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

After reading some less than positive comments about some of the QC issues with the 2020 SRX releases I've just checked/inspected February’s pressings—

Soul Station has some minor scuffs, even after cleaning, but don't affect playback. The label is slightly off-centre by a couple of mm, which is no big deal. The record has the slightest of warps but is pretty flat.
Search For The New Land also has some minor marks/scuffs/hairline scratches but they don't affect play either. Again, the label is every so slightly off-centre, less so than Soul Station, and the record is as flat as a pancake.

None of this really matters though, to me, as the sound is ultimately what we're after, and these both sound sublime . . .


1960/2020 Music Matters Ltd. ‎– MMBST-84031, Blue Note ‎– ST-84031
Blue Note The Definitive Vinyl Reissue Series – KPG&RR@CA

1966/2020 Music Matters Ltd. ‎– MMBST 84169, Blue Note ‎– ST-84169
Blue Note The Definitive Vinyl Reissue Series – KPG&RR@CA

 

That sounds almost identical to my experience. In my case the scuff is on either side of the label and almost seems to have gone across the label (though it doesn't scuff the label itself) just because they line up so well on both sides.

 

Strange, but I’ve also only encountered this issue from RTI pressings. The nick or scuff has a distinct look that I’ve seen from 2 or 3 other RTI pressings. I really can’t blame MMJ for the defect. I know they’re trying to hand inspect as many copies as possible which. Even with as few as 500, some of these are bound to get through the inspection.

 

Spending Sunday afternoon with the two Kenny’s; Drew and Dorham . . .


1961/2014 Music Matters Ltd. ‎– MMBST-84059, Blue Note ‎– ST-84059
Blue Note The Definitive Vinyl Reissue Series – KPG&RR@CA


1961/2017 Music Matters Ltd. ‎– MMBST-84063, Blue Note ‎– ST-84063
Blue Note The Definitive Vinyl Reissue Series – KPG&RR@CA

 

Yeah, if Richard Davis is on an album it gets special consideration for me. I was just looking over his discography. I knew he did Van Morrison's Astral Weeks album, but I did not realize until tonight that is Richard Davis on the tune "Meeting Across the River" on Springsteen's Born to Run album. Wow, I can totally hear that now. I'll have to give it another listen now that I know. Anyhow, he made a lot of records with Andrew Hill. If I recall, one or two of them are coming out on the Tone Poet series.

Richard Davis With Andrew Hill

• Black Fire (Blue Note, 1963)
• Smokestack (Blue Note, 1963)
• Judgment! (Blue Note, 1964)
• Point of Departure (Blue Note, 1964)
• Andrew!!! (Blue Note, 1964)
• Pax (Blue Note, 1965)
• Lift Every Voice (Blue Note, 1969)
• Nefertiti (East Wind, 1976)

You had mentioned you liked Coltrane. If you like Coltrane, maybe you like Pharoah Sanders?

Richard Davis with Pharoah Sanders

Karma 1969 Impulse!
Jewels of Thought 1969 Impulse!

Jewels of Thought is one of my favorite albums, period. If you don't know it, check that one out!

 

How is the sound on that Capitol comp? I assume you’re happy with it. I love Django’s stuff but some of the records I’ve had over the years have been really mastered poorly and very thin & strident.

 

Carol responded to my mail. They can put a replacement disc in my next order, after RTI reopened again. I understand that sending out a single disc doens't make any financial sense for them. But I'm still not sure, if I'm happy with this kind of solution. MV was 106$ with shipping to Germany and I already have all coming SRX as standard MM 33 or 45. There are some interessting 45 left, but shipping for one is 47$. This is a lot of money in times of covid-19.

Recently find a sealed copy of Evolution here in Germany. Vinyl sounds and looks as perfect it can be. So I guess I'm done with the SRX formular and go for some classic 45.

 

I usually spin those together too, Mobley and Drew on both and recorded a month apart. Nice spins!

 

Richard Davis and Elvin Jones Heavy Sounds on Impulse! is great too... good review here:
Elvin Jones And Richard Davis Heavy Sounds (Impulse 1967)

 

Oh yeah, I've got that album. They messed up the artwork on the back because the photo of Elvin on the drums is reversed. That's been an eyesore since I laid eyes on it.



It's a quiet Sunday morning and I'm fixing to jump way down the rabbit hole. Here's a good photo Elvin Jones, gold chains, medallion, and leather jacket -- that was all part and parcel of him and his concept to me. It was an attitude that envelops his total concept. That's as much Elvin Jones as what he played on the drums.



