Mother Ship Cover Unveiled

[Jazzdog]

There's obviously something about BN covers and index fingers. I hadn't thought of it before.

The pointy index finger is basically a code. It means, "Let's all bring this down on the ONE" which is musicians shorthand for "Let's make this real Fonky"

The larry Young pic loks like it was taken from a live performance somewhere. But now I am curious, what is the fundamental difference between the B-3 and the C-3. Are they both made by Hammond or is the C-3 something else?

[jazzbo]

That's what I thought it meant as well.

If I'm not mistaken the C3 is smaller. . . but the organists here would have the skinny. My personal experience is with a friend's B3. . . loading it in and out of a van a half a dozen times. . . and with some seventies model compact Hammond that my grandfather had and played songs on after he retired (he used to play banjo in the twenties! and taught himself the organ when he retired.) That little model was cool, but no C3 or B3!

[jazzbo]

By the way, that cover doesn't do much for me!

[Jazzdog]

The design seems kind of basic (an essential problem with these Conn's in general) but I love the photo!!!

[Brad]

Speaking of pointing, may Bennie is glad that this recording is "back on the scene" B)

[Soul Stream]

But now I am curious, what is the fundamental difference between the B-3 and the C-3. Are they both made by Hammond or is the C-3 something else?

The B3 and the C3 are two different models made by Hammond. That said, they are completely identical except for the wood cabinet style. The C3 had a wood cabinet with solid front and sides. The B3 wood cabinet was more of a box w/legs. Dimension-wise for the cabinet, they are about the same if not identical. I've got a B3 and a C3, but I've never set them side by side and eye-balled them.

All of the Blue Note/Prestige organ records we love (sans for some not recorded at Englewood Cliffs (ie JOS' stuff pre-englewood stuff cut on Jimmy's B2) were recorded on the Hammond C3 that is a permanent fixture at Rudy's Englewood Cliff's studio. Many refer to it as the B3 sound, ironically it's actually a C3. But like I said before, they are IDENTICAL except for the cosmetics (wood cabinet.)

Hope that helps.

...did I sound enough like a nerd. B)

Edited September 14, 2003 by Soul Stream

[Brad]

Soul Stream, does that mean that the different design gives a slightly different sound or to your ears do they have the same sound?

[Soul Stream]

Soul Stream, does that mean that the different design gives a slightly different sound or to your ears do they have the same sound?

Oh no. They have the EXACT same sound. Because the electronics are identical. Same preamp, same tone generator, same manuals(the two keyboards). Same everything. Nothing is different. The parts are interchangeable.

Matter of fact, my B3 is a 56 and was pretty beat. Pre-amp was weak, manuals didn't have great action, ect. So I took all the guts out of a Hammond A-100 and put them in my B3 cabinet. You see, the Hammond B3, C3, and A-100 models are all the exact same thing but with different wood cabinets (O.K the A100 has internal speakers, reverb added ).

[Ed S]

By the way, that cover doesn't do much for me!

The cover doesn't do much for me either.

I guess I just don't think it represents the music very well. Mother Ship is an excellent date, IMO, from Youngs late BN period. The music is adventurous and forward looking. To me, this cover looks too much like an attempt at a classic Blue Note session and evokes the early to mid 60s. I'd have liked a cover as adventurous as the music, if you know what I mean.

Edited September 14, 2003 by Ed Swinnich

[DrJ]

It appears I'm in the minority here, but I like the cover for MOTHER SHIP OK. Although some of the slightly later vintage Larry Young pics (like those in the Mosaic booklet) would probably have fit the music a little better. Still, a nice job.

[Soul Stream]

Can anybody pull up a larger image of the Mothership cover? It's hard to say too much about it, I can't even see it.

Also, looking at the Mosaic booklet...there are no "later" images of Young, or any of the sessions past "Unity." And the "Unity" shots look wierd, over-lit, blurry...I'm not sure if F. Wolff shot these or not. It doesn't look like his work at all. Very unprofessional kind of look.

So, I get the feeling images from his later sessions don't exist at all.

Edited September 14, 2003 by Soul Stream

[Jim Alfredson]

Oh no. They have the EXACT same sound. Because the electronics are identical. Same preamp, same tone generator, same manuals(the two keyboards). Same everything. Nothing is different. The parts are interchangeable.

Well, no two Hammonds have the EXACT same sound, but that's just nitpicking. Same electronics, yes. The C's have a little smaller footprint. They are not as deep. I know because I can put a C through the driver side sliding door on my van, but not a B. The B's are too deep.

