Congrats on your first TP purchases. That is some high quality jazz to start off with. If you like mellower stuff, some titles to seek out would be Grant Green - Idle Moments, which I believe will see a Classic release sometime this year, and Chet Baker Sings, which is very mellow (as long as you like vocal). I would also recommend the Acoustic Sounds release of John Coltrane’s Ballads, a beauty of an album, all slow ballads and not in Coltrane’s usual “busy” style. Idle Moments is recommended for the title track, which is probably THE slow jazz track (that I am aware of). Just magnificent stuff that will transport you. If you prefer more straightforward stuff, you might enjoy something like Lee Morgan’s The Sidewinder or maybe even Art Blakey’s Moanin. Not slow stuff but also not super experimental.
Thanks much for the clues and leads and insights PP! IIRC, I saw some of those titles stocked in my Local. Going tomorrow!!
Mono has been the preferred format to collect the early Blue Notes for many years, especially in Japan. It was really the preference of MMJ that switched to Stereo for those experimental era titles, and since then, it seems like Blue Note is going with a two track tape mix whenever there is the option. There was also the Disk Union series did that 62 mono titles (5 series of 12) from 2011 to 2014. Some of us here collected them, many of us got laughed at for the outrageousness of paying $50 for a 33rpm LP. Kevin Gray cuts, QRP press, original style jackets. They sound more like originals than the MMJ, based on the mastering choices. People missed out. Glad i bought about 25-30 of the ones i wanted before prices went through the roof. From The Original Master Tapes
The Blue Note 10" reissues they did kinda fell flat. Vinyl Records, SACDs, DVD Audio, Audiophile Equipment|Acoustic Sounds I don't know anyone who bought them, cut from digital, lousy rainbo pressings, and cheap covers. Who did they think the market was for obscure 10" mono albums? Certainly not the price conscious newbie. It's interesting , a few 10" collections have hit the market recently. Monk Acoustic Sounds Charlie Parker: Mercury & Clef Acoustic Sounds Charlie Parker: Savoy Charlie Parker-The Savoy 10-inch LP Collection-10 Inch Vinyl Record|Acoustic Sounds Miles Miles Davis / The Complete Prestige: 10-Inch LP Collection / vinyl box set | superdeluxeedition
Today I “discovered” Lee Morgan’s The Gigolo after I spinned the Rajah two times in a row yesterday. I hope they bring The Gigolo out as a future TP release (I guess not because they did a MM release already). It’s a beauty of an album definitely a top 5 Lee Morgan release. Which one is yours’ favorite?
Not a Tone Poet, but a heads-up about the “Study In Brown” reissue by Acoustic Sounds/Verve. They did a first-class job. Sounds great, plays flat, nice photos. Just as good as a Tone Poet or a Music Matters release. If you are not familiar with the great Clifford Brown (or if you are) you should get this record.
Lee Morgan made many fine albums, and I like the Son-of-Sidewinder groove things, but my favorite is probably Search For the New Land or the last one. No reason Gigalo couldn't be a Classic.
I'll endorse all those particularly Idle Moments which is coming out later in the year as part of the Blue Note Classics series do wait for that pressing ..get Chet Baker on Tone Poet ..awaiting repress currently and i'll add another player Ben Webster Ballads he's not on Blue Note but for super non busy playing he's super ...
Regarding "The Sidewinder"... what are you talking about? Some arranger co-opted "The Sidewinder" for a Chrysler commercial. It was not Lee Morgan's version and Blue Note not only didn't "sell" it to them, Chrysler didn't even pay them. When Lee complained, rather than pay him for using it, they never showed the commercial again. And I don't know where you grew up, but the only Jazz I heard was a Brubeck tune here & there, Stan Getz's "The Girl From Ipanema" and a Louie Armstrong tune every now and then. We didn't even hear Ella's Christmas tunes on the radio where I grew up. I have read many stories about how New York was different. But New York is one city - unique at that. You simply cannot equate the mingling of races in New York with the rest of the US.
found your post intriguing . found this contrary opinion. MUSIC DISCUSSION and Audio, Vinyl, related thoughts.: A few more of those dubious mono Japanese 200g Blue Notes:
Every time this series comes up, someone finds that post. The guy doesn't know what he's talking about, Kevin Gray confirmed he had the original master tapes, and cut them AAA.
