Agreed. Lots to love about the Ornette Coleman Print St set. Babs Gonzalez was new to me, but glad to hear this clip. All the Joe Farrell CTI records are interesting and perhaps overlooked. The Quartet self-titled with red cover is my current fave. Congrats on the Traneing In! Does it use the original metalwork ('van gelder')? I expect blue label would. NP: Sonny Rollins On Impulse (Impulse stereo RP 'van gelder') Shoot-out between original mastering and the 2017 Elemental press by Grundman and Bell. Not sure if I need to also check against Ryan Smith 2021 remaster, Kevin Gray's 2010 version (SACD still in print), and 24/96 version on Qobuz (which I suspect was an output of the Grundman exercise as it came out in 2018), but I like this album enough to be curious which I prefer. I suspect this copy cropped up in bins yesterday as someone bought the Ryan Smith master and sold off this repress from 1970 as they'd 'upgraded'. I find a LOT of original or early pressings of albums that are also in the Blue Note Classics and Verve Acoustic Sounds series, sometimes only when the release schedule is announced and before the LP is available to compare. This is either coincidental, or suggests an assumption that the newest will be the best, and it is safe to shed the old used copy. And no intention to actually compare. Also a sense that the originals value will diminish once a good substitute is readily available (something we haven't seen happen). While there's a degree of reliability about certain mastering engineers, I much prefer to actually compare. And given questions around Impulse tapes, it is by no means clear that newer is better. Initial impression is that Grundman and Bell did a wonderful job. Shame Elemental Music cut corners on the jacket (flimsy matte sleeve). This is one of the few titles where we can readily compare the mastering styles of the three leading engineers of jazz classics (Gray, Smith, Grundman) to Van Gelder. All three are clearly very talented, so its less quality than taste, and which decisions sit best. And then if Elemental and Verve Acoustic Sounds are almost indistinguishable, the shiny sleeve on the Verve copy may give it an edge.
I hope someday we get a Pharoah album more along the lines of his Livestream with Azar Lawrence last year. They played a Pharoah composition I didn't recognize, I think it was named after his wife. Really nice stuff, Trane-esque ballad.
@davidpoole I have a couple of Babs albums: Sunday Afternoon with Babs Gonzales at Small’s Paradise – Dauntless 6005 Babs Gonzales – Tales of Manhattan – Jaro 5000 (Fresh Sounds 1602) I can’t say these are something I pull out regularly but I love hearing them once in awhile. I can’t say which I like more but I’d probably have to say Tales of Manhattan although Sunday Afternoon is live and that has a special appeal. Tales is a bit harder to find than Smalls.
If you want a superior cover for this Rollins classic, you definitely need the mono. The original mono shifted the image upward and is superior with respect to framing the image. It also has a high gloss In fact, it is a great one for framing on the wall.
NP: Erroll Garner - Erroll (Mercury mono 1957) This pic is my copy. The cover looks clean and shiny given its 65 years old, and the cover photo of Garner and Ruther is charming. Bass – Wyatt Ruther (tracks: A4, B1) Congas – Candido (tracks: A2, B1) Drums – Fats Heard (tracks: A4, B1) I prefer it to the original cover that appears to have preceded it by not long, though the original captures the shifting moods Garner is able to deliver in what is mostly a solo piano suite. Sunday morning was a virtual yoga class, the first in half a year and much needed. Now it is off to get the car fixed and pick up my son. The EmArcy/Mercury LPs (1954-57) of which this was the last have fun covers, but the LPs are rarely playable.
I gave it two spins in the past couple days but I found it only mildly interesting. Maybe a calm background for a meditation session but it didn't do much for me as an active listener. The entire work is based on a seven note figure with a vibes and string like sound that repeats throughout the piece. Part 7 is the longest at 9:30 minutes replete with celestial sounds to make you feel like you're floating around on a space cloud.
