[78-L] Average age was

[Michael Biel]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [78-L] Average age was
From: Malcolm Smith <malcolms at redshift.com>
Date: Fri, November 12, 2010 10:56 am
To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com

> I started collecting in the early fifties in NY city and at club 
> meetings it was a mixture of young and old. 

Of course 78s were still with us, and LPs were the new exciting thing. 
I've just been reading some Record Changer magazines from 1949-1952,
seeing the growth and sudden demise of the independent re-issue labels. 
One thing that was interesting was the amateur jazz band contest with
many of the bands composed of members 19-22 years old.  Kids were still
into jazz.  Five years later they were all in rock bands and not
interested in earlier music.

> The collectors who were 
> old are of course no longer with us and it's probable that many like 
> myself found we could not get what we collected or simply could not 
> afford what we collected after about the late sixties when enough 
> institutions became involved that availability of choice material 
> dried up.

Although I was into records as a kid in the 50s and had several hundred
78s, I didn't start going out and buying 78s until the mid-60s when I
went to college.  In talking to the older collectors like those in The
Syndicate, I did envy them when records were more plentiful and cheaper.
 By the 80s I looked at my collection and thought that I am glad I
didn't have to start out THEN!  And those that did, now have that same
feeling about 2010.  

I've mentioned this before, but looking thru the auction lists in The
Record Changer, even in the late 30s there were jazz records from the
20s already rare and expensive even though they were less than 15 or so
years old.  That is why the reissues began in the 30s -- there was no
other way of hearing the pioneering jazz performers and records even
then.  The major labels were too slow for some in their own authorized
reissue programs, and they were not licensing masters to even the legit
independents anymore, so in the late 40s there was a big surge in the
unauthorized reissues, including LPs.  This ended suddenly within a
couple of days in Feb 1952.  And little by little the majors did
reissues, and Folkways and Riverside were "tolerated" by re-issuing
mainly the classics the majors still ignored.  

> Are we collectors? I would guess there are quite a few of 
> us who are/were depending on how you look at it.  Malcolm Smith.

An interesting article in the May 1950 Record Changer by Bill Grauer,
just months before the independent reissue situation became lethal,
wrote an article "In Defense Of Label Collecting" differentiating
between those who only collect original copies and those who will buy
reissues.  In the same issue, Biltmore had a full page ad on page 3
announcing FIFTY new reissues on 78 of MANY King Oliver, Jelly Roll
Morton, and Johnny Dodds records along with two Bessies, a Bechet, a
Bix, and a Benny.  So I would think that you probably fit into the
category of "original label collector".  I probably would have been,
with the exception of getting a copy of Biltmore 1028 in Feb 1950 when
they advertised the issue of Zulu's Ball.  And also the Bix reissues
they did -- along with the legit ones on Victor and Columbia.  (I know
that Geoffrey Wheeler considers the Columbia reissues to be bootlegs
because he feels that CBS did not REALLY purchase the ARC rights.)


On Nov 11, 2010, at 3:04 PM, 78-l-request at klickitat.78online.com wrote:

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> 1. Average age (was: Jack Palmer) (Kristjan Saag)  [snip]

> End of 78-L Digest, Vol 26, Issue 25
> ************************************
>

SO THIS IS WHAT THE 78-L DIGEST LOOKS LIKE!!!!!

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com