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Blue Note Catalog deletions


mgraham333

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What do folks think about Jackie McLean's Vertigo?

Funny, just picked that one up from Amazon (on sale $8.97) and am listening to it right now.

It's made up of two sessions: 1) Donald Byrd, Herbie Hancock, Butch Warren, Tony Williams and 2) Kenny Dorham, Sonny Clark, Butch Warren, Billy Higgins. My preference is for the session with Dorham and Clark (the earlier of the two sessions) but both are enjoyable.

This was the last of the bebop material before One Step Beyond. To me this is a good mix of the before and the beyond. Probably not the best statement from McLean, but certainly worth nine bucks.

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What do folks think about Jackie McLean's Vertigo?

Funny, just picked that one up from Amazon (on sale $8.97) and am listening to it right now.

It's made up of two sessions: 1) Donald Byrd, Herbie Hancock, Butch Warren, Tony Williams and 2) Kenny Dorham, Sonny Clark, Butch Warren, Billy Higgins. My preference is for the session with Dorham and Clark (the earlier of the two sessions) but both are enjoyable.

This was the last of the bebop material before One Step Beyond. To me this is a good mix of the before and the beyond. Probably not the best statement from McLean, but certainly worth nine bucks.

I prefer the other session. I love Sonny Clark and the tunes are solid but this session doesn't catch my attention.

The first session, on the other hand, burns. Tony Williams swings his ass off, "Cheers" is an underrated composition, and everyone grooves on "Yams."

Edited by Big Wheel
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Yeah, I just got this e-mail as well--what a bloodbath! Glad that I already have nearly everything that I would want on that list.

Same here. My secret plan of buying like a madman for 15 years is really starting to pay dividends. :rolleyes:

Edited by BruceH
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The first session (on Vertigo), on the other hand, burns. Tony Williams swings his ass off, "Cheers" is an underrated composition, and everyone grooves on "Yams."

In total agreement here. That first session on Vertigo is definitely a keeper!! :excited:

Hey, what do people think of Horace Silver's "You Gotta Take A Little Love"?? I wasn't even aware it was out on CD.

I like Horace, but he's not in my top tier of leaders. I do like 27th Man -- should I spring for this one too??

On a side note, though, isn't this about the worst BN cover ever??

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Edited by Rooster_Ties
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Some of my favorites are on this list:

Hank Mobley - Dippin' (RVG Edition)

Lee Morgan - Tom Cat (RVG Edition)

Lou Blackburn - Complete Imperial Sessions (Connoisseur Series)

Elmo Hope - Trio And Quintet (Connoisseur Series)

Jackie McLean - Vertigo (Connoisseur Series) (especially the Kenny Dorham date)

Chet Baker & Art Pepper - Picture Of Heath (aka Playboys)

Lee Morgan - Charisma

Lee Morgan - Standards

Charlie Parker - The Washington Concerts

John Patton - Let 'Em Roll

Get 'em while you can. Though I suspect they will all be available as downloads. Perhaps Blue Note America will adopt the Blue Note Japan business model: small batches of titles, available as limited editions.

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I suggest a year from now Blue Note and related labels will be gone. Pay attention to ALL titles, not just the deletions. The old EMI model does not work now. The parent company will try to live off copyrights in the future, not physical product. Not cool.

If so then I guess it will turn out that the CD was the true "bridge to nowhere."

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There are four I really ought to get in these lists plust two maybes. Not too bad.

Lou Donaldson - Everything I Play Is Funky

Dakota Staton & George Shearing - In The Night

Horace Silver - In Pursuit Of The 27th Man

Horace Silver - You Gotta Take A Little Love (RVG Edition)

Maybes - what about these folks?

Lou Blackburn - Complete Imperial Sessions (Connoisseur Series)

Cannonball Adderley - Jazz Workshop Revisited

MG

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If you haven't got Grant Green's "Standards", get it before it goes or regret it. This is the purest Grant Green music he ever made. Trio, with Wilbur Ware & Al Harewood; August 1961. It was first issued in Japan as "Remembering".

My personal favourite Grant Green album.

MG

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I had a thought about this. EMI are probably doing the right thing.

1 They're in the shit.

2 Most of this stuff is going PD pretty soon - PD in Europe, that is, which means the same in the US, because it's pointless the US industry cleaving to the 70 year line - at which point in walk the Andorrans.

