In condemnation of CDs of old music that do not include

N O T E S.

I'm listening to a cd on the Prix Calin label from 2003 which I picked up in a three-for-the-price-of-one sale in Singapore in 2005 en route to Angouleme. I had terrible trouble getting out of the shop because I only wanted one for the price of one and had no interest in any of the rest though I wound up throwing in a late Isaac Hayes album just to help them clear some space and departed hastily. The disc I'm listening to is a round up of Charlie Christian cuts among which I saw a few I didn't recognise as being already in my collection. There are no notes. I mean just who, where and when kind of notes, not florid descriptions of what I'm hearing.
The poor kid died age 25, after a brief three year recording career, so it's not the dates that are a problem, but there are quite few undocumented live tracks here. And Christian is one of those artists that if there is a bit of tape somewhere of him tuning up his guitar, it will have been put on a cd long before now. (wikipedia: "Although Christian never recorded professionally as a leader, compilations have been released of his sessions as a sideman where he is a featured soloist, of practice and warm-up recordings for these sessions, and some lower-quality recordings of Christian's own groups performing in nightclubs, by amateur technicians.") Elsewhere I have another cd of his rare taped moments at Minton's with Clarke and Monk. It has a photo of him on the front of a card which is blank on the back. I had to write my own notes on it. And as for the 1947 radio session during which Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie do an entirely improbable rendition of Tiger Rag, I've never seen that on a cd at all, so I'm holding onto my old 1983 LP double album on a French label. At least it's got the times dates and who was in the band, though I added a few extra notes of my own in tippex on the fold-out surface of the black laminated card. You'd be impressed. Or horrified, if you're the sort of person who buys second hand stuff and gets livid on finding that some jackass has written all over it.


I wrote a post on another blog a couple of years ago titled 'Charlie Parker's cabbages' and I just discovered I still have the drawing.


First to claim it in comments can have it in the mail.