Blue Note alternate takes discography

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

i have asked this in four different cattegories and cant seem to find a decent answer, so once again, ON B-N MASTER TAPES, you know how they have released some alternate takes, well how many alts remain on master tapes usually, eg. if cornbread was takes 11-24, is there really THAT many cornbreads on tape?

or would it be just the master version and maybe 1 other, etc.....

as we know from the BN discog. there were many many takes of certain songs----but as far as recordings of these still on those tapes.....

****DO YOU THINK THERE COULD BE SOMEWHERE IN THERE, A TAPE OF TWENTY DIFF. TAKES OF ONE CLASSIC SONG"???? those of you with knowlege of bn history id like to hear what you think......

i want to hear JUST ONE BN SONG IN MY LIFETIME from start to finish, eg. like this cd i have with 47 different takes of "GOOD VIBRATIONS". it really helps you get to the heart of the song

[JSngry]

The only way to give an accurate answer on that one would be to actually listen to each session tape. Very few people have done that, so that's why you're having a hard time getting an answer. And every session's going to be different. Some go smoothly, some are rough.

Tell you this much, though, I seriously doubt that all the takes of any song with more than 2 or 3 takes are full takes. Inevitably there's some false starts & breakdowns included.

[bertrand]

I'm totally with chewy on this. I would love to hear a complete Blue Note session, false starts and all, including the chatter. Jim is probably right - the takes are no doubt mostly aborted, but there could be a couple of decent alternates that have not shown up yet.

Cornbread would be a good one - as I just posted on the Herbie Hancock thread, I would love to hear the rejected session from 9/17/65 (the day before the master takes) to see how these pieces evolved. How did Herbie put together his killer intro to 'Ceora' - did he already do it the day before, or did he think about it overnight between the two sessions? Did Jackie play on the rejected 'Ceora', or was he also out as he was on the mater take?

Even if they do not put out this stuff for lack of commercial potential and out of respect for the artists, could they not have streams on their website for historical purposes? That's the kind of thing the internet is for. Blue Note needs to get with the program - did they not announce on the revamped site that there would be rarities available for downloading? Rejected tracks would be perfect - they could even make money off of this. The first candidate would be the tune they left off for lack of space from Manhattan Fever. It may not be a masterpiece, but I would buy it for $0.99 just to have a complete session.

Bertrand.

Edited December 24, 2007 by bertrand

[JSngry]

Chatter... sometimes the tape rolls between takes, but often it's shut off in order to save it.

That stuff cost money, doncha' know!

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I'm totally with chewy on this. I would love to hear a complete Blue Note session, false starts and all, including the chatter. Jim is probably right - the takes are no doubt mostly aborted, but there could be a couple of decent alternates that have not shown up yet.

Cornbread would be a good one - as I just posted on the Herbie Hancock thread, I would love to hear the rejected session from 9/17/65 (the day before the master takes) to see how these pieces evolved. How did Herbie put together his killer intro to 'Ceora' - did he already do it the day before, or did he think about it overnight between the two sessions? Did Jackie play on the rejected 'Ceora', or was he also out as he was on the mater take?

Even if they do not put out this stuff for lack of commercial potential and out of respect for the artists, could they not have streams on their website for historical purposes? That's the kind of thing the internet is for. Blue Note needs to get with the program - did they not announce on the revamped site that there would be rarities available for downloading? Rejected tracks would be perfect - they could even make money off of this. The first candidate would be the tune they left off for lack of space from Manhattan Fever. It may not be a masterpiece, but I would buy it for $0.99 just to have a complete session.

Bertrand.

I agree with your sentiments entirely, Bertrand, but there are two big problems. The first is money - As Jim said, this stuff all costs money to digitise and also to mix the music bits of the tapes. And what's the return? Negligible, I'd say - you might get a few freaks like us who want to get the whole sessions of a few of their favourite artists, but a handful and that's it. The second is permanence. If this is valuable - and many of us, and others, too, perhaps, would agree that it is - it doesn't want to be on an impermanent medium like the Internet. Don't forget how worried some of us were at the thought of all the wisdom (and some of it really IS wisdom) on this board passing into the ether had Jim closed it down. Even an organisation like EMI, which would own the stuff, couldn't be expected to keep it permanently available. So that leaves academe; say the Institute of Jazz Studies. Who couldn't rustle up the money to digitise and mix it all. But they could leave the tapes as they are and allow researchers to listen to the unmixed tapes. What's it like listening to unmixed tapes? I can hardly imagine.

MG

[bertrand]

A little birdie who heard a few unissued/rejected BN sessions told me that the non-mixing does not really affect the sound quality all that much.

I agree that making the tapes available for researchers on a listen-only basis would be the best. I would be willing to take a trip to Rutgers just to hear the rejected Jackie McLean session. The internet is just an alternative - they could keep it unmixed to save on costs.

Every time I run into someone who was affiliated with the Left Bank Jazz Society, I try to pitch the idea of having the tapes in an institution for researchers to listen to, rather than try to sell them (especially in light of the poor audio quality), but so far no luck. They were at Morgan State U. for a while, but just in a closet, not set up for listening

I remember that Soul Stream had called Joel Dorn's office and they said they had sent the tapes back, but to whom was not clear. I had a fresh lead, and I was going to contact Dorn, but obviously that plan has changed. BTW, we haven't heard from Soul Stream in a while.

