[Dixielandjazz] Re: Turk Murphy Discography

[Dan Augustine]

Fred and DJML--
     I have _Turk Murphy: Just for the Record_ by Jim Goggin, and it 
was one of the starting points for my wanting a complete, up-to-date 
discography of Turk's recordings. It's a wonderful book, not so much 
a discography as an extended and fragmentary interview of Turk about 
certain of the songs on his recordings.  It has some great comments, 
insights, and a pretty thorough listing of recording sessions, but it 
necessarily lacks mention of CD's and doesn't try to provide a list 
of the LP's and their tunes in a format conducive to reference or 
research.
     The discography i mentioned took eight years to compile, and it 
lists quite a number of private tapes, as well as CD's.  It's 
basically a printout of someone's database, sorted three different 
ways.  The earliest references are from 1936 and a band called Mal 
Hallet & His Orchestra, and the latest are private memorial-tapes 
from 1987 (without Turk, after he died) and from 1990 (somehow WITH 
Turk, so maybe it's a recent-retrospective of some kind).
     This discography seems to have all the recordings, with their 
personnel and instruments, recording title, label and number, 
recording medium, the recording date, and an internal reference 
number.  It appears to be a printout of a computer program, sorted by 
reference number, by date, and by tune and title, and it may involve 
recordings from more than one collector.
     I heard from the person i got my copy of the printout from, and 
this person said that the author distributed a few copies to friends 
just on a gift-basis.  Since so far i've had no direct contact with 
the author, i don't know if he would be willing to make copies 
available to the public, even for a price.  This might be something 
that the SFTJF (San Francisco Traditional Jazz Foundation) might well 
be interested in publishing or distributing if things could be worked 
out (copyright- and other-wise).  It's certainly a welcome and 
original contribution to knowledge, and i would want a copy if i were 
in charge of music-library acquisitions.
     I myself would like a copy in an Excel spreadsheet (or FileMaker 
Pro database) so i could sort in various ways and search for things, 
but i don't know if that's available.  I'm not a Turk Murphy 
collector as such (nor yet a completist), but because i like his band 
i've accumulated about 27 of his recordings and put them and their 
400+ songs into a FileMaker Pro database just for my own peculiar 
amusement.  Eventually i mean to annotate each song with information 
from that recording on the song's key, its tempo, and any liner-notes 
or other fripperies pertaining to it (but that's another story).
     Anyway, when i hear back from the author i'll let y'all know 
whatever additional information there is.

     Dan
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>From: "Fred Spencer" <drjz at bealenet.com>
>Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 23:09:06 -0400
>
>Dear Dan et al.,
>Apart from the 5 years before 1987, does this differ from "Turk Murphy. Just
>for the Record" by Jim Goggin, published in 1982 by the San Francisco
>Traditional Jazz Foundaion? The "blurb" says that this "documents the
>complete discography of the legendary Turk Murphy during his time as a  band
>leader." It is a 356 page book with liberal illustrations. Cheers.
>Fred
>----- Original Message -----
>  > DJMLers--
>>       Well, thank God somebody else did it.  Saved me an incredible and
>>  impossible amount of work.
>>       I just received in the mail today a 155-page discography of
>>  (probably) all of Turk Murphy's recorded performances, from both
>>  public and private recordings, sorted by recording, by song, and by
>>  date.  As far as i know, this discography has not been published,
>>  just done by a private individual for his own amusement and
>>  information.
>>       I'm not going to say yet who wrote it or who sent it to me until
>>  i have their permission to do so, but i thought i'd send out the word
>>  in case anyone is interested (or in case someone was working on a
>  > discography themselves).
>>
>  >      Dan

-- 
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**  Dan Augustine     Austin, Texas     ds.augustine at mail.utexas.edu  **
**    "Ignoramus, n. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of      **
**     knowledge familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds **
**     of that you know nothing about."  --  Ambrose Bierce           **
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