions are particularly well represented in my collection and I have owned a fair share of these recordings for a very, very long time. So you may be able to imagine my surprise at seeing some statements fall back behind what seemed like long-established "state of the the research art" knowledge to me. 

@Mikeweil: I am afraid you missed a little detail: From what I have learnt from personal remarks about his background, Tad Richards is of a generation BEFORE yours and mine. Which made it doubly difficult for me to understand and to find the right words, because as you say I would have expected a heavy reliance on online sources from a (much) younger generation. 
As for Michel Ruppli's label discography, I do own it  and did it consult it repeatedly (as well as "The Prestige Book" from the (Japanese) Jazz Critique series (No. 3, 1996) while reading the Listening to Prestige books. And they were useful for checking a number of facts before posting too.  However, the Ruppli discography needs a bit of careful use too. My copy (another of those occasional finds in the music book corner our our local shop) is the first edition of 1972 and I have a hunch there were later updated revisions. The 1972 edition, for example, understandably does not list the non-Prestige 1949 Serge Chaloff session (that I had singled out in my "review") in its "reissues from other labels" section. But OTOH it did list the 1944/45 Joe Davis sessions reissued in the 7500 series much later (PR7584). Not plausible either ... A great compilation of sessions but the links to Prestige are tenuous at best.  

Edited February 5 by Big Beat Steve

[mikeweil]

I didn't know about his age, although I am aware there are different levels of research in every generation. I too have the first Ruppli Prestige edition that has quite a few omissions, and get the newer ones from a local library. There is no discography without errors or omissions, mine included. You should verify any information with a second independt source, if you can find one.

In the end I would admit that enthusiasm and engagement are more important than doing nothing. As I said, I appreciate his efforts. 

[Stompin at the Savoy]

When this thread came up I checked the four volumes and the subsequent volume of essays on Amazon. I read the sample material of the new essay volume and picked up the Kindle edition of Vol 1 of the session volumes.  I must say that though Listening to Prestige is a dandy title, he probably should have called the book of more general essays by a different name.  Anyway I have picked at that first session volume a bit, by no means as extensively as Steve. Notwithstanding the defects pointed out by Steve, which I suppose stem from compiling a blog, which are by nature a sloppier and less rigorous enterprise than a book, I found the 1st volume interesting and worth the five bucks or so it cost on Kindle.  I'm not sure about investing $60 on the four paperbacks.  I'm going to keep referring to vol 1 as I listen to Prestige recordings it covers and possibly pick up other volumes later.  As regards the latest book of essays - Chronicles - I read the introduction and first chapter in the sample provided on Amazon.  Those were pretty worthwhile and I'll probably get the book.

Edited February 5 by Stompin at the Savoy

[andybleaden]

Well 

I have all three - the Ruppli, the Swing Journal (alongside those for many other labels)  and now these interesting 4 volumes and I find them all helpful and interesting. 

 

What I find I enjoyed was Tad's writing and input - not facts - I have the Ruppli etc for those (and many of the LPs/CDs also) 

I never saw this as a discography but as a blog (which I happened to have completely missed online - now in print)  - a document about "listening to" Prestige with yes - some facts missing or lack of access to all the music available - that was never the point for me.

 

[Big Beat Steve]

33 minutes ago, mikeweil said:

In the end I would admit that enthusiasm and engagement are more important than doing nothing. As I said, I appreciate his efforts. 

So do I. It just is a regrettable case of "missed opportunities" when subjects like these that are interesting and do fill a gap are marred by largely avoidable flaws. As was the case with his "Jazz With a Beat" book that I also feel covers new ground and tackles the subject from a long-overdue angle IMO. Which made me regret its unncecessarily weak spots even more.  Yet I did not regret buying this as well as Vol. 1 (1949-53) of the four session books. 

Edited February 5 by Big Beat Steve

[Peter Friedman]

The comments from  Big Beat Steve were helpful in pointing to errors and omissions. 

However, I don't believe the book was intended to be a complete discography of every Prestige recording. I am reading the book with the understanding that it is the work of a person who truly loves jazz, especially that which is on the Prestige label. Though my opinion of various recordings may not always agree with that of the author, I nonetheless always find it interesting to see the opinion of others.

My personal collection of Prestige recordings is very extensive, but this book inspires me to listen to many I have not heard in a long long time.