A splice of the top

CHET BAKER & THE DICK BOCK SCAM – Pré-digital practice of cutting and reshuffling made it hard to distinguish what is what. Anyway you look at it, you have to call it a scam. I remember finding Chuck Berry’s On Stage in my dad’s collection, thinking it was a live recording but finding out later applause and audience roar was added to studio recordings. Shame on you, oh sweet and holy Leonard and Phil Chess! At least nobody tinkered with the actual recordings. Nowadays, splitting and cutting and overdubbing is not unusual, raising discussion, certainly in jazz and the art of improvisation, whether it takes off the edge of spontaneity. Few, I would think, blame Monk and Orrin Keepnews for editing the complex Brilliant Corners from multiple takes. Or would they? As long as the story is fulfilling. Sometimes though, people just push it too far. What about Chet Baker’s Pretty / Groovy on World Pacific from 1958? I didn’t know about this story until the serious collector Rudolf…