5 Original Albums - The Crusaders (Blue Thumb) 5CD Box

5 Original Albums - The Crusaders (Blue Thumb) 5CD Box Set

The Crusaders -
Wayne Henderson (trombone), Wilton Felder (sax & bass), Joe Sample (keyboards), Larry Carlton (guitar), Stix Hooper (drums & percussion)

CD1 / Chain Reaction
Originally issued on LP in a gatefold sleeve in 1975 by ABC/Blue Thumb in the U.S. & on ABC in the UK. I have a stand alone copy of this on an MCA CD. Both CD editions sound as great as you could wish for and musically this album is way up there with the very best issued by The Crusaders.

CD2 / Those Southern Knights
Originally issued on LP in a gatefold sleeve in 1976 by ABC/Blue Thumb in the U.S. & on MCA in the UK. Another remarkable Crusaders recording and a perfect follow up to Chain Reaction. I believe the stand alone title of this on CD is deleted or else very difficult to find and expensive.
*Additional musicians - Arthur Adams (guitar), Robert 'Pops' Popwell (bass), The Crusaders (vocals)

CD3 / Free As The Wind
Recorded in late 1976 and originally issued on LP in a single sleeve in 1977 by ABC/Blue Thumb in the U.S. & on MCA in the UK. The run of superb albums continue! This one is the first to feature string orchestration, courtesy of Crusader Joe Sample. I was going to buy this as a stand alone title on MCA CD but the cost of doing that was almost the same as the price I paid Amazon for this wee box!
*Additional musicians - Dean Parks, Arthur Adams, Roland Bautista (guitar), Robert 'Pops' Popwell (bass), Ralph MacDonald, Paulinho DaCosta (percussion)

CD4 / Images
Released in 1978 and originally issued on LP in a single sleeve in 1977 by ABC/Blue Thumb in the U.S. & on ABC in the UK. Another fine album that maybe is slightly less essential than the first 2 or 3. However it is still a worthwhile album to have and does include some wonderful uplifting musical moments too.
*Additional musicians - Billy Rogers, Dean Parks, Roland Bautista (guitar), Robert 'Pops' Popwell (bass), Paulinho DaCosta (percussion)

CD5 / Street Life
Released in 1979 and originally issued on LP in a single sleeve by MCA in the U.S. & the UK. This is the one that brought the Crusaders to a much larger audience when the title track that featured vocals by Randy Crawford became such a big disco/pop hit. The rest of the album is full of more top quality Crusaders instrumental vibes.
*Additional musicians - Robert O. Bryant Sr., Oscar Brashear (trumpet), Garnett Brown, Maurice Spears (trombone), Robert Bryant Jr. (tenor sax), Jerome Richardson (alto sax), Bill Green (baritone sax), Billy Rogers, Arthur Adams, Roland Bautista, Barry Finnerty, Paul M. Jackson, David T. Walker (guitar), Alphonso Johnson, James Jamerson (bass), Paulinho DaCosta (percussion), Randy Crawford (vocal), Louis Aldebert, Monique Aldebert (backing vocals).

This small nifty cardboard box does not include a booklet. All CDs are in single mini LP replica sleeves (so no gatefolds for Chain Reaction or Those Southern Knights). There are no mastering credits given but all discs sound classy and are as good as you could wish for. At a guess all have original CD mastering which itself was so good there is absolutely no reason to remaster/tamper with the sound any further as additional remastering can cause/add excessive and unwanted loudness that could spoil/ruin what was so well mastered and recorded in the first instance.

The box itself is very cool looking. The discs are are all well worth having and budget price makes the entire package an absolute must buy if you are missing any of the titles from your collection. I love the Crusaders music from the 1970s and am delighted with this compact wee box. Another bonus is the fact all discs are genuine, so no worries about being conned with cloned CDs or nasty CD-Rs.

Verve Music Group is printed along the bottom of the back sleeves on all discs.

Box set is from Universal Music International. Made in the EU/Netherlands | The Jazz Labels

 

I would love to see this box followed up by another that covered all, or at least some, of those hard to find 1960s Pacific Jazz titles.

 

I lost track of The Crusaders albums after Street Life. Did they release any other noteworthy LPs after they hit the big time with Street Life, or did the commercial success of that record signal the beginning of the end for them?

