@ShamPain excellent post, but I gotta comment a few things here: In the sixties, it was Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Jimmy Smith, The Three Sounds, and probably also the dearly beloved Stanley Turrentine who kept Blue Note alive. Blue Train sales probably helped, too, but I suppose the popular HardBop and the Soul Jazz recordings where bringing them more money. Someone mentioned earlier in this thread that Blue Note cleverly marked themselves in the 80s and 90s, giving them a mystique that placed them above other hard bop labels such as Prestige or Riverside. Certainly, the consistent quality of the releases and the cover art helped a lot. As does the fact that they recorded people like Tina Brooks or Andrew Hill, although these did not earn them any money. Also, they have the right people on board now. Verve, Prestige, Riverside, and so forth, could probably do extensive reissues right now, too, if they had the right people on board. Anyway, please keep them posts coming, they are very much appreciated
I prefer almost Any Coltrane title I have to Blue Train. But I totally love Trane so also BT and the TP makes it more enjoyable than ever. Crescent, A Love Supreme, Soultrane, Coltrane Jazz, Lush Life, Coltrane’s Sound, Giant Steps, they all get played here a lot more to be fair. But with the new TP, its nice to hear Blue Train a lot again.
I think of Blue Train and Kind Of Blue in a similar way…stone cold classics that are pretty much perfection. Is KOB Miles’ best album? There’s likely a thread for that and it’s probably a thousand pages long. I’d say the same thing about Coltrane- how do you pick a best for someone with such a varied catalog? I sure can’t.
Pretty much agreed, spot on. It may not even be top ten for me although I still love it and consider myself a Coltrane completist. It would be so hard to pick a top 20 all time jazz albums or top 20 Blue Notes. I'd say Blue Train is a bit overrated overall but still great and John personally loved it so there is that as well.
@ShamPain all good, maybe best to leave this behind us. Sorry if you read me wrong, it was just how that original was worded and the way I took it. You know how emails and posts can be read and not interpreted correctly. Wasn't as specific as your follow up which I now understand what you are saying. So glad you are joining in as we like to have a bit of fun here. By the way, who are some of your favorite jazz artists? And thanks for your nice response!
It's top mid-tier Coltrane for me. It's not as adventurous as his Impulse or Atlantic stuff. It's definitely a step above most of his Prestige albums. I think of it almost as the culmination of his Prestige-era music, in that it's very well played but ultimately within the conventions of the time. Like, his best hard bop album. I think it's one of the first times his band was really on the same elevated level he was at the time. Like, I really enjoy the Prestige Coltrane and The Cats, but this is not only the next level for Coltrane but a session in which the other musicians were right there with him. So in that I think it gains its popularity because it's conventional enough to please the folks who didn't get into the Impulse era but has a polish and musicianship that puts it over the hit-it-and-quit-it Prestige days. I reserve the right to change my mind in the next 10 minutes, but I'd rank my Top 10 personal faves (in no order) as: 1) Love Supreme 2) Ole 3) MFT 4) w/ Thelonious Monk 5) Crescent 6) Blue Train 7) Coltrane (1957) 8) KOB 9) Giant Steps 10) Someday My Price Will Come
I don't think this is true at all. We don't have any exact sales figures for BN while it was an independent, but we do have trade papers like billboard and internal indicators like who got full color covers on BN. Lee Morgan's The Sidewinder was the biggest seller while they were still an independent and Lou Donaldson's Alligator Boogaloo had a significant impact under Liberty's ownership, but many albums on the label probably outsold blue Train at the time. As Coltrane's star rose, BN was happy to reap the benefits and kept reissuing BT on a regular basis. And it's no doubt a more significant part of the catalog now than it was when it was issued or for some time after that. But I think you massively overrate it's importance to the label. If it was that important, we'd have had a Tone Poet or similar reissue sooner. It's a fine album and no doubt a steady seller, but it's not the be all and end all, either artistically or commercially.
I agree with @scotti in the sense that judging Blue Train in comparison to other Coltrane records (or even other Blue Note records) is futile. For me, it doesn’t matter that I like the Impulse records better, or that there are other records on the Blue Note label that I might like better. I still like Blue Train a lot and think it’s a killer record worth being excited about.
I would agree that Blue Train is better than most of the Prestige albums. Like many top jazz artists, his music improved bigly when he quit playing standards and shifted mostly to his own compositions.
