When Blue Note LPs were coming out in the 60s, I and my youthful friends criticised them for sticking to a formula to create the BN brand: Side 1, Track 1 was very often a heavily accented backbeat number aimed to make the album saleable and perhaps create a hit single; Van Gelder's recording tended to make everything sound "dramatic"; Francis Wolf and Reid Miles's covers always had the same look; certain musicians, e.g. Billy Higgins, were omnipresent while large areas of the music were never recorded by BN. In my maturity I realise these were quibbles and that jazz owes an enormous debt to BN and that some of the finest records in my present collection are on that label.