I got to see him play many times over the years. You get what you get on the records but there is more to it than that. He was a totally cool guy, especially with the other musicians who would come out to watch and hear him play. I can remember several times sitting down with him and having a beer and you could ask him anything. He drank Miller High Life beer and smoked menthol cigarettes. I think they were Pall Mall cigarettes but it was for sure kind of an off-brand. Man, just the acrid, pungent smell of that second-hand smoke you'll never forget, sitting saturated in the aroma of beers and especially the blue smoke miasma of his menthol cigarettes. His wife Kiko would not sit at the table with you. She would not sit at the next table over. She would sit like two tables over, alone, in quiet contemplation while Elvin held court. She was practicing social distancing before social distancing was cool.

We're going further down the rabbit hole here. One time after his show he gave me a pair of drum sticks from that show. I still have them today. They are at the top of the first photo. The second photo, the close-up, is most interesting to me.




You can see the indentations from the rim shots he put on his snare drum. The photo doesn't really do it justice. When Elvin hit his rim shots, it wasn't just the stick hitting the rim and the drumhead at the same time; it was the sound of the shell of the drum, the stand the drum was perched upon, the floor underneath it.

We're getting all forensic here and pardon if this goes beyond the scope of most guys' listening pleasures. But it's interesting to me. To see and hold the sticks again is to feel the show again, manifest in the physical impressions hammered into his sticks. Those particular sticks are "pro-mark jazz," a thin hickory stick. Did you ever consider what the wood was of a drummer's sticks? They might be oak, hickory, more often than that maple. Elvin liked a hickory stick; and it is, at some level, part of that "thunk" sound he gets on those rimshots.

Even back in the day, drummers might have an ideal drum stick, and the manufactures would make that stick for them and then market it to the world at large. Here's a cropped photo of a Gretsch display case that shows a couple of the different endorsers from that time. You can see Art Blakey had a model, Elvin Jones had a model, and Mel Lewis had a model, all offered and marketed by Gretsch. Tony Williams had a model but I've only ever seen photos of those.



Let us return our contemplation to the photo with the five pairs of drum sticks.

These are fun to examine, and when you have an idea of what they are, you can hear more of that in the recordings. That photo has from top to bottom the Elvin Jones sticks, next down is a pairing of Lenny Whites' sticks (to include a stick he broke on the bandstand playing with Wallace Roney in Chicago so he gave me a fresh pair to boot - that's why there are three sticks). Lenny's sticks are pretty thin and they have a small bead/tip that contributes to his sound. Those are model 7As, a typical jazz stick.

Next down are two pairs of Roy Haynes signature sticks, both vintage and modern. The dark ones are the newer model from Zildjian and the ones in the sealed bag are vintage era, branded by Ludwig. There are slight differences, particularly in the bead/tip, whereby the newer sticks have a slightly smaller bead. The bead is a rather elongated acorn shape and it contributes to that sound he gets. Also noteworthy, the shoulder (that's the part of the stick between the tip and the body) is also elongated and quite tapered. That gives the stick tremendous flex under the hand. That's part of his concept.

The bottom sticks are actually two right-hand sticks from Idris Muhammad. As background, he broke his right arm as a kid swinging on monkey bars and ended up playing both a 5A (thinner) in his left hand and a 5B (thicker) in his right. Both those sticks are right-hand sticks from mismatched manufacturers. Now that you know, you can sometimes pick that out in photographs. Those sticks are wrapped "like a tennis player wraps his racquet. I started with that when I was eleven years old and I still play like that today," he says.

Your drum stick is of many considerations: the material, the length, the width, the tip/bead (acorn, round, barrel, etc.) the neck, the shoulder, the shank, the body, and the butt. Oh man, there's a world of meditation on these records just listening to the sound of the drums and cymbals coming off different sticks, and in the hands of each unique player.

That's the end of my morning journey down the rabbit hole. I'm coming up for air. Perhaps this discussion will add another dimension to your listening pleasures. For myself, I'm always listening to the sound coming off the cymbals and wondering about the sticks as well as the cymbals being played. I think it's interesting.

 

I’m looking to fill out an order and wondering which one of these is preferable from a sonic standpoint...Buesnik, or A Swingin’ Affair?

 

Anyone from Europe received their Idle Moments or Maiden Voyage yet? Understandable that there's a delay for obvious reasons, but my package was last seen at LOS ANGELES CA INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION CENTER facility on the 26th of March and I'm just starting to get a bit worried

 

That's a good last place to see it. Means it was leaving the country.

