Proper Records: The saxophone sets

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Yakov · #1 Post by **Yakov** » Sat Feb 14, 2004 10:51 am

courtesy of my benefactors, i've recently acquired the proper box saxophone sets: lester young, coleman hawkins, ben webster, and johnny hodges. there's an awful lot of great music on these sets, but it seems that a DJ has to be careful with these because a lot of it sounds like it might be danceable, but really isn't... anyone have any favorites from these sets?

-yakov.

djstarr · #2 Post by **djstarr** » Sat Feb 14, 2004 2:45 pm

A fellow DJ of mine recommended the Lester Young proper box - I've been digging it and spinning a lot from it.

Some of my favorites:
Me, Myself and I; This Year's Kisses, I Can't Get Started, All of Me (with Billie Holiday)
Dickie's Dream (Kansas City Seven)
Blitzkrieg Baby
Hello Babe (Dickie Wells Orchestra)
Just You Just Me, Sometimes I'm Happy (w/Slam Stewart)
Salute to Fats
DB Blues
Lester's BeBop Boogie
Blues'N'Bells (with Junior Mance on piano - really nice)

Matthew · #3 Post by **Matthew** » Sat Feb 14, 2004 5:27 pm

I've been wanting to get some more Lester Young, but I already have the Basie Proper box and the 3-CD Golden Greats: Billie Holiday set, both of which have many tracks with him. Any idea whether or not the Proper box has many tracks without Basie or Billie?

djstarr · #4 Post by **djstarr** » Sat Feb 14, 2004 8:32 pm

Matthew wrote:I've been wanting to get some more Lester Young, but I already have the Basie Proper box and the 3-CD Golden Greats: Billie Holiday set, both of which have many tracks with him. Any idea whether or not the Proper box has many tracks without Basie or Billie?

The first CD is almost all Basie plus some Billie; the 2nd is a little more of the same, but the last tracks on the 2nd CD has some really cool stuff with Slam Stewart. The 3rd and 4th CDs are all Lester Young small group stuff which I hadn't heard before. It's recorded chronologically.

Yakov · #5 Post by **Yakov** » Sun Feb 15, 2004 12:27 pm

these look awesome... comments on them, anyone?

if you have a lot of money:

mark0tz · #6 Post by **mark0tz** » Sun Feb 15, 2004 1:00 pm

Yea, I have the Verve Lester Young box set. Great listening, a handful of danceables. Also really good literature included in the set... It was wonderful, yet kind of sad, too, to watch Lester Young develop and then begin to fall apart on recordings just weeks before his death.

Yakov · #7 Post by **Yakov** » Sun Feb 15, 2004 3:25 pm

great to hear lester comments... also, anyone got any ideas about hawkins, ben webster, and johnny hodges?

mark0tz · #8 Post by **mark0tz** » Sun Feb 15, 2004 9:52 pm

Oh the Hodges proper set is great, perhaps one of my favorite sets next to the Sidney Bechet and Lionel Hampton ones (I don't include the Basie set because I already had all of that on other CDs). Castle Rock and Hodge Podge are the best discs imho... A Flower is a Lonesome thing is mainly ballads -- great listening, though... for a rainy night reading or something. Lots of danceables on the entire set.

Yakov · #9 Post by **Yakov** » Mon Feb 16, 2004 9:48 am

Matthew wrote:I've been wanting to get some more Lester Young, but I already have the Basie Proper box and the 3-CD Golden Greats: Billie Holiday set, both of which have many tracks with him. Any idea whether or not the Proper box has many tracks without Basie or Billie?

you can read complete discographies at http://www.propermusic.com

there are lester appearances with many groups on the first two cds, not just basie or billie appearances.

mark0tz · #10 Post by **mark0tz** » Mon Feb 16, 2004 10:13 am

that's awesome that they have the discography on the site. thanks for pointing that out.

sonofvu · #11 Post by **sonofvu** » Mon Feb 16, 2004 10:36 am

I have the Ben Webster Proper set and I have thouroughly enjoyed it. My favorite disk is the first one labeled "Cotton Tail". Most of the songs on this disk are from Webster's time with Duke. The "52nd Street" disk is much more mellow and I thought at first listen that I had made a horrible mistake. This disk is excellent. One problem, the audio quality on some of the tracks is deplorable. A great song like Kat's Fur is almost killed by the audio quality. Songs like Dirty Deal and Just A Riff also suffer from poor quality. I like listening to them but I always hold back when it comes time to playing them at a dance. The "Star Dust" disk is more of a pure jazz disk and not meant (in my opinion) for dancing. The disk is not totally devoid of dance tracks. Spang, Limehouse Blues, Let's Love Awhile and New Style Baby are quite dancecable. The "All too Soon" disk follows "cotton tail" chronologically. As in the early 40s when swing was on the wane. Great songs on this disk and Webster shows his versatility and also flexes his muscles as he continued to develop his distinctive sound. Great tunes on this one, both for listening and dancing. There are some audio quality issues but nothing that would stop me from playing stuff from this disk at a dance. By the way, Just A-Setting and a-rockin is one of the great tunes on this disk as Webster makes the song his own. All in all a good box set in my opinion.

Lawrence · #12 Post by **Lawrence** » Mon Feb 16, 2004 11:08 am

Something tells me that people just like to write "Proper" around here.