Music Matters Definitive Blue Note 45 RPM and 33 & 1/3 RPM vinyl series (pt7)

Thanks! That's the form I used, but somehow missed the certificate, though I looked for it. Never mind, nothing to see here.

 

Overlooked or decided the tape wasn't in good enough shape?

 

If you're a fan of Kenny Burrell, a real overlooked performance is his contribution to Thad Jones "detroit-new york junction" album.
He's in fine form on this early Blue Note session.

 

Talking of Kenny Burrell he features on This 'live' nightclub date with a jazz trio, revealed to be a faked on the Columbia compilations that have since come out, is nonetheless a great LP, maybe the best single Columbia LP from Aretha. John Hammond discovered her and just wanted great music, but the label couldn't decide if she was a show tune singer, jazz or r&b and never figured out she was all of the above and deserved her own category.

This is the most jazzy Aretha ever and if she'd wanted to concentrate on this one area of her talent, she would still be ruling it. Worth the buy just for the track “Without The One You Love”.



Personnel: Aretha Franklin, vocals & piano on B1 & B4 / Teddy Harris, piano / Kenny Burrell, guitar / James “Beans” Richardson, bass / Hindel Butts, drums

Pure Pleasure Records CS 9151 - Release date: 25.08.2016

 

The Guardian did a great photo essay on Music Matters Jazz.. take a look..

How to remake a Blue Note jazz album – in pictures »

 

@ the MM website, Idle Moments shot up by $15 within the past 3-4 days. I was just about to place an order. I noticed several other price increases as well.


They must have really taken a bath on some of these titles in order for them to have adopted such a shady business model so late in the game.

 

I feel your pain. This is why I pretty much took released MM titles off my wish list. When I went to order I discovered price increases. It also means I didn't order titles that didn't get price increases because I wanted the free shipping by ordering them together.

 

I'll just wait for the represses of the "in demand" 33s, when the prices go back down to $40. There's no pulling the wool over my eyes.

 

Could somebody please repost that quote that MM sent out about going direct in order to keep prices at a minimum? I can't seem to find it. What a laugh that was.

 

It was in an email they sent subscribers.

 

Somebody actually posted it in one of these MM threads. I could use a good chuckle, if anyone could take the time to find it.

 

I'm definitely not a happy camper, the reneged on their word quickly enough!

 

Thanks bud. That's some kind of gem that you just came up with.

"That's exciting to us, because now we can also introduce incentives and savings for customers that we just could not see happen when so many other people had a piece of the pie in the distribution channels. To begin with, we will standardize pricing on titles at $39.95 on all 33RPM titles, and eliminate situations where we've seen inflated prices of $50 or even $60 in some markets when the sale was out of our hands."

 

Don't forget this one:

"...there will be no more creative pricing on our titles."

 

You're absolutely correct. My bad for the oversight.

 

Perhaps they meant,

"None will Price more creatively."

 

Shady pricing concerns aside, at least we can all admit that we absolutely love this product, right?

(Joe Harley is looking over my shoulder as we speak, so please agree).

 

I priced out eight 45 rpm titles that have been on my list, and one 33 rpm title, and found that Music Matters had the lowest prices on them. They were all priced at their initial sale price, with the exception of the 33, The Golden 8, which has seen an eight-dollar price increase. Most of these are probably not the best selling titles, but hey, that's supply and demand for you. (I agree that Music Matters should not have written that pricing policy and then not followed through on it, but that's a customer relations issue. I'm not going to lose sleep over prices going up as supply drops, and they've removed the policy from the site). Years after release, these titles (and many others) are still available directly from MM at the original price, while many of them are available at inflated prices elsewhere. So, I've done a build-your-own mini subscription. Here's what I chose:

Art Blakey - Like Someone in Love

Blue Mitchell - The Thing to Do

Freddie Hubbard - Open Sesame

Joe Henderson - Our Thing

Lee Morgan - Tom Cat

Sonny Clark - Sonny’s Crib

Tina Brooks - Back to the Tracks

Freddie Hubbard - Goin’ Up

Kenny Clarke, Francy Boland and Co. - The Golden 8

 

I feel like Nostradamus.

But again, I have tried to separate Music Matters into separate categories -- 1) the mastering. 2) the record pressing quality control, 3) the customer service. I don't think there's any doubt the enormously high quality of the mastering. They're pretty f'ing brilliant. For the most part, record pressing quality control has been fairly high, but not perfect. Which comes to 3, the customer service. They don't always seem to connect with what their customers actually want in customer service. It's like your house painter telling you what color you want. It comes off as a bit, well, tone deaf.

There are several titles that I would like, and that conditional tense is absolutely appropriate here, but I have misgivings about what the personality of the company has been lately, and I worry about if I do end up with a problem, whether I am sure with certainty that they'd make it right and happily.

 

Arguably they could have kept this passage just by shifting the emphasis a bit...

Now that that last 33rpm's are known, I may well delve into some of the 45rpm's (only have Herbie Hancock's 'Speak Like A Child'), though can't see myself forking over list though...

 

The prices are all over the place now! $38.95, $39.95, $49.95, $54.95! Whew!

 

How does that work though? If you take a bath on some titles, wouldn't that inspire you to reduce the price? If it didn't sell at $40, how is it going to sell at $55?

 

I still think Music Matters was only talking about the new release price of $39.95 for 33rpm titles.

This issue of 'last of' and 'out of print' titles having higher prices is separate from what
I believe MM was trying to address by bringing the distribution in house.

If you want the $39.95 price, order it when it comes out. If you buy a copy at a higher price,
be thankful you didn't miss out. I can't believe the amount of consternation that $10 or $15 seems
to generate for some people. Are these purchases mandatory or elective? Gosh, isn't this supposed
to be fun? I'd charge $100 each if this was my company. You're in or out.

 

- Though I'm not sure upping the price due to low volume, then just repressing more is smart either. Many of those 33s were out of stock until they weren't.