I personally wouldn't worry unless there is no scan by maybe the end of this week. And that would be if things were normal, which I assume they cannot possibly be because of worldwide postal workers out sick and such.

 

I recently waited an extra week or so for a coffee subscription from Europe. I think inspections are taking longer.

 

I am also still waiting for my Idle Moments to come to Europe. Last update from USPS is from 28th saying that it is in transit.

 

In my Music Matters odyssey , there was no album that bedeviled me more than Idle Moments. On those few occasions where there was an issue with a pressing, they'd send me a new one and it would be problem solved. With Idle Moments, I never got a copy that was completely fine. Everyone had a slight warp, a whoosh here and there, and just a little too much noise for my taste. The problems were always particularly pronounced on Duke Pearson's solo on the title track. Now, it's my MO that with smaller outfits like MM I never ask for more than two replacement copies. If the second copy has issues, I usually just give up and assume that all of the albums have the same issue. However, I know that there were/are silent copies of Idle Moments out there as a friend brought his over and it sounded perfect. The only other MMs that I had this issue with were with the 45 of Easy Living and the 33 of Ready for Freddie. Overall, I found the RTI quality control worse with the 33s than the 45s. The 45s were almost always perfect, except for the aforementioned Easy Living, and Lee Morgan's Vol. 3. I should add that Music Matters always treated me really well those very few times that I did have issues with the product.

With all that said, it's with great joy that I can state that my copy of the SRX of Idle Moments sounds perfect to my ears. As I mentioned with my post on Maiden Voyage, this is an album I've always sought a quite version of. Just to stay in the trance that the title track conjures. Not only is is a great pressing (though there still is the slightest warp), but the lower noise floor of the SRX is apparent as well, though not as obvious as my SRX of Moanin'. This month's releases are so good it kind of makes me bummed out that I skipped last month's; especially Soul Station.

 

Killer post @MisterBritt

 

I was very fortunate with my copies of Maiden Voyage and Idle Moments. Sweet as can be, and dead quiet. Yes, an ever so minor dish on the Grant Green, but with my clamp, not one issue on playback. 3 listens to MV and 4 to IM now, and the more I played IM, the more quieter it became (was minor surface noise at the start) and the sound improved on both. I am a firm believer that vinyl can cut in and get better with repeated spins. I had the same issue with "Search", as it had some surface noise at first on my replacement copy, but now, absolutely perfect.

I want to add once again that I believe Pink Floyd (maybe Richard wright as he was heavily influenced by Jazz musicians) lifted a bit of the title track from "Search" on to Shine On You Crazy Diamond from Wish You Were Here. While listening to it again last night (Search), the same thought crossed my mind once again.

I still think IM is my favorite sounding SRX yet, but I have not listened to Moanin' in a bit and need to go back and revisit, because that one is indeed a monster!

 

Off topic for just a quick response. The sound on the 1960 2-LP Capitol release is really quite nice. Keep in mind these are recordings from 1937, with one of the songs being from 1945. I got real lucky and found an unplayed copy around 4 years ago at an FYE (of all places) for $8.00. You can still find this at a reasonable price on discogs and it is well worth picking up, but much advised to get as clean as a copy you can find because of these recordings. His style may not be for everyone, but I find his playing to be absolutely breathtaking. I also have another one of his on Crescendo released in 1974, "Django 1934, First Recordings of The Quintette of The Hot Club of France, that is not bad, but nowhere near as good as the Capitol release. Both are mono of course.

Interesting about that FYE...they sold used vinyl (no more though) and I became friends with the manager (no idea how that happened) and he was a huge music fanatic into albums big time. He went to private sales and bought as many good records as he could find and would always let me look at them first before he put them out on the floor. Over the course of 4 years or so, I must have purchased close to 2000 albums from there. And the prices were unbelievably low. It's where I found my original 2-eyed Bitches Brew in awesome shape all around for only $8.00 as an example.

 

I ordered a copy yesterday on Discogs

 

I can vouch for that Capitol comp too - nice pure mono transfers and overall attractive packaging.

 

Last night I was on MMJ and noticed a few price increases but now they're back to what they were. I noticed the Jazz Messengers albums were $119 but now they're back at $99. Anybody else notice this?

 

I definitely noticed that over the weekend. That’s the highest I’ve seen something listed on their site.

 

The jazz messengers were 75 dollars at time of Search For New Land SRX as I was considering ordering them.

 

I already own them. The price increase just caught my attention while I was browsing the site over the weekend.