Ed Thigpen: Gentleman of Jazz

A Profile of Sorts

I pride myself on hardly ever having misjudged people. Naturally, I have been completely wrong at times (and when I am/was wrong, I am/was completely off), but as far as I recall, the number of blunders were rather limited. It is my profession to evaluate people and although that is often quite difficult, I usually get it right at some point, especially if I am able to spend longer periods of time with the people in question.

That’s why I would state that Ed Thigpen was not only a cool guy, but also a true gentleman. Now, I have absolutely no idea if he walked around at home throwing terrible tantrums or if he had a tendency to easily go off the rails in more private settings, but whenever I had the chance to experience his personality up close, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he would be a great friend to have. Continue Reading →

John Coltrane: “Fearless Leader” and “Interplay”

It’s been quite a while since I started a series entitled Trials and Tribulations. In that series, I wrote about things that can drive us collectors up the wall …and down again. At the time I only hinted at it, but right now I’m planning on expanding on one of the issues I mostly left out at the time: The Trials and Tribulations of label policy. It’s a can of worms I didn’t really want to touch then and it’s a can – when opened – that infuriates me time and again, economic sensibility or not. I come at it from a stance uninhibited by economic concerns; one that focuses on keeping music alive as opposed to keeping profits up. Call me delusional, but it’s the way I tick.

To cut to the chase right away, whenever you mention the Concord Music Group on any jazz board, chances are that people will start cussing relatively fast, despite some of the exemplary work they have produced.. The problem was and is that Concord purchased Fantasy Inc. (the owners, for example, of the prestigious Original Jazz Classics reprint series series, Galaxy, Debut Records, Riverside, Milestone, Prestige, Pablo, and just about everything else under the sun that many collectors were/are salivating for) … and proceeded to shut down that company’s Berkley California warehouse where lots of that Fantasy OJC stock was shelved, fired the Fantasy vault workers, shut down their mastering studio and shipped the tapes off to the infamous Iron Mountain storage facility. Continue Reading →

“Zweitausendeins” … And More

I know quite a few collectors who actually plan their shopping sprees. I used to do that too, at times, but today I neither look at my usual online haunts all that regularly nor do I head into town as often as I would like. The shopping patterns I adhere to are not based on emotional stability (or instability) but on 20 and more years of experience when it comes around to – bit by bit – putting together a solid collection of both printed and recorded material. What seems to be a simple activity at first, quickly turns into a convoluted process of scheming and planning, much of which has been thoroughly affected by both local politics and European protectionism.

Over here in Germany, being a music collector isn’t as much fun as it could be. Like the rest of you, we can of course enjoy those items that we finally managed to get our hands on, but getting there is usually the problem, especially if you are on a tighter budget. Prices are sometimes outrageous here, customs officials handling imports from the US, for example, could perhaps be likened to 500-pound gorillas from whose IQ you automatically need to deduct another 10 points, and when confronted with wrapping and packaging by some international mail order dealers, you are never really surprised when your shipment gets hit by a Chinese water demon in transit. Continue Reading →

Trio Pim Jacobs: “Come Fly With Me”

I had never heard of Pim Jacobs when, unsuspecting, I accidentally hit one of those sites that discuss more obscure music releases or reissues and, although I can’t quite recall, the album was even offered for download. I quickly read through the veritable epitomizing of this reissue and started investigating in more detail. It’s become a habit to do that when I come across someone praising an album in no uncertain tone, especially if that someone – as a quick glance at the archives page of said site showed – had very similar listening habits.

It was a frustrating experience. As is often the case, the Internet turned up quite a bit of information, but all of it seemed, in one way or another, to have been copied from the same two sources, and those weren’t very elaborate.

It was also frustrating because from a quick glance at the hard facts – being European myself – I should have heard of Pim Jacobs before. I have spent half of my life listening to European musicians who toured through Scandinavia and Germany and I was even fortunate to meet and talk to many of them. Never once did that name come up. I don’t know how many musicians passed through Copenhagen’s famed jazz club “Montmartre”, a place I had almost familial ties to, and many of the countless musicians who did pass through must surely have played with Pim. I know they did because I later unearthed that information. Still, I have no memory of ever having heard anything about him. Continue Reading →

When Forums Go Bad …

I remember having been online ever since the Web took shape in earnest. Early 90s, was it? That time I still sat at a university PC of the most solid kind, metal casing and all, solid gray and deadly slow. What followed was an equally impressive 386SX Escom PC (… does anyone remember Escom?), a couple of machines thereafter and in between and right now I’m already thinking again of throwing out my current PC to buy into a new one. Actually, I think I have to. The darn things don’t last longer than a couple of months nowadays.

No matter what the technical achievements of the past decade or two were, communication has not evolved all too much. If at all, it has gotten more complicated. Continue Reading →

A musical life in Denmark of the 1970s, 80s and 90s

Even at the risk of alienating some of my regular readers (those that haven’t been alienated by my long absence around here already), this is the start of a longer series, many parts of which have already been completed. The reason is very simple, really, What I’m about to expand upon, I’ve had first-hand experience with, lots of it, and if one really starts researching what’s available on the topic, there is either laughingly little (inaccurate at that) or only highly fragmented information available online. I kid you not when I say that about some of my favorite music, there’s hardly any information to be had whatsoever.

On the one hand, what I’m going to write about here can hardly be called essential listening for anyone outside of Denmark, none of it is relevant in an earth-shaking manner, nor does it belong into the must-have category for international collectors, but on the other hand it made up a huge part of my musical life for quite some time and, as I will try to show, a lot of it was and/or is of the highest caliber. It is also the core experience that turned me into a collector, into a musician and into someone who has since then always tried to get to know new music, outside of the commonly trodden paths. Continue Reading →

Fleetwood Mac: The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions

As you know by now, I tend to review things here that I like. Some of you might even argue that I go overboard at times, recommending music I’ve grown to love with a truckload full of emotionally charged adjectives and adverbs. Be that as it may: I’m about to do it again.

So, sit back, pour yourself a good stiff drink … and read on.

I’ve gone on record before saying that the early Fleetwod Mac had perhaps the best two working guitarists in the business at the time (and certainly in hindsight as well; even more so, really) and, after having listened to “The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions” for I don’t know how many times these past weeks and months, I will now go on record saying that in my book the pairing-up of Peter Green and Danny is perhaps the most successful one musically that I’ve enjoyed for several decades and that Danny Kirwan, despite his more than sad career later on, was/is perhaps the best guitarist I’ve ever heard. Continue Reading →

The Loudness Wars

If you have been a regular reader of my site, you know that without the Steve Hoffman Forums I would be lost in the sea of mostly crummy remaster jobs permanently released all around the globe. If you also happen to be a regular on those forums, you probably also know that there are various camps frequenting the site, including a large group of hardliners that basically damn everything that isn’t a flat transfer, and I can understand them, especially if they have invested heavily into extremely expensive gear which reveals each and every fault of a recording. But even if you have just a decent and maybe only a mediocre stereo setup like I do, you can’t help but notice that record labels seem to have overstepped an invisible (but clearly audible) line: Too much is just too loud, too maximized, too compressed and too darn harsh. There’s no other expression for it but to say that a large number of releases and reissues just suck. Continue Reading →