Are you forgetting that the label's "quality control" went way South at one point when it embraced shallow funk?
Chris, are you calling Baby Face Willette, John Patton, Lou Donaldson, Freddie Roach, Lonnie Smith, Reuben Wilson, Grant Green, Jimmy Smith, Stan Turrentine & Don Wilkerson shallow funk? Or do you mean what happened after Francis Wolff died?
I'd have to admit that, even with this line up, Blue Note wasn't as good as Prestige at this stuff but dismissing it doesn't seem anywhere near right.
MG
I asked him the same question above and I think he acknowledges that he's referring to the "Dr." Butler, post-Lion/Wolff years.
Well Dr. Butler did produce Lee Morgan's "The Last Session" so he couldn't have been all that bad.