felser

Guess that likely depends on who's doing the rating, which is most of the point.

Agreed. 'Stand' is the best album, but is basically made up of singles plus a long filler instrumental. All the ones up to Fresh are enjoyable, but this is a group where you can start with the 2CD Essential collection (amazing remastering) and really get the point of everything up through 'Stand' (plus a couple of classic single sides that aren't on any of the albums). 'Riot' needs to stand by itself. Each person needs to decide what they think of it, but it should be heard. 'Fresh' is good, but to me not absolutely essential. Nothing after that should be touched with a 10 foot pole, regardless of what the marketing on Rhino Handmade says.

I'll believe it when I see it, though. Haven't we been promised something like this before? And is it really such a good idea to clean up "Riot?" I always thought part of its charm was its awful sound. With any luck, Sony'll leave this one virtually untouched but give us a nice booklet with scads of details to go with it. This is great news, especially in the case of 'Stand!". The first three came out in CD much later in the game, with much better CD sound than the last four. I agree with Big Al on 'Riot' - it somehow wouldn't feel right to hear that one with good sound, and I'm not sure how close I want to get to that album anyways. It seems like a better idea to appreciate it from a safe distance.

Picks submitted by Red They're also overrated in his opinion... MG We'll need Red to sort that out. I think he meant to post them in this thread, accidentally posted them in the other. So unless we hear otherwise from Red, they stand as his 10 BN DID's.

It was released as a reasonably priced 2CD set on One Way in the mid-90's, went out of print, was rereleased on some ridiculously expensive import CD's, was just rereleased as a reasonably priced 2CD set on Castle UK in October. I picked up the Castle reissue, so have my One Way set available for sale ($14 includes shipping) or trade if anyone is interested. I like the set a lot, but actually like the concurrent studio sets by the same group ('Second Wind', 'Closer To It', and especially 'Straight Ahead') even more. The live stuff is a little ragged compared to the studio takes, and while that's a good thing for some types of music, it isn't for this. The longer solos are nice to have, and the group is smoking. There are many earlier Brian Auger & Trinity, and Brian Auger & Oblivion Express releases that are also well worth having. The utter classic is 'Streetnoise', with Julie Driscoll, but 'Befour' and 'Oblivion Express' are also well worth owning, though all of these sound very different than the live album. The 70's reunion album with Julie Driscoll is also very good, with an amazing version of "No Time To Live".

Picks submitted by Red

Chris, the rule was 10 discs, not 100! 10 individual releases! A big part of the experience is going through the difficult exercise of cutting the list down to 10. We get your point, and love the bodies of work by Blakey and Silver, but I can't count any of your picks in my tally unless you cut it down to 1o individual albums!

Not allowed - pick 10, base 10! And chose your Shorter!

Not interested. Organissimo is the jazz community for me!

No fair submitting 13. A big part of the experience here is the challenge of cutting the list to 10!

What he said. Don't miss this set. "Young Rabbits" was my answering machine greeting for a lot of years!

That's what I found also, just one more slot! Amyways, here's mine: Art Blakey - Mosaic (strongest writing on a Blue Note Blakey disc, and amazing playing) Donald Byrd - Free Form (for the title track, maybe the most magic of all Blue Note cuts for me) Freddie Hubbard - Ready For Freddie (see, Jim, I really will take it to the grave with me) Jackie McLean - One Step Beyond (New Thing never sounded any fresher than here) Jackie McLean - Jacknife (again for one track, the amazing "On The Nile") Lee Morgan - The Gigolo (for the second side, "You Go To My Head" and title track) Sonny Rollins - Newk's Time (my favorite Rollins album, period.) Wayne Shorter - Ju-Ju (tough to pick one Shorter, but this one's consistently wonderful) McCoy Tyner - Expansions McCoy Tyner - Extensions (Couldn't leave either off - today meeting tomorrow at the cusp of the 70's) It hurt me to not include 'Empyrian Isles' ( for "Oliloqui Valley"), 'Speak No Evil' (for "Infant Eyes"), 'Lee Morgan' (for "Capra Black"), 'Coalition' (for "Simone") and others, but 10 is 10, and I'm the guy who wrote the rules here. I was also tempted to include James Newton 'Romance in Revolution' from the "new" Blue Note, but wasn't willing to drop any of my chosen 10 to do so.

To do penance for my last Topic and to pay tribute to the Late, at one time Great Tower Records, we can do Blue Note Desert Island Discs. Here's the rules. You can vote one time. You can pick up to 10 Blue Note Albums (not artists) which you would want if you were stuck on a desert island and could only have 10 of them. Any multi-album sets count as the number of albums contained in the set. So the 4 CD Jackie McLean Mosaic, which contains six albums, would be a vote for each of those six albums and would take up six of your ten eligible slots. After the traffic dies down, I will tally up the votes and present the overall list of Blue Note Desert Island Discs. Then we can do the same with other labels. If no one else posts their lists, then my ten titles (when I post them) win!