I had an M100 and that could be what that is. Then again, it could also be an L series or an H. All have tabs as well as drawbars. None have decent bass, though.

It could be a Porta-B too.

[Soul Stream]

Oh no.  They have the EXACT same sound.  Because the electronics are identical.  Same preamp, same tone generator, same manuals(the two keyboards).  Same everything.  Nothing is different.  The parts are interchangeable.

Well, no two Hammonds have the EXACT same sound, but that's just nitpicking. Same electronics, yes.

You and I know that's true Jim. But in general terms, for the layman, they are exactly the same. Let's not confuse these poor folks!

Hence, why I traded the guts of my B3 for the A100. The sound and feel of every organ is different to the player. Also, Leslie models, preamps and leslie amps make an even bigger difference to the sound. A B3 through a 122 doesn't sound the same as a B3 through a 145.

Rudy's leslie is a 21H. The best sounding Leslie imho (I think the one louvre up top coupled with the electro-magnetic speaker is THE sound). Wish I had one!

[JSngry]

Can anybody pull up a larger image of the Mothership cover? It's hard to say too much about it, I can't even see it.

Sorry dude, that's the best I can do. I puuled it off an e-mail from DoubleTime Jazz that was forwarded to me. The cover shot was a link to Music Resource.com. but the image doesn't even show up there. I had to copy it into Paint and then PaintShop Pro, and THEN change the file format just to get it into a format that I could attach here.

Actually, I didn't do any of that - my daughter did. She's the image manipulation whiz of the family.

Those LT covers get a bad rap, I think. They are indeed bare bones, low budget jobs, but a lot of them are quite effective in a minimalist way if you pay attention and use your imagination. The MOTHER SHIP cover had a photo of something that looked like a closeup of some solar panel or something. I don't know what it was, but it sefinitely looked like something that would be found on a Mother Ship,

I like it, think it fits the title of the album quite nicely. A lot of the LT covers were like that too - the overall design was Spartan, but the actual photo quite often fit the title of the album in a really evocative manner. THINKING OF HOME & COOL BLUES come readily to mind. But they're not covers or photos in the "classic" BN style, and BN can certainly be understood for wanting to play to the whole "Blue Note Mystique" thing with these new covers, especially seeing that a lot (most?) people who will be buying these things either weren't around for the LT series, or if they were, might have missed them (they were usually here today, gone later today affairs).

Another thing about the LT covers - they don't post worth a damn - whatever effectiveness they had almost has to be experienced by holding the things in your hands and looking at them yourself, maybe even pondering them. The of-necessity minimalism just doesn't create impact any other way. If you see a scan of one, you're going to think that it's nothing.

This is all just my opinion, of course, and I know people who have the actual things who can't stand them. But I bought a lot of them when they came out, and I usually found them to have their own vibe, one that I liked. That, of course, was then, and this is now, however, and if it's on Blue Note, it's going to have that "Blue Note Look", meaning that Reid Miles look. Ok, whatever. But considering what MOTHER SHIP actually is (a post-lion, post-Miles, non hard bop session that wasn't even released for 20 or so years), I think the LT cpver is actually a better fit for both the music and the document.

This is all quibbling over nothing, of course. The bottom line is that this is a great session that's been long overdue for reissue, and I'd be picking it up to supplement my LT LP even if it had one of those creepy Mode-type painings for a cover.

[Soul Stream]

I don't think I know what an LT pressing is? Do I?

[Ed S]

Anyone have an image of the original cover?

[JSngry]

Oooops, sorry. My bad.

The LT series was the "survivor" of the mid-70s "Blue Note Reissue Series", a set of twofers that began with some conventional "best of" sets, but quickly evolved into primarily, but not exclusively, a means to get previously unissued sessions (as well as heretofore long OOP obscurities like the Herbie Nichols stuff) into public circulation. As the 70s wore on, and BN's pop/jazz roster all got snapped up by other labels (mostly Columbia, it seemed) without being replaced, these things got less practical financially, and the reissues soon began coming out in single disc form, with the LT prefix in their catalog number. A LOT of great stuff came out as LTs, but Cuscuna has admitted that his philosophy by that time was to get as much out as quicly as possible before the powers that be pilled the plug. So not a lot of money was spent on artwork and such.

The covers all followed the same format - one photograph inside a white field, with the artist's name in bold fond, and the ablum title, in smaller, regular font, above the photo with a thin graduated grey stripe forming a border for the title and the photo. Another, wider graduated grey stripe ran across the top of each coverIt was cheap and functional. These albums are sometimes refered to as the "rainbow series" too, becasue there was a diagonal rainbow pattern running across the top left corner of each one. Actually, the series was officially labelled "Blue Note Classic", but nobody calls them that anymore.