For what it's worth I'm with DeRosa on this, although I only have a few they are all excellent, as for sources I recall that coming up before, wasn't Kevin Gray somewhat reticent because of his relationship with Music Matters at the time, I think he may have subsequently confirmed the DUs used the mono masters, I'm not sure why you'd expect them to sound like MMs or TPs the aim was to match first presses whereas Joe Harley's aim has been to match the tape, two very different approaches. I only have the Classic Records mono of "Cool Struttin'" so can't comment on that one, perhaps DeRosa has it and can speak as to it's sound, but like I said the ones I have sound great and even if they were digital which I believe they weren't I don't hear it, I think there's been something of a hatchet job on the DUs over the years, no idea why.
Yes, this exactly. First, the Disk Union's are all mono, and MMJ always go for the stereo when there is option, and as you point out, the project was intended to replicate the originals down to the smallest details. At some point, the conspiracy theories and on-line obsessing needs to be replaced by just sitting down and enjoying the records. The Disk Union Thad Jones Detroit-New York Junction is one of the best sounding records in my 1,000+ collection.
check out his other posts mocking this thread and insulting the members of SHF. guys seems like a lovely person.
Reading the discussion of demographics, I'd love to see sales numbers for jazz records through the 50s and 60s. Could learn a lot from the historical context, I'd imagine. I also suspect that information will never be readily accessible. My background in literary studies has me itching to go find out if there's some sort of Blue Note collection at a library somewhere with old internal documents and the like (in my PhD program we had to do sleuthing reports to find out junk like how much first editions of Dickens novels sold for in London upon release--using nothing but the dusty old books in our University's library) but I can't imagine that exists anywhere accessible to the general public.
I don't doubt it, but that's a long way from saying that jazz had "no crossover appeal" until the end of the '50s.
Jesus. What is his problem? Not only are a lot of his opinions and claims subjective, but speculative at best. Who takes the time to write an entire article bashing the forum and it's members? Really pathetic.
If 1959/60 was the peak of jazz, with Kind of Blue, Mingus Ah Um, Giant Steps, Time Out, etc., we’ll never know what the accurate sales numbers for the genre were then, decades before Sound Scan, and decades before any real coherent tabulating and reporting of how many records were actually sold. This article notes that, by 1963, four years after its release, Time Out had gone gold. Obviously, Time Out was a huge outlier, and the Rumours or the Thriller of jazz albums of its era. Most Blue Note albums probably only sold a tiny fraction of that. When jazz stopped being cool - CNN In this article, Michael Cuscuna puts a number on that: Jazz record labels are singing the blues “Jazz has always been marginal,” says Michael Cuscuna, a longtime producer for the Blue Note label and co-president of the reissue house Mosaic Records. “You look at albums from the '50s and '60s that are considered classics now -- many of them sold 3,000 in their day.” … Pianist Andrew Hill says the albums he recorded for Blue Note in the mid-'60s sell far more copies now as reissues than they did 35 years ago.
Jazz absolutely had a crossover appeal throughout it's history and an international reach early on, but outside of the top artists it was much more embedded in black communities with some artists being almost entirely appreciated by black audiences and record buyers, it's not like there wasn't segregation in the United States throughout the last century.
You nailed it. Gigolo is fabulous and at the top of my list. I have the MMJ 45 and a Liberty which sounds mighty fine. Won’t see it as a TP anytime soon, but Rajah was a great choice and so would be Sonic Boom.
This is a pretty common issue. Or maybe not an “issue” per se as I am not all that bothered about it. I was just responding to others asking who else may have noticed.
I got some new Tone Poet arrivals. It's going to be a nice evening after a long day at work. Hank Mobley - Poppin' Lee Morgan - The Rajah
