Adele insisted that her record be pressed at RTI. Edit: of course, Columbia had to use multiple plants to get the quantity they wanted.
Great how opinions can differ... for me moanin is not even top 5 blakey; prob my least favorite I own on vinyl. My favs are buhaina’s delight, indestructible and the Witch Doctor. You might recognize a pattern there though
I am simultaneously mildly frustrated by the delay to vinyl I want, while impressed by Adele's attention to detail and quality.
I could be wrong, but I assumed this had less to do with RTI's reputation for quality and more to do with the fact that they are one of a handful of pressing plants in the United States with the capacity to do the job (to the disadvantage of the Tone Poet series and other artists/labels). I thought Adele/Columbia basically bought up capacity wherever they could find it. One thing I learned from the recent YouTube chat with Stoughton, RTI, etc. on Chad's channel is that RTI regularly does a lot of non-audiophile records as well and they actually depend on that work to ease the burden of pressing for the super-detail-oriented audiophile stuff. So, I gather that RTI has the capability to do mass-market vinyl AND audiophile and they don't necessarily use the same standards for both. Edit: but obviously RTI does a great job in everything they do. The above comment was more an observation that they have an impressive range.
Those three were released as a 12 inch single on Honest Jon's. Can you remember why the other two were not added to the CD. I'm guessing they weren't up to scratch in some way.
What I think I like most about Free For All is Cedar Walton's playing. Those piano runs on the title track and "Hammerhead" pull me in every time (Shorter penned both). And then there's Curtis Fuller on trombone -- I love the way the Blakey records utilize his playing to add color to the songs. The Fuller/Shorter combo are also on Mosaic and The Jazz Messengers!, two of my favorite and best-sounding Blakey records.
Same for QRP. A lot of their bread and butter is pressing vinyl for other labels. I used to see pallets of boxed records ready to ship out when I visited. What was interesting is that Acoustic Sounds couldn’t hold any back for their retails sales. All of it had to go, and AS had to order stock from the distributors just like everyone else. Guess who absorbs costs for all that unnecessary double-shipping.
Free For All isn’t bad, it’s just that I like the other AB/JM albums I have better. It’s one I could part with when (and if) the time comes. I’m listening to Mosaic now. I’ve always liked that one.
Looks like the Ornette box is getting packed! Still don’t know what this means as far as release date, but it’s farther along in production than I’d expected: Login • Instagram
So as luck would have it, I stumbled upon Invitation in my local record store this weekend for quite cheap and in excellent condition. You were exactly right, Hill is as adventurous as during his Blue Note years, if not more on this album. While the setting is more standard than, say, Smoke Stack, I find the record a bit harder to get into than Smoke Stack or Black Fire, but intruiging nonetheless, especially considering that Invitation was his first recording session after a break of four years. He surely didn't lose anything in those four years! Also, as it might be of interest to some here, I found this doctoral dissertation about Hill's improvisational style online. I haven't read through it yet, but it's very interesting, especially the complete transcriptions of various solos.
Surprised this hasn't gotten a pre-order listing yet if they're this far along. Maybe the pallet is empty boxes, i read somewhere that RTI isn't pressing until everything is in place. I can't imagine they have room to store all these if they're not in production.
when you zoom in on the pic it looks like they have sleeves in boxes already. I couldnt imagine theyd stick empty sleeves into the box and then take em out, sleeve, and then reinsert. Seems like a lot more work and chance for damage to box and sleeves than necessary
Very glad you liked, and thanks for the link. I went back and played Invitation after mentioning it on the thread - one of Hill's best post Blue Note albums for sure, IMO.
Well it surely encouraged me to check out more of his post Blue Note output myself, so thanks for the recommendation!
Yes, it looks to me that the boxes are filled and you can see the spines in white on boxes that are alternatingly flipped after the top layer. That may be the first pallet for all we know. I'm sure they wanted this out for the holidays and would've posted pre-orders if that was possible.
If they are still sitting on pallets at RTI don’t count on “out for the holidays.” By the time, they go out to the distributors, who process and fulfill orders to retailers, who process and fulfill orders to customers, and the three legs of shipping in between, during holiday shipping season…the holidays will be over. I suspect I’ll be able to order in December for a delivery sometime in January.
Yes, would be very surprised to see these before January. For those trying to read the tea leaves further, Joe replied to a comment on ETA with, "stay tuned.....soon."
I haven't really got my head around Ornette yet. Do we know what's in the box? I want to do some auditioning on spotify.
In spinning My Conception right now. I held back on this one to grab some stuff that was going out of print first, and am finally getting A chance to listen. It is really fantastic and on par with almost all of his other albums.
It has 6 LPs Love Call New York Is Now The Empty Foxhole Golden Circle Stockholm Vols. 1 and 2 plus the Jackie McLean album New and Old Gospel, with Ornette on trumpet I just got the new Music Direct printed catalog today, and it has a little blurb about it, showing a list price of $230.
