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

Reviews of the Maiden Voyage 33 are out already? Can you put up some links?

 

Apparently the forthcoming MM re-issue is based on a second generation analog tape copy made in the 1970's... (See: http://robertmusic.blogspot.com.es/2014/12/sneak-peek-at-upcoming-2015-music.html)

 

Sure, they have come up before here, I think there are a few more out there also:

One is from the Absolute Sound: http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/a-blue-note-celebration/

Another one here: http://robertmusic.blogspot.com.es/2014/12/sneak-peek-at-upcoming-2015-music.html

 

For the longest time, Black Saint & the Sinner Lady was the only jazz album I knew and liked, because it's distinctly identifiable. That and Kind of Blue, because Kind of Blue. Most other jazz sounded just about the same, and I envied all you people who got something out of it that I didn't. Even two years ago, I lost a round of a trivia game because I didn't know what instrument Louis Armstrong played, and it would have been a wild guess if you asked me to identify whether a given instrument I was hearing was a sax or a trumpet. Now, of course, these are obvious, but in the early days of my jazz listening, Charlie Parker sounded like John Coltrane sounded like pretty much everyone else.

When I started actively getting into jazz, Dolphy and Lester Young were two of the first artists I latched onto, because they have very distinct, easily identifiable styles. So I started tracking down Dolphy recordings; even early on, I could tell the difference between Oliver Nelson and Eric Dolphy on Straight Ahead and Abstract Truth, or identify Dolphy's solos in Chico Hamilton numbers. And there's no mistaking Hat & Beard for... anything else, really, and that's useful when you're figuring out your taste, whether you like it and you don't. But a King pressing of Out to Lunch was one of the first specific pressings I actively sought out. I wouldn't even say it's my favorite Blue Note now, but it's a personally significant one.

Add in Out to Lunch's rebel status (even outside of jazz lovers), it's distinctly memorable cover, and I imagine a lot of people latched on to it for the same reasons I did... But I digress. So to put it back on topic... I can't wait for January!

I believe I read somewhere that the MM Out to Lunch 45 was from a second-gen tape that had been otherwise (or at least relatively) unused since being made, since the first was so out of shape... Presumably the 33 would be from the same source?

 

What's this guy's beef with Steve Hoffman? Every post I read from him regarding these 45rpms, he's taking a shot at Hoffman. It's getting old. We get it. Move on already. Christ. Can he actually write something without mudslinging?

 

From the robertmusic blurb:

"What I really get a sense of when listening to the Music Matters is the nautical adventure narrative of the music, how much this is a cycle of tone pieces that in every sense was a concept album well before the first rock concept albums. Tony Williams cymbals splash across the soundstage and put up a wall of shimmering waves, that previous masterings just didn't get. Carter's bass finally has presence and depth of tone. Coleman digs deep and his tone - on the AP 45 whitewashed and weak - here is powerful, rich and vibrant, full of color, as is Hubbard, who has attack and articulation completely missing on the Analogue Productions."

I gotta admit: stuff like this makes me chuckle. I know I sound like a broken record but I just can't begin to understand how a particular mastering can create such a dramatic revelation in the music for someone.

 

It's a nautical adventure with shimmering waves. What don't ya understand?

 

Yes, this is what I was presuming also... I had a listen to my MM 45RPM version the other night. I love this music.

 

Turns out, it was right here that I read it: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...45-rpm-music-matters-upcoming-release.169082/

 

Thing of beauty mate, thing of beauty. Thanks for sharing.

 

So this means that the tape used was not a second generation, correct?

 

The second gen tape is for Maiden Voyage. Not Out to Lunch.

 

I think you're right! Sounds like the "Do Not Use" tape was itself a second-gen, and they used a first-gen for the MM version.

I must've been mixing stories about the Maiden Voyage and Out to Lunch tapes.

