DrJ

This has always been one of my favorite of the Blue Note avant garde sessions. Even sounds great in the old McMaster CD version. I'm stopping off at the record store on the way home today to pick up the RVG!

For me, he never did it any better (just different) than the first one, QUARTET. One fantastic album that layed it all out - the distinctive tone, wonderful writing skills, the great choice of musical companions - it's all here, as it would be throughout his long tenure at BN. Maybe his greatest ballad writing and playing ever too in "My Sin."

Glad someone dredged up this thread, I'd missed it but enjoyed perusing. First, I was reminded of what a master BS artist mnytime was...I'm not sure what his actual occupation was, but I actually am an MD and I can tell you he was full of crap...decibels are decibels, whether the sound is eminating from a headphone speaker an inch from your ear or from a blazing Marshall stack or PA speaker 20 feet away. Crank either up regularly and you're going to damage your hearing over time. If Townsend actually believes he lost his hearing due to headphone use and that the over-the-top volume of the Who's countless gigs wasn't at fault, then old Trowser has fried more than just his hearing over the years! Anyway, back to the topic at hand - I've enjoyed my Sony MDRCD3000 reference headphones immensely, had them now for a few months. Very true reproduction with minimal artificiality and they sound good at any volume (including lower). Probably the best headphone I've ever heard in terms of reproducing the feeling of depth and space. I'm not the only one who likes them, though they don't seem to get mentioned around here much (probably because few think "audiophile" when they think "Sony"), they've been very favorably reviewed against comparably priced Sennheiser and Grado models. I paid about $400 for mine new, although they list for quite a bit more (around $700). Very comfortable for prolonged wear also. Here's a link to some reviews: Sony MDRCD3000-reviews1

Agreed, but I still voted! And I voted A SLICE OF THE TOP...although mostly because it needs to get more respect. Any number of his 60's recordings are among the finest anyone's waxed - SOUL STATION, ROLL CALL, NO ROOM FOR SQUARES, DIPPIN', and SLICE are probably my faves. WORKOUT may get my vote for most overrated - quite good, for sure, but for some reason it's just not one that I want to hear real often (maybe a bit too much in the "classic hard bop mold," and thus a little lighter in terms of Hank leaving his usual distinctive stamp).

I think it may have something to do with NEOHIPPUS being a little easier to find, I seem to see it pop up fairly frequently. In fact it's the only one that I have been fortunate enough to find for my own purchase (have only heard SUSPENSE).

Will do!

No, skeith, don't have that one but will make it a high priority. Thanks for the heads up.

Yes, I'd have predicted that the vinyl from that era would sound far superior - I have one of the Walrath BNs on vinyl and it sounds really good. That will be more what I'd expect a Select to sound like. I know some have slammed the DMM LPs but as I recall it had more to do with where they were manufactured (some places the quality was lower) than with the series as a whole...perhaps it was Chuck Nessa who had commented on that in another thread, was very illuminating. Luckily, the few I have sound great, certainly not through any informed buying on my part. Have you heard the Walrath Blue Notes? They are really fantastic, actually musically more rewarding than the Bennie Wallace dates but I agree with you, those are quite good and ought to sell well.

Just keeps growing in my estimation, I just ordered two copies, one each for my dad and father in law, both of whom are going to flip over it. No, it's not fire and brimstone or earthshakingly new what they're doing, but for a thoroughly modern and utterly intelligent take on bop, you simply can't beat it. The recording is also just amazing. I finally got a chance to listen on my home set-up and have to say that I've never heard a standard jazz CD (as opposed to SACD) that allows you to feel as much a part of what was going down in the room...this recording engineer KNEW what he was doing, let me tell you. Dailey is a revelation. Hearing this has prompted me to try and track down as much of his playing as possible...all I have except this for now is a very obscure Muse LP he did under guitarist Bruce Forman's leadership in the 80's called 20/20 (a nice date BTW - Forman, Daley, Tom Harrell in his early Bay Area days, Billy Hart, and bassist Mike Richmond - well worth tracking down). Dailey is on fire on that one, which is pretty driving stuff. On POETRY, he's more relaxed and expansive but certainly on the bop tunes he generates more than enough drive. Even if you're hot and cold or fully cold on Getz from other recordings, some of which were admittedly merely professional rather than passionate, please do yourself a favor and give this one a fair hearing, it just may change your opinions about him. Easily up with his best work.

Well thanks for the comments on STAR EYES, folks, I just ordered a copy from Cadence for about 8 bucks (pretty good price!).

