Blue Note Catalog deletions

[BruceH]

(Anyway, if you want to avoid the essential, for godsake don't get any of the Tina Brooks' albums!!)

Had them for ages

Good for you!

[televiper]

Actually, I find a lot of the albums I download come with all the liner scans. Why? Because jazz fans care about that stuff. I also type in all the players for each album, which makes searching out a player easy. I just type "Carmell Jones" into my iTunes search box and get every record I own that he played on. Pretty sweet! Can't do that with CDs!

And I think kids today do care about that stuff if they become more than a casual fan. When I started listening to jazz at 16, it was all Miles, Monk, Mingus, Trane. That's it. It was about the hipness/rebelliousness of those players. I wasn't listening all that actively. Then one day, I realized how much I dug the bass playing of Paul Chambers and that was when the web of my jazz listening began to spread. But, being as it was the early-90's, a lot of PC's albums were either expensive or hard to find. So much jazz is accessible now and that has turned a lot of young people onto it.

The problem with jazz in general is that it appears moribund to most people. That's a perception that will be hard to change. That said, there is so much good stuff already out there that exhausting it is damn near impossible! There are 258 albums in the BN deletion list alone...

[BruceH]

Is the era of easily accessible reissues over?

On CD, yeah.

But just like when LPs went away (mostly) they'll be some other way to distribute the "software."

The biggest drag is the way the cover art, liners and personnel info has gone away- it shrunk from LPs to CDs and now has vanished almost completely with the download age. My students will bring in a recording and I'll ask them "OK, who's on drums, piano etc.?" and they don't know. They have to look it up somewhere, and too many don't bother doing so. When I was their age one of the important parts of listening to and studying the music was to be able to hear the difference between Elvin/Tony/Billy/Joe etc. Now many of these key players seem to be becoming anonymous to the younger generation.

Also, I've always thought of an album as a set of tunes that belong together, put in a specific order for a reason (think Speak No Evil). When people download one tune at a time they miss out on that quality, plus they miss out on discovering lesser-known "B side" gems.

I have mixed feelings about the way things are evolving- there are many aspects of convenience in the technology, but it seems like some critical aspects of the "art" are disappearing.

Yep, we're all just floating in a digital sea, or we're getting there fast.

Of course, if you were born to the digital sea you think it's just dandy, but like you I miss the various addenda one used to get---liner notes, session info, discographical info, art, photos... When I stop to think about it, half the stuff I know about music (particularly r&b and blues) I got initially from various liner notes. My older son, OTOH, doesn't even know what GROUP he's listening to on his I-pod, or care, just as long as the song sounds good. But so it goes, I guess. This all just makes me a curmudgeon.

[Indestructible!]

I think I see it (though I'm not a great observer of it) in Jamaica, too.

Oh, that definitely is the case in Jamaica as well. As huge a fan of ska as I am, very very few people in Jamaica give a rats ass about all of the great stuff recorded in the '60s. That's "old" music, and of little use to them.

The same can be said of the rocksteady and early roots reggae recorded in the '60s and early '70s as well. The folks in Jamaica today have moved on from all of that... and quite rightly, too. As you say, they acknowledge it (and respect it)... but the musicians there have definitely moved on.

Cheers,

Shane

[captainwrong]

I wonder if these deletions are why Blue Note suddenly decided to license a whole bunch of classic titles to Analogue Productions for release on hybrid SACD?

Speaking of, this is kind of what frustrates me about this mass deletion. Surely the continual licensing of these evergreens to audiophile labels (who sell their pressings for top dollar) have got to be offsetting costs somehow. And on a related note, let's delete a bunch of titles while releasing our own LP/CD packs of stuff that a) everyone who cares has probably already got on audiophile vinyl released in the last couple of years and b) anyone who cares has probably bought a dozen times already. I understand everything can't stay in print forever, but when you look at the number of different issues of Soul Station in the last few years, you have to ask if we could have a little less Soul Station and a little more Dippin'?