3 If you want to maximise the use you get out of this stuff, which is presumably selling pretty slowly, a deletion is going to mop up pretty well all the outstanding potential sales, at least for a few years. And right now (see 1) is when they need the money, not in dribbles and drabbles over the next few years.

MG

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Cannonball's Jazz Workshop Revisited is fine but far from his best. In light of the deletions, from these Capitol reissues I'd go with, by order of appearance:

Cannonball in Europe - my favourite album by what I think was his best band, the sextet with Lateef - a smoking oboe rendition of "Trouble in Mind" among the highlights

Live at the Lighthouse - a great album by the quintet with Victor Feldman (not enough recordings of the band with him do exist) - this contains "Sack o'Woe" with one of Cannonball's classic solos

Them Dirty Blues - I think there's some disagreement about this one, but I just love it. Cannon's solo on the slow title track is amazing, in addition you get the studio versions of Bobby Timmons' "Dat Dere" and Nat's "Work Song". Piano duties are shared by Barry Harris (a rather unlikely choice, his live debut on Riverside was recorded at the same time as Cannonball's Riverside album "At the Jazz Workshop") and Bobby Timmons.

Cannonball Takes Charge - another fine album, slightly less funk/soul-jazz in orientation, with Wynton Kelly on piano throughout and Chambers/Cobb and Percy/Tootie Heath in support, respectively. Some almost kitsch (Serenata), and another great tune, "Barefoot Sunday Blues" (I think OK admits being accountable for the stupid title - but it sounds like he's rather proud of it...)

Next up the Poll-Winners (his meeting with Wes Montgomery and Shelly Manne, and again there's Victor Feldman here) and JWS Revisited, then finally the - admittedly delightful but still unessential - Cannonball's Bossa Nova. For those interested in Adderley's alto solos, there's some great stuff on the bossa album, to be sure!

As for the later, actual Capitol albums, I'm not quite sure how I'd rate them... they're all good I'd say, but none is absolutely outstanding to me so far (but I'm still waiting for "Domination" to make it and haven't given many spins yet to "Money in the Pocket", "Why Am I Treated so Bad" and the weird Zawinul album). The meeting with Nancy Wilson is a delight (and half of it is just the quintet, "Fiddler on the Roof" is the only readily available album with the Charles Lloyd line-up (but I haven't fully warmed to it yet), and the meeting with Ernie Andrews is one to skip except for diehard fans, I assume (I got it in a sale a couple of months and only gave it one spin so far).

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don't have anything clever to say about the blackburn, but i played it a lot and wouldn't want to miss it... i tend to play it when i'm in a horace silver mood otherwise

generally not much in a classic blue note mood at this point which i will regret some day, just ordered

larry young - mother ship

jackie mclean - jacknife

charles mingus - wonderland

charlie parker - storyville (how does this compare to the washington concert?)

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essential:

Stan Getz - Complete Roost Recordings (3 CDs)

The Complete Blue Note/Capitol Recordings Of Fats Navarro & Tadd Dameron (2 CDs)

The Complete Blue Note Recordings Of Herbie Nichols (3 CDs)

Tina Brooks - Back To The Tracks (Connoisseur Series)

Elmo Hope - Trio And Quintet (Connoisseur Series)

Jackie McLean - New Soil

Charles Mingus - Jazz Portraits (Mingus In Wonderland)

Lee Konitz & Gerry Mulligan - Konitz Meets Mulligan

very good ones:

Art Blakey - At The Jazz Corner Of The World (2 CDs)

Lee Morgan - Live At The Lighthouse (3 CDs)

Lou Blackburn - Complete Imperial Sessions (Connoisseur Series)

Ike Quebec - Complete 45 Sessions (Connoisseur) (2 CDs)

Thad Jones/Mel Lewis - Central Park North

Jon Hendricks - A Good Git Together

Grant Green - Standards

Richard Groove Holmes - Groovin' With Jug (with Gene Ammons)

John Patton - Let 'Em Roll

honourable mention:

Stanley Turrentine - Up At Minton's (2 CDs)

Jackie McLean - A Fickle Sonance (RVG Edition)

Jackie McLean - New And Old Gospel (RVG Edition) (you get Ornette on trumpet all the way...)

