bertrand

Absolutely! It is why I LOVE this version! I'm with you. Jackie excited me to the very end. 1) Well, the release of Just Coolin' was based on someone else's decision. 2) Regardless of the quality of the performances, ALL the tapes should be digitized as a safety precaution. Period. Think Atlantic Fire and Universal Fire. Plus, decisions can be revisited (see 1 above). 3) Yes, a lot of the tracks issued for the first time in Japan in 2014 were top notch. 4) Who is the new guy at Blue Note you are referring to? Zev Feldman? I don't think he is in the same position at Blue Note as Michael was, Lundvall deferred to him for a lot of these decisions. I am not sure who makes the call at Blue Note now, Don Was or people below him? At least one biography of a Blue Note artist was enhanced by the author's access to some out-take reels. This should be motivation enough to digitize it all, except record companies seem to scoff at the historical side of things. I sure hope that whoever will write an in-depth book on Jackie one day will have access to the 5 tracks listed above AND the 1968 rejected session. Jackie is on record as being dissatisfied with it because of the drummer, but a serious biographer should be able to hear it to be able to weight in on the controversy. Bertrand.

He recorded Tune Up on the Fat Jazz record though, so the joke doesn't work. In fact, that version starts and ends with a joke.

This is not Woody's last session.

Definitely not legitimately. It would be interesting to know if it even survives. There are a number of stray tracks like this in Jackie's Blue Note discography and there might be enough for a CD. I have always been curious about the two extra tracks from the quintet half of Jackie's Bag. So I looked it up - in addition to the three tracks mentioned above, there are only two other candidates listed in the discography, Climax and On The Nile from an earlier Jackknife session with Hutcherson instead of Willis. If those two are of comparable length to the issued versions, there could be 40 minutes of music in there. I am leaving out an incomplete Secret Love from Destination Out, and the notorious 1968 session which Jackie did not want released and may be lost at this point. This could be a good CD for Zev Feldman to follow up Just Coolin' with, but we don't know if the tracks survived and are releasable.

The Alice Coltrane was really good!

Up for two reasons: 1. Cory Weeds confirmed on Facebook that the Mobley part was recorded, but did not want to say why it was not released. You can hear Hank noodle a bit on the intro to the Etta Jones CD that he put out on Reel to Real. That CD has some overlap with the Walton. Hank also was on a 1973 Newport in NYC jam that was recorded but the only place that has it AFAIK is Library of Congress. Not on Wolfgang. 2. I have learned that just because the Left Bank people say they don't have a tape does not mean it was not recorded. We need to just think 'No tape has surfaced'. I am 100% sure there are other stashes of tapes out there. For example, Sunenblick had around 20, including the Grant Green/John Patton.

Final reminder for the Duke Pearson tribute tonight. I hope some of you can tune in since I made a big donation for this. If you can't watch in real time, the link is good for a week.

So sorry I never heard him while I was in Paris.

I just texted it to him!

Nasar Abadey would Iove to get in touch with you. What is the best way to do so?

There were several gigs in the DC area, a recording is not impossible but so far no luck.

I will start with Tina Brooks. There is already one 'moral dilemma' - does the Ray Charles DVD count? It has not been issued as an audio CD, I wish it had. So if the session is on a DVD only, does it count? If yes, then this extends to many other live dates that only exist as a DVD, e.g. Art Blakey in Belgium 1958.

That makes sense. As long as a Blue Note session is associated with Blue Note, it will work. So my approach to start entering various Blue Note sessions for practice with the hope of combining them later into a Blue Note discography will work. I don't need to start with the plan 'I will do a Blue Note discography', it can morph into that later. And it can generate other projects along the way. For example, I could start with all the Blue Note Tina Brooks sessions, there are under 20. These can eventually be part of a Blue Note discography, but in the interim can be used for a Tina Brooks discography also since almost all his sessions were Blue Note. I am old and therefore not super intuitive with anything computer related, but it is time I get my feet wet and take the plunge. It sounds like I can start slowly, and whatever work I have done can be used later. But I will start with Blue Note sessions, focusing on the artists above. I have always wanted to see composer credits added to the Blue Note discography. This is the best way to do it. I will never finish the whole Blue Note discography, my goal is to cover the years 1956-1970. There have been great recordings on the label before and after, but this span of time was off the charts in term if quality, as far as I am concerned so that is the best place to start. So I just download it from jazzdiscography.com? Thank you for creating this amazing resource. I can't tell you how much I have used the various BRIAN discographies over the years. Bertrand.

I just watched the videos, so I am going to take a shot at it. I have to decide what to start with and what I am trying to put together. For example, I could try to do a discography for artists that Mike and Noal have not tackled yet, e.g. Joe Chambers, Lee Morgan, Herbie Nichols, Hank Mobley, Grachan Moncur III, Dewey Redman etc... There are still a couple of things I want to make sure I understand before I get started: 1) If I have entered sessions for different Blue Note artists, can I create a report using the label as a key in order to create a Blue Note discography? 2) I do not have a website. Will I still be able to see what my work would look like if it were to be posted on a webpage later? To start, I will enter some specific sessions. What report they are later going to be a part of is something I can decide later, I guess. Bertrand.

