ASK FRED
Get ready, ‘cos here come rock team-ups, Euro 45s and jazz nirvana reveals.
The Guv’nor reflects on great jazz junkets and accidental releases.
Who issued the wrong songs?
I recently discovered the French mono Blonde On Blonde with unique reverb-y mixes on sides two and three. Why would a major artist want alternative recordings of this sort to be released on what looks like a standard version of an album? It seems to make little sense.
Neil Humphreys, via e-mail
Fred Says Dylanologists have long obsessed over Blonde On Blonde, which can be enjoyed in an estimated 10 or more different mixes, both stereo and mono, as well as with different sleeve art permutations. The 18-disc version of 2015’s box set The Bootleg Series Vol.12: The Cutting Edge 1965-1966 even included released Blonde On Blonde songs alongside even more alternate takes. Is there method in the madness? Well, there probably wasn’t when a 1997 reissue of Dylan’s Biograph box set featured tracks not intended for release and was consequently withdrawn. Other examples of human error include a 1971 edition of The Rolling Stones’ Hot Rocks compilation with alternative versions of Brown Sugar and Wild Horses, a 1991 CD reissue of Sly & The Family Stone’s Fresh when the wrong master tape was used – meaning all but one of the songs appeared as different takes – and more random mislabelled reels fun on reissues by Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee, among others. We have to admit a certain fondness, though, for an unfinished outtake of The Smiths’ How Soon Is Now? which somehow ended up on the Italian 12-inch of William, It Was Really Nothing in 1984. When Morrissey is heard to ask, “OK?” MOJO before the track loosely fades back in again, it’s a reminder that to err is human, to forgive divine! WHO MADE SONGS FOR EUROPE?
I was in a flea market in Amsterdam a few years ago and picked up the Dutch 7-inch single of Madness’s Tarzan’s Nuts from 1980. In a unique sleeve, the single was never released anywhere else. I believe the country-by-country approach used to be widespread. Has anyone else got any good examples of local releases for local people?
Graham McNally, via e-mail
Fred Says Immediately springing to mind are JJ Burnel’s Girl From The Snow Country and The Specials’ Concrete Jungle, both Dutch-only 7-inch releases in 1980 and 1981, and an Ireland-only 1984 Queen 45 of Man On The Prowl. Who can
help Graham out with more? WHAT WAS THE GREATEST JAZZ JUNKET?
Woodstock has been acclaimed by many as the greatest gathering of rock acts ever. In your opinion what was the essential live jazz get-together? Perhaps one of the Newport Jazz Festivals?
Colin Parker, via e-mail
Fred Says I think I’d maybe nominate the Massey Hall Concert which took place in Toronto, Canada on May 15, 1953. The line-up, though not huge, was incredible, featuring just about everyone who shaped the face of modern jazz. Dizzy Gillespie was the trumpet star, Charlie Parker, billed as ‘Charlie Chan’, played white plastic alto sax, while the rhythm section was formed by Max Roach (drums), Bud Powell (piano) and Charles Mingus (bass). Dr Alain Presencer, father of trumpet star Gerard Presencer, actually witnessed the concert and later wrote how Mingus, at one point, asked a smashed Powell to raise the lid of his Steinway, only to be greeted by the response, “Why don’t you take a fucking flying jump at yourself?” A show that resulted in standing ovations at several points, it was not well attended due to the fact of being scheduled for the night when most of North America was listening to the Rocky Marciano-Jersey Joe Walcott World Heavyweight title fight rematch on the radio! Recorded on Mingus’s own tape recorder, the concert first appeared on the bassist’s Debut label, and has since been reissued under the title The Greatest Jazz Concert Ever. DID FLOYD GET THE CAN?
I’ve read on several occasions that David Gilmour played with Can, and even wrote with them. But I haven’t been able to find any evidence of it. Is there some live tape out there waiting to prove they worked together? HELP FRED
Simon Cooper, via e-mail
Fred Says It’s a great idea, but sadly the claim, still repeated online, is false. The Gilmour who did collaborate with Can was their friend and soundman Peter Gilmour, whose credits included co-writing the band’s UK Number 26 hit I Want More in 1976.
Does anyone know what Maxine Nightingale is doing these days? Right Back Where We Started From is a classic!
Paul Miller, via e-mail