Kevin Bresnahan

Close, but probably more toward blue. If you do a Google image search for this LP, you get the full color gamut.

Just finished: Stanley Turrentine - Blue Hour (Blue Note/Music Matters). What a great sounding record! I just love the music but Music Matters really made this the best sounding LP version I've ever heard. Now that that record finished, a beauty from the Pacific Jazz stable is playing... Cy Touff - Havin' A Ball (World Pacific Records). A nice deep groove LP. Even though it's well played and the jacket is taped on all three sides, it's still great stuff. I always loved Richie Kamuca's playing on this date (as heard on the Connoissuer CD). Weirdly, this LP had one or two tracks come & go (this one has "Lazy River" and misses "Primitive Cats") and yet the CD misses "Lazy River" too. Why didn't Cuscuna add "Lazy River" to the CD? It's only 2:45.

Just finished: Grant Green - Matador Now playing: Stanley Turrentine - Blue Hour Both records are recent releases in the Music Matters 33 rpm series. This series is incredible and I recommend these pressings to anyone into Blue Note vinyl.

If you like those two, I would recommend picking this one up. And if you like a great sounding hunk of vinyl, contact Jerome and get yourself this 2 LP set. The extra care that was put into the sound quality shows. This is one of the best sounding new recordings on vinyl that I've heard.

Frank Morgan & George Cables - Double Image (Contemporary)

New arrival on the doorstep today... Jerome Sabbagh - The Turn (Bee Jazz Records) Jerome Sabbagh - Tenor sax Ben Monder - Guitar Joe Martin - Bass Ted Poor - Drums Interesting story on this purchase. When mastering engineer Doug Sax died a few weeks back, one of the comments on his website was from Jerome, thanking Doug for doing such a great job on his record. I went and listened to some samples, liked what I heard and contacted Jerome to see if I could purchase a copy. He said, "Sure thing" and now here I am listening to this wonderful recording of a band that is clearly having some fun. The drummer is a bit overly fond of rock accents but I like it. You can hear a sample here: http://sunnysidezone.com/album/the-turn. I contacted Jerome through his kickstarter page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1834848136/jerome-sabbagh-the-turn-vinyl-limited-edition.

The Joe Farrell date, "Skate Board Park" is a good one that could use another CD release - I was never able to pick it up on any medium other than a beat up LP. All Xanadu LPs seem to play like they were beat up, even if they show up sealed. The two Billy Mitchell dates, "The Colossus Of Detroit" and "De Lawd's Blues" are well worth hearing as well, with only "De Lawd's Blues" ever making it to CD (that I know of) and that was only via an expensive limited edition from Japan.

Yeah, instead of that they could possibly issue the complete catalogs of Hancock, Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Bobby Hutcherson, Jimmy Smith, Hank, on a disc or 2....... It would expose new fans to a lot of great music and the classic BN catalog, with just a bit more with the standard catalog. How about reissuing the Washington, sure, or some of the gems from the 80's and 90's catalog too. Don Was did say the entire catalog will be available in some form. Why waste space on physical product for most of the UA era stuff, downloads would be ok, so that people who love that period (my friend LOVES that period b/c he loves disco and jazz funk) can get it. Is that really true? I was under the impression that BluRay audio was a high resolution format that required rather large files. It's not like mp3 files. Does anyone know how large the files are on one of these BluRay Audio discs?

If anyone on Facebook is friends with Tom Evered (tomatbluenote on the old Blue Note bulletin board), he has been posting some funny reminisces about Bruce called Tale Of Topsy. They paint the picture of a man who loved life and made it better for those around him. I wish I had known him.

I checked the Tizo Acryl website and they now carry an acrylic platter for the Debut. They have a clear one and a black one. I much prefer the look of the black one. The price is 91.50 Euros, but you have to subtract the 19% VAT to get the price for a US customer. At the current exchange rate, that makes it ~$75. Back in 2011, shipping was 28 Euros ($30.84 today). BTW, I just compared the specs and it appears that the Tizo Acryl platter is actually lighter than the Pro-Ject Acryl-It. Tizo's platter is 1070 grams and the Pro-Ject platter is 1300 grams. So the Tizo platter will not be a problem for the Debut's motor.

Many years ago, Bob & I had an E-mail conversation about the direction of music distribution. He sent me a link to some cool things he was working on. He said that he always had 3 or 4 things going on at once. He was getting into surround sound and was looking at different ways to use the web to get it out there. A few of the things he sent are at his youtube page, but I don't think they are in surround. His surround mix on the "Black Dahlia" SACD is incredible and shows what can be done with 5.1 and music. Such a nice guy. I'm now wondering why I didn't keep the conversations going. I would've loved to hear his stories from his recent trip to Iran. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/world/rebirth-of-the-cool-american-music-makes-a-return-to-iran.html. Loved this: “Next stop: North Vietnam,” Mr. Belden joked. No wonder I liked the guy.