[Daniel A]

They are probably just doing what they can to stay in business. There may have been misguided decisions by EMI/Blue Note in the past, but this time everybody must accept that these titles have been repressed on digital plastic discs for the last time. If they are going the lossless download route - which will be the only way to distribute these recordings with a profit - it probably just makes sense to let many of them disappear to create some attention when launching the downloading service.

[BruceH]

I wonder if these deletions are why Blue Note suddenly decided to license a whole bunch of classic titles to Analogue Productions for release on hybrid SACD?

Speaking of, this is kind of what frustrates me about this mass deletion. Surely the continual licensing of these evergreens to audiophile labels (who sell their pressings for top dollar) have got to be offsetting costs somehow. And on a related note, let's delete a bunch of titles while releasing our own LP/CD packs of stuff that a) everyone who cares has probably already got on audiophile vinyl released in the last couple of years and b) anyone who cares has probably bought a dozen times already. I understand everything can't stay in print forever, but when you look at the number of different issues of Soul Station in the last few years, you have to ask if we could have a little less Soul Station and a little more Dippin'?

Actually, I think we were lucky that Dippin' was even reissued at all.

[Big Al]

I wonder if these deletions are why Blue Note suddenly decided to license a whole bunch of classic titles to Analogue Productions for release on hybrid SACD?

Speaking of, this is kind of what frustrates me about this mass deletion. Surely the continual licensing of these evergreens to audiophile labels (who sell their pressings for top dollar) have got to be offsetting costs somehow. And on a related note, let's delete a bunch of titles while releasing our own LP/CD packs of stuff that a) everyone who cares has probably already got on audiophile vinyl released in the last couple of years and b) anyone who cares has probably bought a dozen times already. I understand everything can't stay in print forever, but when you look at the number of different issues of Soul Station in the last few years, you have to ask if we could have a little less Soul Station and a little more Dippin'?

Actually, I think we were lucky that Dippin' was even reissued at all.

No kidding.

[Guest youmustbe]

I just read your post about EMI. You're right. The fact is sad to say, that most of this stuff doesn't sell squat. Look at all the Lovano cd's. By deleting them, like you say they will get the same sales from the jazz fans if they kept in stores (what stores?) for a few years.

That's showbiz!

[Guest youmustbe]

Classical music has adjusted quite well, thank you, to the changes. I was at a NY Philharmonic concert tonite. Packed even with the torrential rain all day. Mics all over the stage to record for the Phil's own 'record label' which you can listen to on their website. Some concerts get released on compact discs. The Met Opera has the hd live broadcasts in theaters and in sites like Times Square on the old Times Tower etc. The 'staid' world of classical music ain't so 'unhip' as it seems.

Of course these institutions have their own hall and can do what they want. Jazz, other than JALC, cannot. So jazz musicians rely on the record labels, which is Chuck Nessa points out will be gone soon.

JALC btw might be running into trouble now that Alice Tully Hall is reopening after a long renovation. Many classical concerts had been moved to Rose Theater at JALC in the interim, so they will lose the rental revenue.

And Festival Network has gone bankrupt. Whether there is a JVC or Newport next year nobody knows. This past year's JVC lost a ton of money as did their other festivals.

btw Wayne's Carnegie concert needed 2000 paying customers to break even, 1300 were sold. Huge loss for promoter. But that's the economy today. Better that BN titles get deleted than to lose your job. Both my nephews were laid off. One was making 200,000 annually. The 405 weekly unemployment is nice but...

[Guest youmustbe]

One last thing....I stopped by the old Tower at Lincoln Center which is now a Best Buy to pick up the new Common cd. When I went to pay, the young woman said to me 'I respect you very much sir.' It took me a second to realize that she was looking at my Vietnam Veteran cap. (Yup, I'm one.)

And then she added, 'I was in Iraq for 14 months.'

So she was a soldier in Iraq, did not reinlist, and now is working for minimum wage as a cashier. What a wonderful world, I guess.

[Bluerein]

So you're a real Veteran Groover at least.......

[sjarrell]

I just got the Blackburn, and I'm glad I did!

[AndrewHill]

I just got the Blackburn, and I'm glad I did!