Well I bit the bullet and stumped up for the Stereo Blue Train even though I said I wouldn't and I already got the Mono. I sold a bass cab so I had a little spare and what the hell. Wow. The Mono is good and it's nice to have that presentation but the Stereo is just fabulous. I have a DMM and a 75th, but this is just a different level altogether. The extras are nice but I can't see me playing them too often and the essay is a bit thin IMO, but the basic LP and the sound of all of it is first rate. I don't think I've ever really fully appreciated Paul Chambers on this record before. I don't have a MM version, but I honestly can't imagine what more I'd get from a copy on my system.
Yeah, I totally agree with your description of Blue Train as a "heavily contextualized masterpiece." For me, Coltrane's absolute peak has to be the run of albums with his classic quartet. This is where his melodic and harmonic ideas reached full maturation, and the band itself developed an identifiable sound and chemistry that took the music to another level. I would personally say A Love Supreme is Coltrane's top album (in concept, importance, etc.) while Live at Birdland is my favorite. But Blue Train has an importance that goes beyond just being a cool Blue Note hard bop session with Coltrane leading a great group of players (though it is certainly that). If I'm not mistaken, Blue Train is the first Coltrane record that features the famous "Coltrane changes," the harmonic ideas that were the basis for Giant Steps (see "Moment's Notice and "Lazy Bird"). Don't overlook this historical significance. Also, I would dare say Kenny Drew hangs in there with the changes better than Tommy Flanagan (both are among my favorite piano players of all time, with Kenny Drew probably in my top 5). An interesting question, to me, is why do we see this harmonic evolution on Blue Train recorded in 1957, but not so much on Prestige and not really until he gets to Atlantic and then Impulse. I'm speculating but I would guess that it has something to do with Blue Note's respect for the art form and generosity with rehearsal time. Maybe for this one Blue Note session Coltrane felt like he had the freedom to stretch out a little, in a way that he couldn't under Bob Weinstock and Prestige (known to be somewhat more budget-conscious...).
I hadn’t thought about Blue Train in exactly this way, but this framing makes a lot of sense to me. And you’re spot on about the excellence of his band on this session.
eh. I am pretty darn happy with the mono. It sounds really freaking killer and there are certainly people who love the presentation of it over the stereo.
I think that nails it for me. BT was the first of Coltrane's "album" statements and for that reason the top of the first part of his career. And I was also thinking it was on Blue Note because there he would have had at least some time to work it out in rehearsals, which he would never have gotten at Prestige. He was at the right place at the right time to get this one the way he wanted. He would expand his concepts a bit more and lock in a band that shared the spirit on the Atlantic sides, but that was still to come and shouldn't overshadow this as a great album in its own rights.
I'd just mention that in the eighties and nineties those other labels were the ones with the comprehensive reissue campaigns, as you can see the 1980s OJC catalogue was pretty much a book and the 1991 Fantasy catalogue was also substantial, I couldn't find my late eighties Blue Note catalogue, but for comparison it's a single sheet folded a few times. There's absolutely nothing stopping Concord from doing their own comprehensive reissue campaigns similar to the Tone Poet and Blue Note Classics, instead they dither with one steps and licencing the cream to AP, but back in the eighties the OJCs more than held their own against the Blue Note reissues.
over the top happy with my mono ...in my humble estimation its the definitive version of this recording. enjoy it with confidence. however, like you all the reviews make me want to get the stereo TP as well and if it were a single LP w/o the alt-takes i would probably have it already!! where does all this madness stop?!
I don’t think there are any Coltrane changes in Moments Notice? It doesn’t move through cycles of major thirds downwards harmonically but through C, Bflat, F and E flat?
It's not just marketing, it is distribution Blue Note CDs have been distributed in far higher quantities than OJC CDs &c. There have been numerous reissue sprints. I don't believe that Blue Train is a more accessible record than any of the Atlantic sides.
I think Lee Morgan should be on that list. If not for anything else, at least for Sidewinder. It was a pretty big deal at the time for Blue Note.
As well as one highly-limited mono LP per year for the Record Store Day, ensuring that nobody can get a copy if the distributors on a single mobbed day muck it up.
I've blocked "Quiet Kenny" from my memory due to disappointment at not having a hope of getting a copy.
Getting slightly off topic, but on that tangent, I remember the RSD feeding frenzy over the Craft Art Pepper mono. Now there are oodles of that title available on Discogs for shop price. Back onto topic - received my mono and stereo BT in the mail. I'll try giving at least one of them a listen tonight, probably stereo. I originally settled on just buying the mono, but that Udiscover 40% of sale convinced me to try both flavors.