I like both of those but the real winner is the Blue Note that collects earlier sides: Some wonderfully entertaining music within.
NP Bobo Stenson - Serenity (ECM) Slept poorly last night, going gentle. I’ve been playing a lot of open mics lately and I’ve played drums with a singer/songwriter I met at an open mic. It is a challenge coming up with my own parts for songs I don’t know but so far he is happy with my work and he’s a good songwriter IMO. My other new project is helping a brewmaster make Saké. Fascinating stuff.
Yeah, I'm not big generally on "calm," "background," "meditation," "celestial sounds to make you feel like your floating around on a space cloud" as an aesthetic. Nor on music that is heavily reliant on atmosphere and tone color. Like, I saw in Giovanni Russonello's year-end list in the New York Times he described the Patricia Brennan album that he liked (which I haven't heard) as "something like a landscape of vapor, full of wandering melodies lost in the fog" -- sounds like something I'd hate and have little patience for from that description. He also loved Jason Moran's The Sound Will Tell You, which I didn't care for all all, a solo piano album, released in conjunction with a gallery show of the pianist's works on paper based on his hand movements at the piano that struck me as a static, dull and even having a navel-gazing, self-interested quality I found really off-putting. There may be qualities in some of this music that find more favor with some listeners than will likely be the case for me. But, of course, you never know until you listen.
With the Sanders album I expected to hear some development in the subsequent movements but nothing much happened. I suppose that was the intention? It's a meditative, chill type of album.
Mostly Swedish jazz records but maybe some of you will appreciate my latest video. Some more or less rare records from my shelves.
It's one of my most-played 2021 releases. At nearly all times, it's traditionally pretty. Across the full 45 min or so of its running time, it mounts a slow build followed by a slow ease-out. The expanded time frame rewards patience; this music is not in a hurry. It also doesn't outwardly sound like jazz. It's much more like Sanders's "Harvest Time" track from his 1977 India Navigation release, Pharoah, in that slow repetition creates a trance-like vibe that's stylistically closer to new age music than bebop or post-bob or the jazz avant-garde. Promises is really lovely and satisfying, though, and will definitely be making my list of favorites from 2021.
Imperial 3006 / 3007 [Japan] - Charlie Mariano " Modern Saxophone Stylings of Charlie Mariano" - rec. 1950 - 1951
I'm lookong forward to listening to it. I DO in fact enjoy slow developing or even barely developing music sometimes. I probably shouldn't have suggested otherwise before. I mean last year I went on a whole Morton Feldman binge!
Thanks for the Babs recommendations @Bradd I see what you mean. Completely different crop on the mono. FWIW: Even the later press i have is still heavy gloss, which I like. But agreed, far superior more balanced framing on mono. I've been collecting Impulse monos but the notion of a fold-down mix undermines the appeal. In a few exceptional instances I prefer it. Ooh. Then you're in for a treat on Traneing In. I have a few of the Prestige Trane originals, and they sound fantastic. I have George Horn's OJC LP of Traneing In, which is fine, but remain curious to hear original mastering.
NP: Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage (BN Classic Vinyl Series 2021) With the arrival this afternoon of the BN Classic version by Kevin Gray, I can do a shootout with an early RVG stereo vinyl, the Alan Yoshida Blu-Ray audio, and the 24/192 Qobuz (maybe the same as Yoshida). So far based on first few tracks can't imagine improving on the BN Classic, but haven't heard the others in a while. This album is well worth the scrutiny. LOVELY. Really a highlight from Hancock's amazing discography.
WP: Donald Byrd - Places and Spaces (BN Classic Vinyl Series 2021) At first, feeling like a should have auditioned this first. It sounds 1975, in a disco soul way. But I'm coming around to it by end of side two. NP: Woody Shaw - Woody Three (Columbia WLP 1979) New to me, and completing my Shaw on Columbia series, which all remain inexpensive given the quality of the ensembles. Love Shaw's trumpet sound.