Now, I LIKE these covers, by and large. Like I said, they're cheap and minimalist, but the photos used are often QUITE evocative. The one used on Andrew Hill's DANCE WITH DEATH is quite simple (like a lot of them are) - it's a color shot of one red high heel shoe in a shrub. But it's a night shot, the lighting like it's from a flashlight a few yards away (like somebody, a detective perhaps, is about to discover this wayward shoe but hasn't just yet), and it's a pretty kinky shoe, actually - VERY red and VERY high heeled. It's a spike heel in fact, a VERY sexy shoe. The image is very "noirish", even though it's in color, and dammit, it TOTALLY fits the mood of the title, "Dance With Death". You got some heavy Raymond Chandler vibes going on here - flirtation, seduction, sex, murder, a lone shoe found in a bush as a remnant, all that stuff. A Reid Miles "tribute" cover just won't give you that.

Which, like I hope I've made clear, is just fine. I just think the LT covers get a MUCH worse rep than they deserve. The uniform look was no doubt economically driven, but it also gave the series a distinct look, alook that made it clear that these were NOT "regular" BN albums, that these were different, that they were coming out for the first time (mostly, a few actual reissues came out as LTs, but very few) in their OWN series, and I liked that. Still do, in fact. An LT cover adds to the historical perspective of the session having sat in the vault for however long before being rescued in a definite way that a "lookalike" cover doesn't, and I think that it's good to have that point in your mind. Not while listening to the actual music, of course, but when thinking about how things played out in the Blue Note saga.

Maybe it's the uniform look to the series that turns many off. This I can understand. But the individual photos are often worthy of a closer look, imo.

Geek talk, all of this is. But hey - I AM a geek!

Edited September 14, 2003 by JSngry

[JSngry]

Anyone have an image of the original cover?

I'm telling you man, it won't post well. VERY subtle, VERY minimalist. You have to see it firsthand.

And even then, you might not dig it. Many people don't.

[Soul Stream]

Oh yes, I DO know those album covers. Matter of fact I've got a few, but wan't hip to the LT lingo. Those are nice issues, and since we won't be getting "Mothership" on vinyl, still a valuable commodity I would think.

[BFrank]

"LT" editions were early 80's releases of previously unissued BN sessions. The covers were all the same except for the photo inserted in the center. They were otherwise mostly white with identical graphics.

Some of the LTs that I have are:

Lee Morgan - "Tom Cat", "Infinity"

Wayne Shorter - "Etcetera"

Jackie McLean - "Consequence"

Dexter Gordon - "Clubhouse"

Grant Green - "Solid"

Hank Mobley - "Third Season"

**Update: I missed the other posts on this page describing the cover when I wrote mine. Jim's description is much better.

Here's one that's on ebay:

Edited September 15, 2003 by BFrank

[jazzbo]

I agree with Jim that some of those LT covers are really great, I like Thinking of Home and Dance with Death quite a bit for instance.

This new cover just seems an odd choice to me, but then I'm neither the Art Director nor that big on cover art on Blue Notes the way others are here. . . . Anyone who has seen any of MY covers knows I am no Reid Miles (nor do I have the same philosophy of cover art) so I shouldn't be pointing any fingers. . . .

[DrJ]

Soul Stream is right (thanks for clarifying), as I go back to the Mosaic booklet, the latest photo is from UNITY sessions...but it feels "later" because of the style of clothes/hair Young is wearing, that was what I "remembered." Even though that particular photo is not very well-done, what I was trying to say was that type of look would have fit the music a bit better IMHO. There HAVE to be some even later Larry Young photos out there somewhere...

[JSngry]

Well, the cynic in me says that playing into the Blue Note Mystique is more important than accurately portraying the era the music was made, but I try not to listen to that guy too much.

But I will say this - if HEAVEN ON EARTH ever gets reissued singly, they'd better LEAVE THE COVER ALONE!

[Rooster_Ties]

Anything happen while I was gone??? Are we there yet????

[Soul Stream]

Seeing as there is a rather small amount of pictures of Larry in this era, ESPECIALLY color stuff, I can't see how anyone COULDN'T dig this picture of Larry...laughing, beautiful lighting, color, motion! Argue what you will about the graphic design, layout, ect....but THAT PICTURE IS BAAADDDDD!!!!!