Ah, I just posted a "heads up" about this little nugget of an announcement from the latest Mosaic catalog on another thread, and then came here - old news to many, it appears! Anyway, I'm stoked...thanks for posting on the planned contents. For my part I would have preferred to see a third disc of live/unreleased Pullen/Adams Quartet material in the Select rather than Pullen's two (relatively easy to find) trio CDs, but still that is great material and I'm not going to look this big old gift horse in the mouth! The possibilities now open up for a whole slew of 80's era BN Selects...the Newton would be good (although not sure how they'd round it up to 3 CDs with only 2 leader dates...maybe feature some other artist, kind of like some of the PJ Selects). But IMHO even better would be a Jack Walrath BN Select...those recordings he did for BN in the late 80's are MY-TEE fine, up there with the Pullen/Adams material to my ears in terms of creativity and sheer heart and soul. Perhaps a Bobby Watson/Horizon Select would also be nice (again even NICER if there's some unissued hot live material, that would seem a natural given Watson's passion on stage during that era). Bennie Wallace's discs for the label in the 80's also deserve to be reissued in better sound (they were issued right at the start of the CD era and sound like crap). Maybe they could be paired up with the Newtons, although thematically/musically they have little in common, I don't care if it gets the music out!

This is a killer listing of upcoming sets. Mosaic isn't losing any momentum over time, not in the least! ALSO: did anyone else see the other bit of FANTASTIC news in the latest Mosaic catalog? In Michael Cuscuna's little essay at the beginning of the catalog, where he talks about the Liebman/Beirach Select, he also mentions that the Blue Note recordings of the Don Pullen/George Adams band will be the subject of another Mosaic Select in the near future (later this year I believe)! Having seen many here on the board, including myself, clamoring for a Mosaic covering their work, this announcement ought to generate some excitement! I only have had the good fortune to track down one of their Blue Note CDs, BREAKTHROUGH, and it is nothing less than great, has to be one of the finest jazz recordings of the era. I am very pleased to see Mosaic experimenting with reissuing more 70's and even 80's stuff - yeah, they did it with the Woody Shaw and Phil Woods boxes, but that's only 2 over a period of many years, and now we're getting a couple of Selects dedicated to newer material in just the space of a year! BRING ON MORE (Arista/Freedom Braxtons, Horace Tapscott Nimbus recordings, anyone?)

Yeah, Randy mentions that Howard Alden Concord date TAKE YOUR PICK - I'm generally not much of a Concord Jazz kind of guy but that one is really good. Lew Tabackin, Rosnes, Alden, and a wonderful array of tunes including a couple by Herbie Nichols. Well worth a listen.

I'm a big Allen fan, too - to me the Haden and Motian trio date from the Vanguard is one of the finest piano trio recordings in jazz history. That good - simply unbelievable, right up there with the best of Bill Evans' trios, but with its own sound and vibe. I like the playing on TWENTY ONE fine, but feel it's one of those "I'm Tony Williams, Godlike drummer, so crank me up in the mix" dates where it just throws off the whole balance for me...just because you're a genius doesn't mean you should drown everyone else out!

Wow, is it just me or have there been an inordinate amount of nice archival releases hitting the market lately? Another to add to the list, but fortunately cheaper than most!

I stupidly passed on a very cheap cut out copy of this CD last weekend...wasn't familiar with it at the time, but in checking out All Music Guide, they rave about it. Still, Thom Jurek is the reviewer, and he goes into rapture in just about all of his reviews, so kind of useless. Where would people place this date in the canon of either man? It seems like it would have a HIGH chance of being a major winner.

You've moved it back up on my "to purchase" list Rooster and Ubu. I remember listening to this one on a listening station at Tower when it came out and being intrigued, but not enough to take the plunge. I see it used all the time for 5-6 bucks tops, so probably worth checking out. Thanks for the reminder.

Lookin' forward to that Pearson select. I have nearly all of it already but your comments on THE PHANTOM are making my mouth water. Yeah wesbed, I DON'T CARE WHO KNOWS IT is a fantastic album, a real late period BN sleeper...I love it, and I don't care who knows it! HOW INSENSITIVE I also have, and must say so far it hasn't really fully grabbed me either. I wouldn't be surprised if it did eventually, though - several times Pearson's music has initially struck me as kind of kitschy or camp - even some of the stuff on SWEET HONEY BEE years back - but now I love it. Sometimes it's hip to be square.

It's rapidly moving up my list of favorite duet recordings, and of favorite recordings period. Perhaps this one has hit me so hard precisely because I didn't come in with any specific expectations - if anything, I honestly figured it was more one to fill in a gap in my Getz collection, but turns out it's ESSENTIAL. I listened to it in the car on the way to work, taking someone to the airport, coming back, and then coming home again and I'm still not sick of it. This never happens that I play a disc over and over. Great stuff.

