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Black Saint/Soul Note Box Sets


romualdo

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12 hours ago, GA Russell said:

I suspect I asked this before, and made no follow-up action.

I would like to get some George Adams for Christmas.  With Don Pullen?  Is the Soul Note material the best, or would you recommend something else?

The Soul Note material is five albums by two different groups. Gentleman's Agreement and Hand to Hand are by a quintet with Jimmy Knepper and George Adams in  the front line, a unique pairing that I really enjoy, Hugh Lawson on piano (very good and not much recorded) and Dannie Richmond on drums. Two excellent albums in my opinion. The other three albums are by the Adams/Pullen quartet. Don't Lose Control is a fine studio album), and then there are the two Village Vanguard live recordings. I haven't listened to the latter two in a while, but my recollection is that the recording engineer botched the session and failed to capture the group well enough, though the performance is quite good. So basically it's three recommended albums, and two with reservations about the sound but not the performance quality. Or you can get the two Blue Notes (Breakthrough and Song Everlasting) or any of the Timeless recordings with Pullen (Decisions, City Gates, Earth Beams, Life Line, or Melodic Excursions) (except I don't care for the one with John Scofield). It's all of comparable quality. For other Adams without Pullen, also good are Old Feeling (Blue Note) and Paradise Space Shuttle (Timeless).

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Difficult for them to avoid but smart shopping of boxes and used single cds can work to your advantage. I actually spent $36 for a used cd to complete my Abrams collection.

I bought the Bill Dixon box for 2 discs I didn't have.

Maybe someone should initiate a "spare Black Saint / Soul Note cds" topic.

I should add I am keeping a number of singles to compare with the mastering on the reissues. After the screw up on the Murray octet box, I'm not sure anyone is paying attention while making transfers.

Edited by Chuck Nessa
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On 10/31/2016 at 9:57 AM, StarThrower said:

BTW, Amazon is 20 dollars higher on some of these new boxes compared to Importcds.

Pricing always seems to be all over the place on these sets, Amazon and elsewhere.  Well worth shopping carefully.  Import CD's has had sales on them a few times which have been really good.

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I've only got two of these sets - the Bill Dixon and Andrew Hill. I'm glad to have them both. I've been meaning to pick up more over the past few years, but it seems like something else always comes up and takes priority. All of this music is new to me, as the music on the Black Saint/Soul Note labels is, for the most part, completely unexplored terrain for me. I would really like to begin digging into some of this stuff, but now that I'm trying to decide which ones to buy...I don't really know where to begin. So, that being said - which of these sets are the absolute MUST HAVES? Also, are there any particular ones to avoid - due to mastering issues, etc? I have my eyes on the Hemphill, Adams and Pullen sets, as I've been exploring their music quite a bit as of late. 

Also, have any of these sets fallen out of print and become hard to come by? From what I can tell, the vast majority of them have remained readily available...which is a good thing if you're the consumer, but...not sure what it says about how well these are selling. They keep releasing them, though - so, they must be selling well enough!

Thanks for any/all input. My apologies if these questions have been addressed previously in the thread!

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The Andrew Cyrille set comes readily to mind as essential.  I would also recommend the Mingus Dynasty and George Russell and Mal Waldron sets.  Lots of other good ones, and I own a dozen of them.  Beware of used copies of the first David Murray set - the  first edition of it had mastering errors, which others can give the details on.

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3 hours ago, bigbandrecord said:

Must haves IMHO are the Pullen, Abrams and George Russell sets.....but I in most cases only buy Big Band/Large Ensemble and Piano oriented material so I'm sure there's probably others that are must haves......the first David Murray set perhaps.

(IMO) must haves should include David Murray 1, Mal Waldron 1, Steve Lacy and Kenny Wheeler ....

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  • 4 months later...
3 hours ago, StarThrower said:

Any opinions on the second Max Roach set? Several of the albums feature Odean Pope. But I've heard that Christmas album is not too great.

I'm currently listening to the Cyrille set which is superb! Love the bass player, Nick DiGeronimo.

:tup!

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3 hours ago, soulpope said:

:tup!

I agree with you about DiGeronimo, who I have never heard of otherwise.  I went asking about him as soon as I heard that box.  The second Roach is strong, has the quartet stuff, and the quartet plus strings, which is surprisingly good and raw.  I passed on the first Roach box (solo, duos with Cecil Taylor which I already own on the Taylor box, duos with Braxton, M'Boom,and one quartet with strings, which I picked up separately), but grabbed this one and am thankful for it.  The title track on "It's Christmas Again" is strange but fascinating poetry plus jazz, though the other side is weaker.  But the other albums included all range from pretty good to pretty wonderful, and the price is great.    

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  • 5 months later...

This thread has gotten too huge for me to go back, but I am sure this was addressed at some point (on which page?):

We are sure these are real CDs, and not CDrs, correct? I know that individual BS/SN titles that pop up are CDrs so I believe these boxes are the only way to go to get legitimate CDs. 

I got the Adams box and it seemed legit. I am about to get a couple more...

Bertrand.

Edited by bertrand
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  • 4 months later...

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