Hank Mobley - Dippin' (RVG Edition)

Lee Morgan - Tom Cat (RVG Edition)

Horace Silver - You Gotta Take A Little Love (RVG Edition)

Jimmy Smith - At The Organ, Volume 3 (RVG Edition) (this is part of the earlier 2CD set combining his first three albums, right?)

Lonnie Smith - Turning Point (RVG Edition)

Art Taylor - A.T.'s Delight (RVG Edition)

Grant Green - First Session (Connoisseur Series)

Freddie Hubbard - Goin' Up (Connoisseur Series)

Bobby Hutcherson - Components (Connoisseur Series)

Jackie McLean - Vertigo (Connoisseur Series)

Jimmy McGriff - The Big Band: A Tribute To Basie

Benny Carter - Sax A La Carter

Chico Hamilton - Original Ellington Suite (with Eric Dolphy)

Joe Lovano - Trio Fascination - Edition One (with Dave Holland & Elvin Jones)

Joe Lovano Nonet - On This Day At The Vanguard

Hank Mobley - A Caddy For Daddy

Jason Moran - Black Stars (with Sam Rivers)

Lee Morgan - Caramba

Lee Morgan - Charisma

Lee Morgan - Standards

Charlie Parker - At Storyville

Charlie Parker - The Washington Concerts

Gerry Mulligan - At Storyville (with Bob Brookmeyer)

the jury's still out on:

Introducing Kenny Cox & The Contemporary Jazz Quintet (Connoisseur Series)

maybe I'm too hard on some (Hamilton, Carter, Morgan, Mobley) but it's been a while since I played most of those...

By all accounts, if you're interested in bebop, don't miss the Dameron/Navarro (there's a Definitive substitute of course) and the Nichols (no substitute I know of yet), then add the Hope (he belongs to the same bunch of great pianists around in the early years of modern jazz as Nichols).

McLean's New Soil is one of his best, and so is Mingus' Wonderland album (the first of his band with John Handy/Booker Ervin, Richard Wyands is subbing for Parlan). The Mulligan/Konitz is some of the best Mulligan I'm aware of (and fine Konitz, too! He puts this on a different level than the Mulligan/Baker quartet recordings, I think). And the Getz is pure magic - some of the most beautiful and imaginative playing there is... pure, too.

Between this and the last bunch of deletions, several of McLean's best albums and almost all of Tina Brooks' output goes OOP again. Sad.

Also it makes me worry a bit that recent reissues like two of the Capitol vocal collection albums (Hendricks and Raney), Benny Carter's fine "Sax à la Carter", and recent RVGs like the one by Art Taylor are going OOP so fast!

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charlie parker - storyville (how does this compare to the washington concert?)

I think Storyville is more interesting... but then it's been among the two or three first Parker discs I've known (thanks to our high school's library).

I don't like the band parts of the Washington that much, but I remember the final few tracks being quite good.

That Washington disc was part of a batch of releases with Bill Evans In Paris Vol. 1/2, Getz/Dailey "Poetry" and I think two by Petrucciani (100 Hearts, Live at the Vanguard). Of those, the OOP Getz/Dailey is the most recommended, one, another beautiful one by Getz, though at a much later point in time than the great Roost sessions.

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charlie parker - storyville (how does this compare to the washington concert?)

I think Storyville is more interesting... but then it's been among the two or three first Parker discs I've known (thanks to our high school's library).

I don't like the band parts of the Washington that much, but I remember the final few tracks being quite good.

That Washington disc was part of a batch of releases with Bill Evans In Paris Vol. 1/2, Getz/Dailey "Poetry" and I think two by Petrucciani (100 Hearts, Live at the Vanguard). Of those, the OOP Getz/Dailey is the most recommended, one, another beautiful one by Getz, though at a much later point in time than the great Roost sessions.

thank you! funny that not single andrew hill cd made these lists!

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In case anyone's interested in how these titles were chosen, I was told that some outside accounting firm was called in to choose the titles for deletion. The Jazz people were not consulted which is why some of the cuts seem so odd.

I imagine the reason the latest RVG releases are meeting an early death is because they were released during the CD sales decline and at a time when the EU releases had copy control, making a lot of buyers opt out. With no sales history going back to the "good ol' days", they must look like anemic sellers.

All told it look like they're dropping almost 300 titles, but there will still be almost 700 titles in print.

On the bright side :rolleyes:, at least Jazz isn't suffering as much as Classical. The cuts there are in the thousands.

Kevin

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