 

This thread inspired me to go to Amazon and see what they have from the Pacific Jazz era. There's an inexpensive ($8.99) 2 cd set of three great Pacific Jazz albums: Freedom Sound, Lookin' Ahead, and At The Lighthouse. I have some on vinyl but couldn't resist ordering for listening in the car. They are good road music for sure. But a proper Pacific Jazz set would be welcomed.

 

Yes, a proper Pacific Jazz set would be very appealing! I am not aware of any 2CD release but know there is a (cloned) 3CD set issued on the cheap by Not Now Music (a UK Public Domain company)...

....and according to one poster the quality of their issues varies from the pretty good to the pretty awful (mostly needle drops) although I suspect they also clone existing CDs and possibly tamper with the treble & bass levels.

For further information about the sound quality of Not Now Music releases check out this thread...
Not Now Music - How is the sound quality

I actively try to avoid companies like this, although I know some people couldn't care less so long as they get some sort of copy of the music they want. I suppose you get what you pay for - and that is what makes the 5 Original Albums box such a great bargain - no discs are cloned, the music is sourced from authentic & original tapes, and you also get the CDs presented in their original mini LP sleeves!

 

Chile Con Soul is killer, a quintessential 1960s album. When I used to DJ, "Agua Dulce" was a tune that I would always reserve for the peak action.

 

You may be aware that Mosaic released a "complete Pacific Jazz quintet studio" box a while back. By obviously not issuing any of the live material(odd that Capitol actually released much of that on retail CDs),it does not include the Les McCann and Hubert Laws albums because they go beyond the scope of the quintet. Capitol did release the Laws album,the discussed above Chile Con Soul.

 

Unfortunately that Pacific Jazz box has always been hard to impossible to find (especially if you lived the UK) and nowadays, if you can find anyone offering it for sale (online), they are charging an arm and a leg for it. Hopefully sometime in the not so distant future all these recordings will get re-issued, and for a realistic price too.

 

Wow - that's a great box. I thought The Crusaders were one of the better bands to come out of that pop jazz scene in the 70's. Chain Reaction and Southern Knights were particular favorites in our crowd but that whole series of records were pretty consistent.

 

Just been playing through all discs in the 5 Original Albums box again.

On reflection, and probably due to the inclusion of the Joe Sample sting orchestration, Free As The Wind may not just be as crucial as the first 2 discs in the box, but is still a great album to have.

Although it was good to hear the title track from Street Life again I could live without it. All the other (intrumental) tracks on that disc have stood the test of time better than I expected and are all top notch Crusaders pieces.

 

That's a great box set if you don't have the majority of the albums already.

 

Discussion on all known recorded versions of the track Street Life.....

'Street Life' recorded by Randy Crawford solo?

 

No reflections on the mastering used here in this set? I can say for certain the USA MCA Records pressings aren't very good and I've heard many of these 5 pack box sets are budgeted for a reason. Seems like this set is from Germany, so they've used whatever is in the German market.

Many of the whatever-you-can-find re-issued remasters of the Universal Japan releases sound very good (with Those Southern Knights needing more attention than others). Most were remastered around the 2000s with "Rubidium Clock Cutting" remastering and I've noticed they do sound better than their USA counterparts (only because I've compared them sonically to them and not the European issued).

For whatever reason, many of the Crusaders albums from this era, most specifically Standing Tall (1982) get a limited reprint on CD from the 2004-era remastering in Japan every few years and sell out by the year's end.

Added note, the only album from this set to have a superior remaster is Street Life, which got a nifty HR Cutting/DSD Mastering in late 2014 after Joe Sample died -- likely because it was most commercially successful (not my favorite of this bunch, but upon each listen, every track is hard to skip over).

 

i was just looking at this...ive always been aware of The Crusaders just never had any in my collection. looks pretty good and im also interested in the period before this starts(1975) going back to when they dropped "Jazz" from their name

 

As bizarre as it might seem in today’s world, I saw the Crusaders open for the Stones in 1975. Keith watched from the side of the stage and walked out in view of the audience and hugged a few of the members as they exited the stage. That was back when line-ups for shows could be very diverse (just check the Fillmore line-ups) and audiences were more open-minded to diverse genres of music. I played Freedom Sound in the car yesterday. What a great summer album.

 

FREE AS THE WIND - THE CRUSADERS (Blue Thumb) CD

I'm reviving some Crusaders this week, starting with the wonderful FREE AS THE WIND (5 Original Albums box set version).