Tag: Downbeat

Would You Pay $5,000 For This Record?

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Zemanta Related Posts ThumbnailAs promised, here is the original DownBeat review of Hank Mobley, Blue Note 1568, perhaps the most valuable and treasured of all the Jazz Collector collectibles. This is from Oct. 30, 1958 and the reviewer is John A. Tynan:

“Hank Mobley — Blue Note 1568: Might Moe and Joe; Falling in Love With Love; Bags Groove; Double Exposure; News.

“Personnel: Mobley, tenor; Curtis Porter, alto, tenor; Bill Hardman, trumpet; Sonny Clark, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; Art Taylor, drums

“Rating — Three and a half stars

“One of the nicer things about Al Lion and associates at Blue Note is that they don’t hesitate to present new talent they consider worthwhile. On this set is presented 29-year-0old Philadelphia saxman Curtis Porter, who is equal to the company. Although it is Mobley’s date, the leader allows generous space for the wailing of his fellow reedman, which makes for a high degree of hard blowing.

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Not-So-Cool Struttin’

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cool struttin'I happened to be perusing old DownBeats yesterday when I casually opened up the issue of Oct. 30, 1958. The “jazz record reviews” listed on the cover were for Harry Belafonte, Terry Gibbs, Benny Goodman, Earl Hines, Shorty Rogers and Bob Scobey. Nothing too interesting, and I almost passed up on reading the reviews. So I was a bit surprised to see that this issue contained reviews of two of the rarest and most highly treasured records in the entire Jazz Collector pantheon: Sonny Clark, Cool Struttin’, Blue Note 1588 and Hank Mobley, Blue Note 1568.

 

Let’s start with Cool Struttin’. The reviewer, Don Gold, gave it two and a half stars out of a possible five stars. To put it in perspective, Cool Struttin’ had a lower rating than these records, also reviewed in this issue: Steve Allen All Stars Featuring Terry Gibbs; Danny Alvin and His Kings of Dixieland Play Basin Street: Belafonte Sings the Blues; Paul Horn Plenty of Horn, and Moe Koffman, The “Shepherd” Swings Again. This is what the reviewer had to say about Cool Struttin’:

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Quickie Quiz

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This is a complete non-sequitor from what we mostly do here these days . . . but, I was in my storage unit the other day and I noticed a box full of old magazines I hadn’t looked at in years and I stuck them in the car and drove them up to the country and now, when I am supposed to be working, I am looking at old magazines and procrastinating. And I came to this Downbeat from December 1967 and on the cover was the announcement of the Jazzman of the Year. And I thought to myself, hmm, if you would have given me 20 guesses I would have never come up with that name. So, I will put it out there to all of you in the Jazz Collector audience. Want to guess who Downbeat named as its 1967 Jazzman of the Year? No peeking: We are on the honor system here.

Is There a “Jazz Collector” Era?

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What are the points of demarcation for the era of jazz that we love and write about here on Jazz Collector? When people ask me about the jazz I love, I generally characterize it as the period from around 1945 to 1964 or 1965. Not that there hasn’t been great jazz — and great jazz records — before or after that period, but those are the years I use to describe the era of jazz I collect and love. The 1945 starting point is pretty clear — the birth of bebop and the first bebop recordings. But what about my arbitrary end point point of 1964/1965? I was thinking about that today and three things came to mind: 1. A Love Supreme was recorded in 1964 and in some ways, that’s the end of the era for me. After that Coltrane went way avant garde and his recordings started to veer away from music I could relate to. To me, A Love Supreme kind of feels like a coda musically to the period that started with Bird and Diz and the other boppers; 2. Blue Note was sold to Liberty in 1965. Talk about the end of an era! The third reason hadn’t occurred to me until now, but I think it has to do with The Beatles and the dramatic changes taking place in pop and rock music. The jazz guys started thinking they had to cross over to make money and be relevant and the music began shifting as well. I look at the DownBeat covers from the late 1960s and by then pop music had even usurped jazz in the industry’s leading jazz magazine. Anyway, it was something I was thinking about while fishing on the lake today and I was curious what others think. Others?

In Search of Very Early DownBeats

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OK, the Jazz Collector community gets a chance to solve another difficult challenge. I have been contacted by a researcher from the Oxford English Dictionary and he is searching for DownBeats between 1934 and 1936.  He has found all DownBeats in some form from 1937 on, but no luck on the earlier ones. “The purpose of all this is that the Oxford English Dictionary likes to record the earliest uses of words and phrases, and DownBeat is full of interesting and new terms for the time,” he writes. He doesn’t need the issues, just access to the content. So here it is, we have a chance to contribute once again to the historical record. If you have any ideas — or if you have any of these issues — please respond to this post. Thanks.

Tal Farlow, Downbeat, One More Time

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Dan is back with another request. This upcoming memoir better be good. (Actually, it is: I’ve seen early drafts). This time Dan is looking for a high-res scan of the following photo from Downbeat, May 2, 1967. I know I have this issue in nice condition, bit it is somewhere in storage and I can’t access it. So if someone out there can help out (again), I’m sure it would be most appreciated.

 

In Search of An Obscure Article

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OK, we’re going to see if we can use the collective wisdom, expertise, knowledge and possible collections of the community to see if we can solve a mystery for a friend. In this case, we are looking for a specific article in Downbeat. All we have is a partial headline and story, pictured here. To me this looks like a Downbeat from the early 1950s when it was still in a newspaper format. We are looking for the issue date of the article and, if possible, a copy of the article itself. My friend says we will not be successful in this quest, that the reference is too obscure. I say never underestimate the power of the Jazz Collector community. Let’s see.

More Blue Note Favorites, Courtesy of Downbeat

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I did that post earlier today and mentioned that Downbeat had done a whole feature asking various artists about their favorite Blue Note records. I was able to dig up my copy of the magazine — I don’t have a subscription anymore, but I had purchased this one on the newsstand because of the cover. It was from March of 2009. The cover, as you can see, has Joe Lovano with his favorite Blue Note: Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, Free For All, Blue Note 4170. It’s quite gratifying to see his picture with a vinyl pressing, and a mono vinyl pressing at that and perhaps even an original mono pressing. Inside, the magazine asked a variety of other jazz artists to name their favorite Blue Notes as well. Here are their replies:

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Miles, Introducing Trane, On eBay, In Metronome

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I was perusing eBay early this morning and came across this beautiful item: Miles, The New Miles Davis Quintet, Prestige 7014. I’ve always loved this LP, not just for the music and the great cover, but for the historic value as well: The introduction of the great Miles Quintet of the ’50s and, in particular, the introduction of John Coltrane. So, I put this item on my watch list and took a further look and it turns out to be a listing from Rudolf, our faithful friend and commentator. So we are happy to help Rudolf publicize this listing on the Jazz Collector site, but we also noticed a nice teaser in the listing, which notes that they album will be offered with a copy of Metronome’s July 1956 review of the album. Furthermore, the listing notes that the Metronome review is

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Heroes: Musicians and Their Influences

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From our our archives, here’s an interesting item from June 18, 2004.

If you’re looking for a good read, pick up the July issue of Downbeat. It’s being promoted as the “70th Anniversary Collector’s Edition” and the focus is a feature called “Our Heroes” in which more than 70 musicians talk about their primary influences. Here are a few highlights:

 Sonny Rollins on Coleman Hawkins: “I first saw him play on 52nd Street. I used to put eyebrow pencil on my lip to make a fake mustache so I could get in. We’d stand in the back, and it was like looking at a god playing.”

 Joe Zawinul on Art Tatum: “He always sounded like two piano players. The story goes like this:

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