Best of the Other BN Artists: JazzTimes

[Brad]

JazzTimes published a list last month of the best 10 Other BN Artists, players who, for lack of a better word, were not the “stars” but in JT’s words were emblematic of what BN was all about.

JazzTimes 10: Best of the Other Blue Note Artists

The list in order:

Tina Brooks

Johnny Coles

Herbie Nichols

Curtis Fuller

Blue Mitchell

Elmo Hope

Garchan Moncur III

Baby Face Willette

The Three Sounds

Ike Quebec

 

[ejp626]

I'm not quite understanding this dichotomy.  Are they talking "stars" in terms of recordings as leader, raw publicity/buzz at the time, units shifted?  Or just the consensus among today's jazz cognoscenti?

Dan would know better than I, but I think the Three Sounds sold a ton of records.  I'm assuming (though not 100% sure) that Bobby Hutcherson and Andrew Hill are considered among the "stars" by JT, but Ike Quebec is arguably more central to Blue Note's operations than either of them.  Where does Donald Byrd fit?

[Dan Gould]

15 minutes ago, ejp626 said:

I'm not quite understanding this dichotomy.  Are they talking "stars" in terms of recordings as leader, raw publicity/buzz at the time, units shifted?  Or just the consensus among today's jazz cognoscenti?

Dan would know better than I, but I think the Three Sounds sold a ton of records.  I'm assuming (though not 100% sure) that Bobby Hutcherson and Andrew Hill are considered among the "stars" by JT, but Ike Quebec is arguably more central to Blue Note's operations than either of them.  Where does Donald Byrd fit?

I think the Sounds in the second 10 makes sense. And I think Ike, for influence over A&R belongs in the top 10. But for stars I think Byrd ought to be in the top 10 due to his work in the pre-fusion era plus his fusion successes. Hutch and Hill belong for their position with the cognoscenti.  I would drop Coles down from #2 here, which would be 12 overall? No he can be #20. Ike fits better at 2, or move Blue to this spot for all of those great Silver recordings by the best front line the band ever had.

[JSngry]

I'm trying to think of pre-Liberty Blue Note record who did not exemplify the "Blue Note Sound"...kinda like, yeah, that's the Blue Note sound because that's the records blue Note made. If Lion/Wolff made a lot of different types of records like Bob Weinstein did, then the Blue Note Sound would be something else altogetrhe, So really how are we looking at this in terms of logical flow?

Jazz Time continues to not interest be, one more reason why. And ok, no Horace Parlan? Wtf are they looking at/for? and why do they expect me to look at it?

ScooScoochie y'all.

[Brad]

12 hours ago, ejp626 said:

I'm not quite understanding this dichotomy.  Are they talking "stars" in terms of recordings as leader, raw publicity/buzz at the time, units shifted?  Or just the consensus among today's jazz cognoscenti?

Dan would know better than I, but I think the Three Sounds sold a ton of records.  I'm assuming (though not 100% sure) that Bobby Hutcherson and Andrew Hill are considered among the "stars" by JT, but Ike Quebec is arguably more central to Blue Note's operations than either of them.  Where does Donald Byrd fit?

They didn’t use the term “stars” (that was me) but I think they’re talking all of the above.  People like Miles and Sonny are the big names and below them comes another group, e.g., the second best group. 

It’s just a list like any other list and one with which people can disagree. 

Edited August 18, 2020 by Brad

[ejp626]

I went back and took a look at the piece and saw that Colin implied that Coltrane and Miles are in the top group, which is fine, though I think they were much, much bigger stars for other labels.  So the writer gets up to 8 big names without even name-checking Hill, Hutcherson, Larry Young, Donald Byrd, Hank Mobley(!), Kenny Burrell, Grant Grant, Turrentine(!), Lou Donaldson(!), Elvin Jones, etc. 

So his list of the BN core stars just has to be more than 10 (or it will be laughed out of town).  The number of "stars" could easily be 20 or even 25, which makes it impossible to assess if he got the "overlooked 10" right because I have no way of knowing where he draws the line in the first place. 

In other words, I'd say what about Duke Pearson, and Colin would go, "No man, he was so incredibly groovy.  He's right up there in the upper echelon.  How could you even imagine I would classify him as not amongst the elect?" 

 

(Sorry, still channeling those Tristano robots...)

Edited August 18, 2020 by ejp626

[Rooster_Ties]

Does the absence of Andrew Hill from this list infer he was a ‘star’ for Blue Note?

Seriously, is the author of the piece inferring that Hill must have been a star, since Blue Note released so many albums and sessions by him?  Never mind that 1/3rd of them sat in the can for one or more decades (or is it closer to 1/2 even? - my hunch is that it’s ~40%, if you include the BN Select material in the calculation).

Or does he not even make this “also ran” list?

 

[ejp626]

26 minutes ago, Rooster_Ties said:

Does the absence of Andrew Hill from this list infer he was a ‘star’ for Blue Note?

Seriously, is the author of the piece inferring that Hill must have been a star, since Blue Note released so many albums and sessions by him?  Never mind that 1/3rd of them sat in the can for one or more decades (or is it closer to 1/2 even? - my hunch is that it’s ~40%, if you include the BN Select material in the calculation).

Or does he not even make this “also ran” list?

 

Exactly.  Until you know what the "star" list is, then you can't reasonably make sense of this list.

[JSngry]

I wish that professional writers would stop writing stuff that implies a set of logical propositions that they don't bother to establish. In other words, a clearly defined premise from which to expand.

Also, hey, enough lists. Lists are just expanded bullet-point constructs, and bullent-points lead to an overview, not a deep understanding. So just stop it.

Grrrrrr…..

[Brad]

6 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I wish that professional writers would stop writing stuff that implies a set of logical propositions that they don't bother to establish. In other words, a clearly defined premise from which to expand.

Also, hey, enough lists. Lists are just expanded bullet-point constructs, and bullent-points lead to an overview, not a deep understanding. So just stop it.

Grrrrrr…..

 

[clifford_thornton]

To me, the writer seems as if he's slighting Blue Mitchell and not totally grasping Nichols or Hope.

[felser]

20 minutes ago, Brad said:

 

[JSngry]