 

Its all about the sound. When its good it can raise the hairs on the back of your neck. When poor it can turn you of the music entirely. Its not necessarily the mastering per se but the overall quality of the sound reproduction (i.e. making everything in the chain the best it can possibly be). Same reason why folks may spend a lot of $$$ on their hi-fi equipment or musicians spend a lot of $$$ to get the best instruments.

 

Looking through some interesting posts from long ago I first time! read this last post of Joe Harley here about the switch from 45 to 33 RPM. He answered most of the topics we discussed over the last months I guess.

Especially three types of information as I understood them were most interesting to me:

45RPM for 50$ seems partly too expensive for customers and therefore not really worth the effort for most Blue Note recordings. I guess we'll not see a later reissue series on 45 RPM MM Blue Notes from Cohearent. Keeping the 45 RPM's while buying some new 33RPM makes even more sence to me now.

KG took over alone after mastering together with SH because Steve's knowledge could be adopted by KG in the meantime. Well, there seems to be no copyright on such knowledge. So I think we still hear Steve's Know How in today's MM.

Some of the last 45RPM seem to have been done with the upgraded Cohearent gear.

Here's the link to Joe' last posting and below also pasted (don't know if I'm the only one who missed it):
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/posts/9805493/

Joe seems to still read in here, so hopefully we'll see him back interactive some time. He gave so much valuable Info in the past.





Hi gang,

Long time … partly due to health issues and mostly due to just being insanely busy.

For the longest time I was having password problems getting logged on here, and once I started traveling internationally (for both Music Matters and AudioQuest) like a mad man, my visits here became rare as hens teeth.

So, regarding the recently announced 33RPMissue of 12 Blue Notetitles let me explain:

When Ron and I first started mastering these titles with Steve and Kevin, we used the Acoustech mastering facility (located within the RTI pressing plant) as is. Very quickly I realized that we should replace all of the interconnect cables in the facility. (Hey, I’m a wire guy after all and I knew what replacing these funky cables would do.)

I’ve forgotten how many BN titles we did before we made these wiring change … maybe the first 15 titles or so? However, when we made the change, the improvement was apparent to everyone involved. https://www.musicmattersjazz.com/category_s/45.htm

Keep in mind that during this entire time of the 45RPM releases, one or both of us was ALWAYS present at the mastering sessions. And we have a very specific idea of how these things should sound. It’s not like we both sat there passively while SH and KG did their work. Ron and I are very active participants in the process. If we felt that the overall presentation needed livening up … you can be assured that we spoke up!

I remember at the time listening to some of the 45RPM BN releases that we didn’t get rights to and thinking “oh man, I’d love to have a crack at that!” More on this shortly …

As time went on, we all became intimately familiar with what needed to be done to RVG’s tapes in the mid 50s, late 50s, early 60s, mid 60s and so on. Rudy was very consistent in what he did, thankfully.

At a certain point … I forget the exact session, it became clear that we really only needed Kevin to handle the session duties. That’s when you start to see only his scribe in the dead wax. This is NOT a cut on Steve. It’s simply a matter of having done so many BN sessions at that point that we all had a great understanding of what was needed for a given RVG master.

When Kevin moved his mastering facility out of RTI and into his own COHEARENT room, several improvements were made, resulting in a clear and audible lowering of the noise floor.

Ron and I kept pumping out BN titles at 45rpm that interested us … titles that we knew had merit and were worthy of reissue. However, last summer we began to realize that we were having a harder time finding truly worthy titles for reissue on $50 45RPM LPs. (There will always be someone who lives and dies for the re-release of something like Don Wilkerson’s Preach Brother … that’s the nature of the reissue business.)

We made the decision to end the 45RPM reissue series with two of the greatest live BN recordings of all time: Vol 1 and Vol 2 of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messenger’s Live At The Café Bohemia from 1955. These are mono session but for those of you who have already played them you know … these are incredible in every way, music and sound. They represent to us, a most fitting way to end the 45RPM reissue program. In their own way, they represent the essence of BN soul and sound.