It seems to me that I would have to start both processes from scratch. The research is the far more interesting part, but one thing that I have noticed is that some discographers sermed to be allowed access to information directly from the record labels. I would not have that option, I am not sure how to get access. For example, if I were to do a Lee Morgan discography in Brian, I would want to be able to investigate my hunch regarding a second Jazzland session. I have the possible song titles. But how do I get this information from Concord? An online discography already exists as the Appendix to Jeff McMillan's book, so for Lee Morgan the task is more data entry than research. I guess for now, I will continue doing my research in my own format, with the intention of eventually entering the data into BRIAN if and when I ever retire from my day job. My primary focus is the composer credits. For example, no Blue Note discography out there has composer credits, they only exist for sessions that are part of artist discographies. It would be nice to finally get documented some of the corrected credits, e.g. that Wayne Shorter wrote Trapped, Duke Pearson wrote Haeschen and Butch Warren wrote The Way I Feel, not the John Patton tune. One thing I am not really interested in is all the various issues, although I agree they belong in discographies. I will cross that bridge when I get there.

Yes, that statement is an oversimplification. PS: Just read the original post which suggests there was a conspiracy to hide the alleged shortcomings. That made me laugh.

Thanks for the clarification. I am not sure when I will get started. It seems that redoing work that was already done will be a daunting task.

That partially answers my outstanding question - there is a starter database. But every time someone completes a discography in BRIAN, does that get added to the database? I need to start using BRIAN, but that was always a sticking point for me. If, say, I decide I want to make a Tina Brooks discography (around 20-25 sessions at most), how do I get access to all the sessions that were already entered by someone else? It could be that they have all already been entered by someone. Let's say I make a complete Blue Note discography. Then someone doing a Hank Mobley discography has almost no more sessions left to enter? Alternatively, one could build a partial Blue Note discography from sessions entered over the years by other people, starting with jazzdiscography.com and Noal Cohen's site. You would just run a report using 'Blue Note' as the label?

Reminder - the music of Duke Pearson this Friday at 7PM. The link is good for one week if you can't watch live. https://www.instantseats.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=buy.event&eventID=DE9799F1-D0F6-4088-FCDAD1917CCCA246&utm_source=Duke+Pearson+Tribute+1&utm_campaign=pearson+trib&utm_medium=email

Was this unissued alternates or out-takes or just sessions that would not sell enough as a CD reissue?

So what is the question exactly - are there more usable takes from Mother Ship? It could well be but someone would have to listen to the master tape and be willing to do what it takes to convince Blue Note that they could be worth releasing. I am not someone who can get access to the tapes. It seems these days that Zev Feldman is the gatekeeper so someone would have to pitch the idea to him. I am sure he has an email address. I can see that Blue Note would probably be hesitant to repackage sessions that have already been issued just to add a take or two, especially because their preference these days is towards vinyl. The fact that the CD is long OOP and that there is a new generation of interested fans out there never seems to factor in. Partially our fault for whining about every reissue of Blue Train. Here is an idea that would be thinking outside the box, which means that it is doomed from the start: launch a new download-only series of rarities from the vaults. These could be random tracks from different sessions that are worth a reconsideration, e.g. the Unity out-takes which have never been released in the US. A huge advantage to this approach would be that it does not require re-issuing the whole session, nor entire unissued sessions, just the salvageable stuff. A track here, a track there. Kind of like the Lost Sessions CD, but as downloads. Yes, there are some challenges to this: 1) Leaders, sidemen and composers still need to be paid union rates etc. Reasonable. But at least they save on packaging. 2) Some idiots will complain 'I paid for Mothership, and now I have to pay extra for an alternate'. The same idiots who wanted those Mobley sessions reissued in LP order. They probably also returned their copy of Mother Ship because Lee Morgan breaks down on the title tune. 3) I am an idiot who knows nothing about the subtle intricacies about the record business and am talking out of my ass. This is a preventative disclaimer because I know it's coming. Bertrand.

Of course I meant on Blue Note. Just like Joe has been a leader once on Blue Note.

I got it, it is great!

My thoughts on this. If Blue Note did not want anyone to associate them with the Alfred Lion Blue Note, they would change the name. But they didn't. So what are some marketing options to keep them current with 2020 jazz yet not ignore their roots? Sign talented new artists such as Wilkins, Ross, Clayton, and re-sign a few of the veterans like Wayne, Dr. Lonnie and now Joe. The back-catalog is not doing great, as far as I am concerned, but I do not collect vinyl. Billy Harper is an interesting idea. A veteran who has never been a leader. Joe already was a leader once in 1999, and has many sidemen dates. Billy has a more fleeting connection. Signing him strictly based on his powerful artistry regardless of age or BN connections is a perfectly logical choice from the artistic point of view, but the bean-counters run the show.

Joe Chambers just made a new record for Blue Note.