Acoustic Sounds is doing a 15% off sale right now. This brings the BN 80 releases down to about $20-$21, which is a great deal and comparable to the big box stores.
This afternoon I ordered In ‘n Out, A Swingin’ Affair, and Doin’ Allright along with Ghosteen by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds from Acoustic Sounds.
I really enjoy it. Was only familiar with his more upbeat stuff with Warne Marsh over the years. But this is a really good listen. The fades don’t really bother me either.
All these reports of the impressive sound quality of Indestructible... I have a French issue of this from 1985, DMM, mastered by Wally Traugott - sounds pretty good - and not an LP it's ever occurred to me to look for a better version of, but... at £13 in the Blue Note store I think curiosity to hear the difference may get the better of me.
And only £13.28 and in stock in the UK Blue Note store... even cheaper for anyone who hasn't used the 20% discount code. What a beautiful session it is. I have the Connoisseur vinyl - pulled it out for a listen this morning, prompted by your post - decent sound but feels like it could be improved upon...
Basara is $16 on Amazon. I caved and bought it even though I have the MMJ 45. 33s are more convenient for playing while doing other stuff around the house...
Weird...this post didn’t show when I posted my heads up. Oh well, maybe if people see it twice they’ll buy it!
I finally got through "Alone Together" last night. It took me four different attempts, one side per night, most likely attributed to the long holiday weekend and the style of music I was in the mood for. For me, this was a tough record to get my ears around. The way it constantly showcased each musician and the applause after each solo was a bit much for me at times. But as I made it through both records, I found myself enjoying the music more and more. Fade outs were a bit odd, but not that big of a deal. The sound is pretty good overall but not as good as I was hoping for. So for $25, not bad at all and I look forward to some more time with it, but will only be at a side a time as I just can't see myself sitting through it all at once. I am glad I got it though.
I sure would like to pick up Basra at that price, only I ordered it as part of a larger purchase directly from Blue Note store. They say they are missing two LPs in my order, even though when I made the purchase, all LPs were listed as in stock. It has been about a month now and still waiting. I am trying to remain patient, but not having much faith in my first and only purchase from BN direct.
There seems to be way too many complaints regarding deliveries from the BN store. I can understand people wanting to save money with discounts, but to me a few bucks off on titles that don't show up for months is not worth it.
Might be worth shooting them an email and seeing if they'll release the other records. When I ordered earlier in the year and a title was waiting on a repress, they sent me the bulk of the records as a separate shipment. Not sure if I've just been incredibly lucky, but I'm had little issue in dealing with BN direct.
Is this the US Blue Note store or the UK? I placed my first order with the UK store over the weekend, with two items awaiting stock...
After some nagging on my part, I experienced the same thing. One of the titles from my order in March isn't going to be available until operations are fully up and running (Tina Brooks - Minor Move) and so they finally shipped the remaining titles. Speaking of which, I noticed that Minor Move is sold out now so maybe I won't be receiving that one after all.
I've never been a fan of applauding solos - it's usually done as a matter of convention, I think - people often just following the lead of the first person to start applauding, regardless of the quality of the solo, so it has just become convention. I've witnessed some truly awful solos being applauded. When the applause is genuine and justified you can hear it and occasionally a genuine reaction spurs the musicians on, sometimes elevating the gig to a higher level. I'll never forget the sight of Wayne Krantz, Keith Carlock and Tim Lefebvre looking at each other in wonder at the response they were getting at one of our little local clubs... a younger than usual audience that night probably helped. That gig took off and never came back down to earth. @scotti - I've enjoyed your posts on this and the Tone Poet thread - just out of interest, do you get out to see much jazz live?
Thanks! I would rather have the applause kept at bay so to speak on the records themselves, I understand in the actual live setting though. On this particular release, it just comes across to scripted and I realize it's being polite, especially the way the solos are showcased. I agree with your comments and the way you described heartfelt applause, nicely put! Getting out to live shows, been to many small Jazz clubs (my favorite setting) over the years and have seen some wonderful performers, some legends, but unfortunately missed out on seeing many of the greats. But with that said, because of my line of work, I have been to over 3000 concerts. I pretty much stopped going to them when I retired though...I will say one thing, if I ever felt the concert was too loud, out the door I went as I tried my best to respect my ears.
They ship in stock items relatively quickly. Most of the complaints had to do with preorders not showing up on time, I believe, or people who bundled in stock items with preorders and not realizing that the in stock items wouldn’t ship until the complete order was ready to ship. Just break up any orders between in stock items in one cart and preorders in another and it’s smooth sailing.
Another issue is that people are ordering records that, by all indications, are in stock only to find out months later that the order is being held up because those items were out of stock the whole time.
I’ve only ordered direct from Blue Note a few times but have never had a problem and I’m overseas. Pre orders are clearly labelled and you get the option at checkout of splitting deliveries. I placed an order there a week or so ago and it was actually cheaper for me to split the delivery than ship all items at once, which was weird but welcome!
I’ve just started getting into jazz over the last year or so. I really enjoy Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Coltrane and Brubeck (Evans being my favorite). I’ve been interested in some of the BN80 releases but I was curious if any of you could recommend a few must-haves that are still available?
Both Freddie Hubbard albums in the series are pretty great. I also like Kenny Dorham's Una Mas, but that one is more Latin-tinged. Joe Henderson is the closest sounding thing to Coltrane in the series IMO. You might also enjoy Smokestack (Andrew Hill) when that's released. Not at all like Bill Evans (more like Horace Silver), but I find the Jutta Hipp album to be a charming and great-sounding piano album.
These three I really love: Lonnie Smith-Live At Club Mozambique, John Scofield-Hand Jive and Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers-Buhaina's Delight.