Thanks for the heads up. Sounds like a good date. I saw this used a year back and thought to myself "well it'll be in print for a bit and I should focus on the stuff that's like in print for a day or so" and now I kicking myself for not picking it up. Oh well, I guess now's the time to get it.

[jostber]

Great music should not be deleted. EMI can delete their Garth Brooks records instead.

[captainwrong]

Great music should not be deleted. EMI can delete their Garth Brooks records instead.

Quality aside, they could stop issuing Garth Brooks discs and I think they'd still be clogging the used bins for the next several decades. Ironic, considering he was one of the big people speaking out against used CD sales.

[BruceH]

Great music should not be deleted. EMI can delete their Garth Brooks records instead.

Not too likely.

Great books should not be out of print either, but it happens anyway.

[riverrat]

I'd prefer Dolly had a shot at some royalties from her husband's work.

Prefer all you want , but unless you're prepared to argue for the assumptions underlying that preference , don't think for a second that such a preference is morally privileged simply in virtue of whatever emotional appeal it may have .

The umbrage you ostensibly take with this constituent’s disputation is eclipsed by the excessively complex nature of your composed rejoinder.

I nominate this as THE post of the year.

Seconded.

[connoisseur series500]

I just got the Blackburn, and I'm glad I did!

I got it when it first came out, and was really glad that I did. Nice cd.

[kh1958]

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.

The Parker Washington disc is essential for the added small group tracks, not the big band tracks. The small group tracks are incredible, Bird is in awesome form.

just saw i have the four quartet tracks with jack holiday, franklin skeete and max roach on some cheapo compilation... is the disc still essential for me?

I'm not sure. The six excellent small group tracks on the Washington Concerts CD are: Ornithology, Cool Blues, Out of Nowhere, Anthropology, Scrapple from the Apple and Medley (Out of Nowhere/Now's The Time).

[Tjazz]

Great music should not be deleted. EMI can delete their Garth Brooks records instead.

Where have you been? Garth left EMI about 5 years ago and went to Wal-Mart. I think he's leaving Wal-Mart soon too. All of his CDs are discounted at Wal-Mart.

(Garth told EMI, that he kept EMI in business for the last ten years)

Edited December 21, 2008 by Tjazz

[Rosco]

Great music should not be deleted. EMI can delete their Garth Brooks records instead.

Where have you been? Garth left EMI about 5 years ago and went to Wal-Mart. I think he's leaving Wal-Mart soon too. All of his CDs are discounted at Wal-Mart.

(Garth told EMI, that he kept EMI in business for the last ten years)

Yeah, they're still dining out on that Chris Gaines album.

[CJ Shearn]

woohoo! My aunt got me the rest of the Tina Brooks on my list "Minor Move", "Back to the Tracks" and "The Waiting Game"! oh, just caught that photo from the Jack Wilson session. LOL. They looked like they were goofing off, Billy and Cranshaw look hiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh though.

Edited December 23, 2008 by CJ Shearn

[Swinging Swede]

It does seem kinda strange that they're deleting some of these titles; doesn't it seem like a bunch of these have been out less than five years?

Less than five years? Several of these were released last year!!

The following were released in 2007 and are deleted now in 2008!!

Horace Silver - You Gotta Take A Little Love

Introducing Kenny Cox

Frank Foster - Manhattan Fever

Stan Kenton - The Compositions Of Dee Barton

[AndrewHill]

It does seem kinda strange that they're deleting some of these titles; doesn't it seem like a bunch of these have been out less than five years?

Less than five years? Several of these were released last year!!

The following were released in 2007 and are deleted now in 2008!!

Horace Silver - You Gotta Take A Little Love

Introducing Kenny Cox

Frank Foster - Manhattan Fever

Stan Kenton - The Compositions Of Dee Barton

If that is the case, then I suspect that the 500 minimum sold quota still holds (maybe Kevin or someone on the inside can verify). But needless to say, the Foster and the Cox are extremely worthy sessions, and if you don't have them, consider picking them up. I can't comment on the rest.