'Tone Poet' Jazz Reissue Series*

EBS is Emil Berliner Studio in Germany. Speakers Corner uses them quite a lot. They do great work.

Are you sure the RIY isn’t RM (for Rainer Maillard)?

 

Yes - it's RM - had to use a flashlight to see it that way (recent member of the old fart club). Couldn't remember that EBS was Emil Berliner Studio.

 

Seriously man. I just came to see what folks think of the Konitz/Baker/Mulligan set because it is a new title for me… and here’s this crap. It’s like I never left.

 

I like it. Reminds of Birth of the Cool in that Mulligan, west coast way.

 

Just listened again to Donald Byrd/ Pepper Adams Chant. This is kind of a sleeper title for me. I get kinda surprised over how often I listen to it. Just a nice, solid hard bop outing. I somehow always forget that Herbie Hancock is on this date as well.

 

I love Chant. Doesn’t get the props it deserves. Another great one that has flown under the radar is Further Explorations by Horace Silver. One fantastic album musically and sonically. Spinning it now.

 

Yes, exactly. And I’m not a big West Coast guy but when it hits right, it hits.

 

I just don't get the obsession with mono where the stereo mixes are done well. Early 60s Bob Dylan? Yeah, I get it. Mid 60s McCoy Tyner? Nope!

 

Because it's not.

 

I'm not a huge West Coast guy, either, but I find a like Konitz and Mulligan. I like Baker when he just shuts up and plays the trumpet. I know that's maybe an unpopular opinion. But my favorite Baker session at the moment is Smokin' With the Chet Baker Quintet on Prestige, one that's just him playing and not singing. I would actually love for a TP pressing of The Chet Baker Sextet, something they should have the rights to - it was originally released on Pacific. Great cover, too.

 

@scotti Next time you talk to Joe and Kevin, please tell them to make sure they're eating healthy, getting daily exercise and not smoking. This series needs to continue for a while.

 

Gave a first listen to The All Seeing Eye last night. This might be my favorite Tone Poet yet musically. Not a weak track on the album IMO, and it is very explorative, which I love. However, I am getting a fair bit of distortion during parts of “Mephistopheles” and a couple moments in “Genesis”. Even a little on "Face of the Deep". I listened to a digital version and could not detect the same degree of distortion. Is anybody else hearing this? Surface noise on my copy is a little higher than usual on side 2. I'm wondering if a pressing issue is contributing to this.

 

No confirmed release dates for future Tone Poets?

 

I didn’t hear any distortion on my copy.

 

I should add that I may have been one of the few, if only, one that has commented on said title within the past few pages.

tldr - I liked it a lot and it sounds great and looks great

 

I really enjoyed it too, the B side is live and a very nice live recording for the era.

 

There's an update about that by Scotti somewhere on the previous page or 943.

 

In a nutshell no, due to Stoughton and RTI scheduling concerns.

 

There is, of course, some distortion baked into the recording. I can hear it on digital versions as well. But I am hearing it in spots on the TP that I don’t hear digitally (for example in the left channel when the horns come in on “Face of the Deep”). My side 2 has quite a high noise floor (vinyl “woosh”) on my copy, so I will probably try another copy and hope that some of the playback issues are solved as a bonus.

 

Appreciate the discussion of this title. My vibe has run much more to "cool and mellow" than "hot and smokin'" these days, so this one caught my eye.

 

Same! For me, the audio room is really a shared family space, so at different times and depending on who Im sharing that space with, requires different stuff. The Lee Konitz with Mulligan/Chet mix was fantastic late at night with the wife and the kids asleep (no innuendo intended)

 

"Konitz and chill."

Seriously tho, West Coast stuff is great if you're interested in following the counterpoint rhythm set up by the horn players - that was kind of their focus instead of going all hot. I haven't received my TP copy of this Konitz title yet - I'll get it in a week or two with the Dolphy Classic (hey, I like to save on shipping) - but I've been streaming it and enjoying it. A nice, bouncy session.

 

As a big WC jazz fan, I hope more Mulligan gets reissued like this. Night Lights has gotten stupid expensive, and it would be a great choice for the Acoustic Sounds series.

Gerry Mulligan – Night Lights (1963, Vinyl)

 

counterpoint/contrapuntal is very apt. The voicing I’ve always found a passing similarity to a renaissance style motet - melodic, independent lines that somehow seem to gel with one another completely smoothly.

 

That's also a very apt description. That Chet Baker album I linked to earlier actually has a few songs arranged very close to renaissance style motets - listen to "Tommyhawk" and you can hear it. It's almost like New Orleans hot jazz, with the reeds off in all directions, but with a much tighter rhythmic structure. For the life of me I can't remember where I read this, but I remember a book or article describing how the musicians on the West Coast were more interested in that kind of presentation. They attributed it to the lifestyle they were living out there, where everyone was on a schedule and living far away from each other (classic California sprawl) there was limited time for out-and-out blowing sessions.

Also, don't forget that Brubeck and some of the other West Coast guys also studied Western orchestral music before/while getting into jazz - I mean, Schoenberg and Stravinsky were living out in Hollywood at the time.