In the early 1970s, I worked for a few months at Sam Goody's in Manhattan on Third Ave. and 43rd St. The store manager wanted me in the rock section, but I kept drifting down to the jazz department to talk with Harry Lim. Harry was quiet and looked unassuming to the average record-buyer, but I knew who the retiree was. In the late 1930s and 1940s, the Javanese-American produced recording sessions for Keynote Records.
One day, Harry took me aside and showed me LPs that had come in from a new label called Pablo. He told me they were released by Norman Granz, the same guy who had started the Clef, Norgran and Verve labels. He encouraged me to buy a few, since many would soon be sold out, he said. So I did. [Photo above of Harry Lim]
The next day, a nattily dressed guy came in and bought one of each Pablo release, which meant some of the titles were now gone and had to be reordered, since there was just one left. Harry told me the guy was obsessed with having all the releases on labels he liked, and had the money to make that happen. Clerks boxed them up and sent them to his Sutton Place apartment.
I loved my Pablo releases. At first, the label featured artists Granz had managed, such as Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson and Joe Pass. He also famously re-issued 1950s recordings by Art Tatum teamed with other legends in Granz's crew. Later, contemporary LPs were recorded and issued.
Acoustic Sounds in Salina, Kan., has been re-issuing remastered Pablo vinyl through its Analogue Productions division. Acoustic Sounds owns a record-pressing plant (Quality Record Pressings), its own print shop (Acoustic Sounds Printing) and its own LP mastering business (The Mastering Lab at Blue Heaven Studios). It's quite an operation, with a lot of passion.
The LPs that Acoustic Sounds's founder Chad Kassem has been releasing have been remastered using the original master tapes, are pressed on 180-gram vinyl, are limited editions and feature the front and back covers of the originals. Among the many Pablo titles re-issued is one of my favorites—The Tatum Group Masterpieces, Volume Eight: pianist Art Tatum with tenor saxophonist Ben Webster, bassist Red Callendar and drummer Bill Douglass in 1956. [Photo above of Chad Kassem by James Wolf, courtesy of Acoustic Sounds]
The sound is warm and plush, as if these guys are playing in your room. Tatum alone was spectacular but with top players like Webster, jazz doesn't get much better. The musicianship, improvised ideas and sophisticated mood created are the very best. All the tracks are songbook standards, but in the hands of Tatum and Webster, they are re-imagined but don't drift astray.
I also gave a listen to Count Basie 3: For the Second Time, which has terrific fidelity. On the 1975 record are pianist Count Basie, bassist Ray Brown and drummer Louie Bellson. What a joy to hear Basie isolated from a big band in a trio setting. Spare and swinging, especially on songs such as Sandman, On the Sunny Side of the Street and The One I Love Belongs to Somebody Else.
The third album I audited is The Alternate Blues, with trumpeters Freddie Hubbard and Dizzy Gillespie and trumpeter and flugelhornist Clark Terry, backed by pianist Oscar Peterson, guitarist Joe Pass, bassist Ray Brown and drummer Bobby Durham, recorded in 1980. Still solid.
Harry Lim died in 1990 at age 71. Just looking at the Pablo covers and listening to them again reminded me of Harry holding court modestly in the downstairs jazz department. All sorts of jazz characters and musicians came in to chat and find out what LPs had just come in and which ones Harry liked. [Photo above, from left, of Keynote's Harry Lim, pianist Jelly Roll Morton and Steve Smith, owner of the Hot Record Society store, at RCA in New York in September 1939]
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Analogue Productions' Pablo lineup and more at their site here.
JazzWax clips: Here's a promotional clip from Analogue Productions...
As the proud owner of a Technics SL1100 direct drive turntable that I bought in 1975, I completely relate to Acoustic Sound's Technics fetish and happy they have vintage models for sale. Go here...
Here's Tatum and Webster on My One and Only Love...