Now, on to the announcement of the 12 33RPMBNs. 2014 is the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Blue Notelabel by Francis Wolff and Alfred Lion. For this occasion, we decided to present 12 of the most notable BN albums of all time in 33RPMbut using our heralded double gatefold jackets with rare session photos included. This also gave us an opportunity to go back to notable BN titles (like Cannonball Adderley/Miles Davis’ Somethin’ Else and Kenny Burrell’s Midnight Blue) that we missed the first time around and give them the double gatefold jacket treatment as well as have a fresh look at re-mastering. We did the same for some of the very early titles in our own reissue series … it was wonderful to have another look at Hank Mobley’s classic Soul Station for instance.

In 2013, Kevin Gray improved his mastering chain in numerous ways including an upgrading of all cable connections to AQ WEL Signature or AQ WILD interconnects and AC cable.

You can hear the results of these improvements on both the new series of 12 BN 33’s and also many of the final BN 45’s from this year. You can also hear the improvement in every single release coming out of Cohearant Mastering!

Reissuing select Blue Notetitles in either 45 or 33 RPM in the absolute finest form available these past years has been a project of immense satisfaction for the entire Music Matters team. I can’t begin to tell you how proud, how emotional I become when looking at our “children”.

Ron and I can say with full assurance that we’ve given it our absolute best. It has been a sincere pleasure serving fellow Blue Note lovers.

What’s next for us? Stay tuned!

Joe, Ron, Kevin, Michael and Chris

 

I'm listening to a copy of Out To Lunch posted on YouTube. I think it would be a very interesting listen and I'm for being challenged once in a while, but I'm not sure how often I would pull it out. I'd need to listen to it a LOT in order to really wrap my brain around it. And my wife? Fogeddaboudit. Playing it would result in the easiest way to get her to vacate the premises if I had a wish fer her to do so.

 

Yes, there is distortion on the piano in "Lonely Woman." I presume that was how it was recorded. Great tune though.

 

I think I'm about to drop some dough on Music Matters soon due to a money gift from my father-in-law.

I'm thinking about:

Song For My Father
Maiden Voyage
Soul Station
True Blue

The first 2 are hopefully upgrades over what I have. The latter 2 will be in my collection for the first time.

 

Excellent legal analysis....

I hear a little of Steve, a bit of Kevin, some Ron, a hint of Joe, a fair amount of Van Gelder and even, from time to time, some guy playing trumpet I was previously unfamiliar with.

 

I think, when you play it backward, you can hear someone say over and over again, "Turn me on, dead man."

 

He didn't really speak specifically about the reason for the change from 45 to 33 though, did he? Or did I miss it?

 

No, you didn't miss it.

 

He says: "Ron and I kept pumping out BN titles at 45rpm that interested us … titles that we knew had merit and were worthy of reissue. However, last summer we began to realize that we were having a harder time finding truly worthy titles for reissue on $50 45RPM LPs. (There will always be someone who lives and dies for the re-release of something like Don Wilkerson’s Preach Brother … that’s the nature of the reissue business.)"

In other words, there are only so many titles that have a viable market at the $50 price point for double 45s. They can cover more titles at the lower $35 price point without taking as much risk, and they can redo the titles that, for whatever reasons, they weren't satisfied with.

 

It's far more likely they're simply churning the handful of titles they have under license. Citing a shortage of titles worthy of reissue in the BN catalog is laughable.

 

They didn't say they couldn't find titles worthy of reissue. They said they couldn't find titles worthy of reissue at a price of $50. Given that we've had page after page of discussion here on this precise point--that the audiophile LP market caters to tried-and-true warhorse releases and doesn't get too adventurous--I have no reason to doubt Ron and Joe's apparent assessment of the market, which presumably is based on observations relating to their own stock.

I agree that it's easier to repress titles under license, but that assumes that the license covers multiple pressings at the different speeds. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, we're not privy to that information. I know Steve posted upthread that the license issue is key, and I believe him. But it doesn't seem like Music Matters is having difficulty getting licenses for titles they haven't previously released, either.