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

I believe that was in a segment from the recent Blue Note documentary.

 

Decided to pull the trigger on the John Coltrane- Blue Train MMJ (Mono). Ordered off Ebay for 197.00 USD shipped. I've heard lots of good things about this pressing. I thought to myself buy this before the price is triple what i paid.

I have the 2008 Stereo AP of said album and think it sounds dam good. If the price us right I'll buy more MMJ pressings.

 

Did you buy the SRX version?

 

When I receive my order I will play Clifford Brown first and report back regarding any buzzing sound on disc 2.

 

Can someone remind me what the handle of the music matters dude on here is please.
Missed every drop this year - I gotta start following him.
drNrg or something?

 

drkNRG

 

Thanks bud.
You seem to have been cleaning up!
What time was it here when the SRX drops happened?

 

Ha! Thanks. Unfortunately I missed the last releases as I woke up to an email the next morning that they'd been released during the night! Schiit happens, it's not the end of the world.

 

The QRP repress of Idle Moments I received in mid-March was perfect. Here is what I wrote about it at that time.

 

Off topic but I really wish Acoustic Sounds International ordering would step into the 21st century.

 

There’s an audiophile YouTube guy I know in Germany. He just received a couple of boxes from Acoustic Sounds with more than a dozen albums. Not sure how they were shipped but his latest order last week arrived in Düsseldorf in 3-4 days. That’s faster than I get records from them in Seattle.

 

When you pay 100+ USD for international shipping (to get 3 albums), it better be that fast

edit: I have only mentioned this maybe once in this thread but before the MMJ SRX re-issues I had ordered from MMJ only twice - and I have almost all of the 33 RPM records (some of them even as double copies). To get to that point I think I paid 600 USD for shipping to get these albums in 2 shipments.

 

Speed isn't the issue. They ship extremely fast! It's communication and assistance with orders. Also the fact they don't quote shipping, so I have to send a second payment several days later.

 

Just finishing up the first spins of Speak No Evil and Midnight Blue SRX releases. These are both spectacular. MMJ may have saved the best for last on these two. My copy of MB is not perfect as it plays with a few more ticks than I would like, but nothing to warrant a return and could very well clean up with a few more plays and/or another cleaning. Speak No Evil is absolutely out of this world. So glad to finally have a quality copy of this amazing album.

I will eventually compare my three copies of MB (SRX, standard MMJ, and AP), but early impressions of the SRX are extremely favorable. This is one of my favorite albums to play for jazz newbies or to demo the sound that vinyl can achieve. I have some albums that (IMO) sound better, but are not as accessible as this session. I've gotten many people to get their feet wet with jazz using this album. My other favorite for this purpose is probably my original mono pressing of Getz Au Go Go. J'adore!

I also grabbed a copy of The Magnificent Thad Jones to meet the free shipping threshold as it was back down to $65 when ordering. Still need to clean that one and give it a spin.

 

Whoa!
Not MMJ-related, but I just saw that there's finally going to be first vinyl issue of Bobby Hutcherson's "The Kicker", as part of the Tone Poet series.
It's a title that I badly wanted MMJ to release (and I made the request several times), but it wasn't to be.
Still, I'm pretty excited about it. It'll be the first Tone Poet title I'll pick up.

Here is a link to one pre-order option.

 

It has been "Clifford Brown - Memorial Album" for some time now. I have a mono BN 1526 that I bought in the 60s (or so). Lou Donaldson is only on side two. Gigi Gryce is alto on side one.

 

Are you talking about Audiophilelaws?

 

Memorial Album is an LP program of two sessions that were originally released on Blue Note 10" releases: New Star on the Horizon (with Gryce) and New Faces New Sounds (with Donaldson).

Donaldson was given top billing on the original release, with Brown named second but given co-leader status.

Lou Donaldson - Clifford Brown - New Faces – New Sounds

 

They're also releasing Oblique in the future.

I'd think as a MMJ lover there'd be at least 5 titles on tone poet that would be up any Blue Note fan's alley, especially at near the same quality for under $30.

 

Yes. I only pointed out that it has been released as "Clifford Brown - Memorial Album" for decades now. Anyway Clifford Brown is stellar on this album.

 

I try to not revisit this but then I feel sorry for what could be a newbie seeing this opinion without balance. So I will offer mine.

So far, Tone Poets are not “near the same quality.”

They could be and the idea is there, but until they have a good run of reissues without newly introduced speed problems, they simply are not competitive with the run that Music Matters had.

The Prisoner and Chet Baker Sings have me very optimistic, however.

 

From my perspective they most certainly are “near” the same quality and in fact are effective equals in packaging, sound and pressing quality in all aspects except one.

And I understand for some people it’s a big one.

At the same time, as far as I can tell, there are many TP titles without speed issues and those, to me, can be considered equal to MM release in all aspects besides rarity.

Being that the point was that out of the thirty titles, it’s surprising to see a total dismissal of the entire series considering the affordability, it just seems odd.

So yes, there is an objective quality issue on some TPs, but to say they don’t reach MM quality is ignoring probably more than half of the series which would be virtually indistinguishable from an MM release in a blind listen.

 

Nope. This guy...

 

And the latter has some minor warble issues. I can't speak to the former as I don't own it.

 

Yes the TPs match the MMJ 33s for the most part. The 45s are a different story.