Everybody loves Blue Note here, everybody has many titles on that label which are priceless to them.

Totally agree with that.

That lightens things up. I'm not enough of a Byrds' fan to comment, but I do know that they gained when David Crosby split - The Asshole of the Earth. Actually, they lost bigtime in musical terms when Clark and then Crosby split. The McGuinn/Clark/Crosby trio was the magic of the Byrds. All had their moments in the years afterwards, obviously, but nothing that holds a candle to the magic of the first four Byrds albums (five if you want to count 'Preflyte', which is fine with me). Not that this has anything to do with the original intent of the thread, but the prime Byrds are my favorite rock group of all time, so I can't resist comment

Yep, let's boycott the NEA and the Nobel Peace Prize until they see the light and award the Mizell Brothers and the Blackbyrds!

Jim, that can be true if an entire artist is being dismissed, (good point made later about artists vs. albums being discounted) but is a dangerous general assumption even then. I agree that I need to dismiss myself from judging good hip-hop from bad hip-hop, etc. because I can't "hear" any of it. But when I dig 'Spring' and am left cold by 'Lifetime', when I love 'The Gigolo' but feel lukewarm towards 'Cornbread', when I am crazy about 'Complete Communion' but can barely listen to 'Symphony for Improvisors', when I will take 'Ready for Freddie' to the grave but never feel any urge to play 'Hub-Tones' or 'Night of the Cookers' something different is going on there other than 'I don't get it simple as that'. There has to be aesthetic involved even within a sub-genre.

Well. that's what this is, the thread on overrated Blue Note albums. So I'll try to do a tally when the traffic stops.

Actually, what made me think about this for some time is that it seems like every time any 60's Blue Note album is mentioned, people are jumping on and declaring it one of the great masterpieces of all time, regardless of title. I'm trying to stimulate people, especially some of the newer/younger guys, to think/listen through some of this. I mean, I love the Blue Note sound, but not every title is among the greatest. If there are 500 of them, then 100 of those rank in the bottom 20%. (BTW, I think 'Speak No Evil' is awesome).

'Course he didn't release 'Jacknife' until then either, and that's a stone classic. I'm sorry to see that we're so many posts into this thread, and no one else has added any albums.

This is one I've wanted to do for awhile. What are some of the so-called "classic" Blue Note dates which leave you cold? I'm not talking about 'Jimmy Smith Plays Fats Waller' or Donald Byrd's 'I'm Trying To Get Home' or Dodo Greene, I'm talking about the ones that get spoken of in hushed, reverential tones, yet at the end of the day sort of leave you cold. Here are a few that come to mind for me: Jackie McLean - New and Old Gospel Jackie McLean - Tippin' The Scales Jackie McLean - 'Bout Soul (but I LOVE McLean's stuff overall, but some belonged in the can) Freddie Redd- all of them, especially 'The Connection' Ornette Coleman - At The Golden Circle Tony Williams - Lifetime Grant Green - 'The Latin Bit' 'Goin' West', 'Feelin' The Spirit' Lee Morgan - Cornbread (it's good, but the composing disappoints me) Bobby Hutcherson - Components Don Cherry - Symphony For Improvisors

Good show, beautiful venue. Rollins hobbled out onto stage, looking his full 76 years old, played with tremendous power and vitality for over two hours, and then hobbled back off. Amazing and truly inspiring. Clifton Anderson played better than I've ever heard him. The Bob Cranshaw/Victor Lewis rhythm section was spectacular. Percussionist Kimati Dinizulu played well and was well integrated into the sound, but to me was somewhat superfluous because Lewis is so strong. The only player who didn't seem to fit well or have a good night was guitarist Bobby Broom. He is apparently a temporary member of the group, based on Rollins' stage announcements, and his heart didn't really seem in it to me. I like Broom as a guitarist, but he's more comfortable in organ combos. The tune selection, to me, was pretty unimaginative. It was nice to hear "Tenor Madness" as the encore, but I thought there were too many calypsos. Overall, a really nice experience, great way to spend a Friday night.

I agree with Al. Well I don't. There are so many versions of this tune. . . this is not one of my favorite ones. But . . . you go guys! I don't either. I love the 'Jazz at Massey Hall' version, and the Art Blakey version on Blue Note, off the top of my head.

Agreed (especially 'The Gigolo'), and his last albums ('Live at the Lighthouse' and 'Lee Morgan') are equally magnificent and even more distinctive. He's one Blue Note artist (John Patton and Larry Young are two others) who seems to have been able to totally reinvent himself post-hardbop without a hint of sellout. Very wonderful occurrence considering the obvious artistic cul-de-sac he was in during the late 60's ('Charisma', 'Carumba',etc.).