I just wanted to put in an enthusiastic plug for this CD, which is on the going out of print list per Mosaic/True Blue's last mailing. Just Getz and the undersung pianist Albert Dailey, unadorned and beautifully recorded - with lots of ambient room sound in the mix for atmosphere, so you feel like you're sitting right there in front of them. Impeccable choice of themes here, too: 1. Confirmation performed by Getz / Albert Dailey - 5:24 2. A Child Is Born performed by Getz / Albert Dailey - 5:19 3. Tune Up performed by Getz / Albert Dailey - 5:41 4. Lover Man performed by Getz / Albert Dailey - 6:54 5. A Night in Tunisia performed by Getz / Albert Dailey - 5:26 6. Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most performed by Getz / Albert Dailey - 6:30 7. 'Round Midnight performed by Getz / Albert Dailey - 7:32 While many have been played to death, they HAVEN'T been played often in this duet configuration, and they sound fresh and new without exception. I must have played "Confirmation" 30 times over the past 3 days, something I very seldom do, but I'd be ecstatic if they uncovered a 20 minute version someday - it's that good. Despite the overall relaxed atmosphere, Getz digs in surprisingly hard at times, particularly on the bop themes such as "Confirmation." Dailey raises eyebrows on a number of occasions - check out his change of time signatures during the solo on "Tune Up." Anyway, at 9 bucks, this is a heck of a bargain. Don't miss it.

RDK - this argument about squashing the dynamic range sounds fine in theory but I honestly think it's more of a theoretical issue - a pet topic of debate for obsessed audiophiles (and hey, I'm talking about it here, so count me among those rolls I guess... ) but one that doesn't hold water in reality. What you're talking about - distracting loss of dynamic range - would only occur if there was EXTREME equalization going on, so that the specific parts of the sonic spectrum that were quiet to begin with were heavily boosted while others that were louder were being drastically turned down, in order to "flatten" or compress the signal so that it's essentially approaching a flat line. If that happened, then sure, what you're saying is true. That's selective adjustment of volume. It could also happen if the overall CD signal was so "hot" that it was approaching distortion levels, I suppose. What I'm trying to say is that it is clear to my ears that neither of these things is going on. While it's possible that Rudy may be using some compression on the RVGs - it remains a matter of debate but probably he does at least on some - he uses it FAR more judiciously than what you're implying. You can just hear it - not everything sounds like it's at the same volume, NO MATTER where you have your volume knob set on the stereo. There's plenty of dynamic range, even if you're listening at a louder volume and certainly if you adjust to a comfortable listening volume. So basically, I hold fast - given that your stereo volume knob doesn't selectively adjust different parts of the spectrum, you can just turn down the volume knob when you're listening to RVGs if you feel they're too loud, and turn up older CDs (which in my experience tended to be recorded much more quietly). When I do this in A/B tests, I find two things - one, that often there is NOT as much difference between the old and new versions as you initially thought - in other words, what skeith says is clearly true unless maybe you have an ultra-audiophile, mega-buck listening system that can reproduce the full dynamic range with perfect fidelity even at ultra low volumes - but two, that there IS CLEARLY a difference even if subtle.

I love the idea of the "complete fuckups," brilliant. I'm sure there were at least a few more I've come across. Great idea for a Select.

Sorry I'm late in too - HAPPY BIRTHDAY and thanks for hosting the board, it's a great place primarily thanks to the friendly, everyone's welcome vibe you guys established and maintain.

Well Big Wheel, you're in for a treat once you hear the earlier records. I would agree with Jim and Lon - as great as the later records like CONSUMMATION and CENTRAL PARK NORTH are to me, they have some patches that to my ears haven't aged as well. For example, I do have a hard time getting past some of the numbers with electric bass - I am not fundamentally against electrified jazz, but to me these cuts sound time bound and kitschy now. By contrast, the earlier material is consistently sublime and still sounds ultra fresh and contemporary even today, precisely because they didn't pander to any trends and just made beautiful, creative music. Just simply amazing how creative the charts were, how wonderful the playing and writing - what a cast. Bob Brookmeyer's arranging work in particular is monumental. Blue Note definitely has to get around to reissuing all their holdings of Jones/Lewis, the music is just too good to sit in the vault. The first 3 discs of the Mosaic are among my favorite jazz recordings ever. This includes the albums PRESNTING THAD JONES-MEL LEWIS AND THE JAZZ ORCHESTRA, LIVE AT THE VILLAGE VANGUARD, and MONDAY NIGHT plus previously unissued stuff from that era - so everything from 1966 through 1968.

As Lon and some others know, some of the Savoy Lateefs were issued in a 2 CD set a couple years back - and for once, Orrin Keepnews kept the dates issued complete, not truncated! He did, however, never get around to getting the other Lateef Savoys out... To make up the rest, if you are into vinyl, there was a good 2 LP set on Savoy called MORNING...I'm not 100% sure but I think if you have this and the CD twofer, you'd have all his leader stuff on Savoy. I'd be pleasantly surprised if someone corrected me about that, since it would mean more Lateef to hear! All the Savoys are indeed great - and I'd give the material on MORNING the nod as his best work, which makes it all the more galling that it's not out on CD.