Several close friends of Bob are posting on Facebook that he has died. RIP to a masterful arranger and overall nice guy.

Thanks for the insight and the update Aaron. This might turn out to be one of my favorite Mosaic boxes. Some great stuff in there.

Michael Cuscuna actually said, "I don't believe he did" (use the Aphex Aural Exciter), which is far from clinching it. We can agree to disagree that every RVG CD is somehow messed up. I like some and dislike others. Back to SHM-CD discussion...

Tom Evered is reporting on Facebook that Bruce Lundvall passed away at 3:00 PM today. He was a great friend to the Jazz community and will be missed. A sad day for Jazz. His Wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Lundvall

I brought a bunch of CDs into work to rip them for my daughter. I find myself playing the music quite often. The artist? Katy Perry. Sorry to those who hate the stuff but I like it. It might help that she's a hottie...

This is horrible news! Bob is such a great guy. I've had several long E-mail communications with him and he shared some of his space project surround music pieces with me. 58 is way too young. Bruce has been having trouble for quite a while and I was expecting news like this some day. But Bob... just wow.

I picked up the SHM CD and compared it to my RVG. The RVG CD was squashed like a pancake from compression and the stereo image is narrowed and quickly generates listener fatigue. Additionally, Aphex Aural Exciter artifacts suggest that Rudy used the device to manipulate and goose up the sonics and results in an artificial splashing of the cymbal across the stereo image in a bizarre phasing effect. The RVG of Morgan's The Gigolo is truly one of Rudy's most awful remasters. In contrast, the SHM CD has a wider sound stage, greater dynamic freedom and more natural cymbal presentation. It would be interesting to know if RVG did use the Aphex Aural Exciter on these CDs as it might explain some of the squirrely phasing on some of them. Michael Cuscuna doesn't believe that RVG used it on the Blue Note reissues though. Michael says that RVG typically uses it for recordings that "need more pop".

Has there been any more on these box sets? I am looking forward to them.

When Blue Note announced that "Sweet Honey Bee" was coming out in the RVG series, I called him to tell him that people were saying that the Japanese TOCJ CD issue of this title sounded like it was not taken from a needle drop like the US CD. Cuscuna said that he directed Rudy to pull the Japanese master tape for his master, which he did. Michael said it is just a cleaned up dub of the master tape in the US vault. As for the "dub of a dub of a dub of a vinyl record" comment, I think you have one extra dub in there. Michael said that he had Rudy use the Japanese tape for his master.

again, so bad need upgrade. i mean they can redo all the 50s stuff but the audiophile reissues of 60s bns is definetly lacking by comparison, a lot of my favorite bns of the 60s have never been redone After hearing the CD release of this date, I have a feeling that the best audiophile LP pressing ever wouldn't improve the audio. It's probably just a bad recording.

Roy Eldridge - Richie Kamuca Quintet - Comin' Home Baby (Pumpkin Productions) - Recorded live at the Half Note August 22, 1965 & March 25, 1966 but remained unissued until 1978. Eldridge - trumpet Kamuca - tenor Dick Katz - piano Tommy Potter - bass* Eddie Locke - drums * Potter replaced by Don Moore on the 2 tracks recorded on March 25, 1966. This is an interesting date that I bought much more Kamuca's presence than Eldridge. It almost seems like they alternate songs for who's featured. The pianist-turned-producer plays a decent piano, if a little out of tune in places. The earlier stuff is in better sound. I wonder if there is more somewhere? I'd really like to hear it. What I have here is very good. BTW, I've been looking for this for some time....

Cuscuna has verified that the Japanese master tape of "Sweet Honey Bee" is a dub of the US master tape, which is a needle drop. He even went so far as to get a copy of their tape for RVG to use on his US RVG CD. After extensive searching a couple of times in the past decades, it doesn't appear that there is a copy of this master tape that is not from the needle-dropped master. According to Cuscuna, the Japanese remove all evidence of the needle drop during the mastering, hence the assumption that it must be from a different master tape. It's not.

The only Record Store Day release I bought was Curtis Fuller's "Bluesette". I haven't spun it yet.

I'm with you on this. Like you, I buy upgraded cables and speaker wires. I am sure a lot of us here on organissimo do. However, for these cables and wires, I lean very heavily on the "reliable" aspect of this purchase. I want a well-made cable/wire that will do what I need it to do without fail for a long time. That's my only real qualification for wires. If they look good while doing it... bonus! BTW, I am not a big advocate of "Home Depot lamp cord" speaker wire because I've done that and found green wires 10 years later. To me, that's not doing what I want it to do for a long time. FWIW, I also have a very old pair of Monster Cable speaker wires that have a greenish tint to them, so it's not all about money either.