For the inventory I did of Wayne Shorter compositions for the paperback edition of the bio, I would have liked to pursue the lead that Larry Ridley gave me that some of the Blue Note pieces (e.g. 'House Of Jade') were part of Roy Haynes' repertoire when Wayne was in the band. There was a Left Bank gig (taped or not?), but if it was taped, I don't know if anyone has heard it. Also, I'd sure like to hear the gig where Grachan Moncur III met Butch Warren...

Bertrand.

Edited December 25, 2007 by bertrand

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

if all you guys weren't such holy rollers maybe you would of copied them all onto high quality VHS video tape in the early 80s after hours in the studio, just like people did with the Beatles and Beach Boys tapes

[Bluerein]

I have heard a complete BN tape session of Art Blakey. Not much of the unissued stuff is to be used. Much chatter and false starts. Also just bad solo's and breakdowns.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

A little birdie who heard a few unissued/rejected BN sessions told me that the non-mixing does not really affect the sound quality all that much.

Ah - I assumed that unmixed tapes would be two tracks on two separate tapes (or more than two tapes), which you'd have to listen to separately, so you'd only get a piece of the story each time and have to put it together in your head.

MG

[JSngry]

I have heard a complete BN tape session of Art Blakey. Not much of the unissued stuff is to be used. Much chatter and false starts. Also just bad solo's and breakdowns.

I've heard that too, as well as some complete Sinatra sessions, and the thing that sinks in real fast is that it's in a lot of ways it's like going to somebody's office to watch them work. Lots of mundane things going on as well as some good-to-great music getting made.

hich is not to say that it's not fun, or otherwise useful.

But.

[bertrand]

I'm curious - how many people get chewed out or threatened to be roughed up by 'his boys' during a complete Sinatra session?

[JSngry]

I'm curious - how many people get chewed out or threatened to be roughed up by 'his boys' during a complete Sinatra session?

Actually, the session tapes I've heard (for the Ring-A-Ding-Ding album) confirm everything-you've-heard-but-might-have-regarded-as-hype regarding Sinatra's innate musicianship and his ability to pinpoint the finer points of an arrangement in terms of both what the band needed to do to make it sound better and, more impressively to my mind, what he needed to do to best fit into the arrangement. The cat was very self-critical (moreso than anything about the band)and self-analytical in this regard, and more than one "Sinatra Skeptic" I've played these sessions for walk away more or less amazed at just how serious a musician this guy was.

If anybody tells me that Sinatra, not matter how obnoxious, dangerous, or just plain misanthropic he might have been otherwise, left all that stuff behind to focus entirely on the music, at least when it came to recording, I would not even begin to question that. You can gget a sense of that on the video of the L.A. Is My Lady sessions (underrated album btw, & of more than a little "jazz interest" in terms of personnel & arrangements), but then again, that's "posed" to a certain extent. These session tapes are, one would think, fully "candid", and they do indeed present a portrait of a serious singer going about serious business at a very high level of skill & awareness. Ring-A-Ding-Ding might sound like a "groovy baby!" party album, but....

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

That's very interesting. I was never sure about Sinatra.

Back in the late fifties, I read interviews with him in which he was going on about quality - particularly that people looked for quality in buying LPs, rather than 45s. Implicit in this was that quality was a) what HE was providing; b) what Capitol was providing (and the company really was committed to quality from its earliest days); and that this derived from jazz - specifically the swing bands, whose members really knew what they were a-doing of (by contrast to R&R, the new thing of the time).

I always thought that this was, at least in part, a statement of his own aims. But also that it was Capitol's aim as well. And that the combination of Sinatra and Capitol records was a good example of meeting of minds. But further, that Capitol had more influence in that meeting than Sinatra.

From what you say, my guess was wrong: Capitol = Sinatra.

The other interesting thing people say is that on the Peggy Lee album, "The man I love", Sinatra was doing nothing more than waving the baton at the orchestra (and getting a presumably large fee for doing so). In the light of what you've reported, Jim, it seems far more likely that he was making, and had presumably been hired to make, a signficant input. The session tapes for THAT one would indeed be interesting to hear.

MG

[JSngry]

It's really interesting to hear Sinatra's takes evolve. Myself, I've always felt that his truest artistry lay in his ballads, and that his "swing" singing, although much more defining of his persona, was a lesser of his gifts.

Maybe, maybe not, but you can really hear him on these sessions pinpointing exactly what he needs to do on each arrangement. Yeah, he makes a few suggestions to the band along the way (which are always sound, and which they always take), but it's fascinating to hear how hew takes a few takes to sus out just where the pocket of each arrangement is, where he does and doesn't need to be singing (at one point he miscalculates, and says to himself "get outta there..." and then keeps singing) until he gets an idea of where his "zone" is gonna be for each chart. And then, once he's got it figured out, in 1 or 2 takes, he hits that zone, hits it hard (the difference that his vocals make in "tightening up" the rhythm section by hitting that zone can be heard to full effect in a situatiion like this - direct A-B comparisons are readily made with next to no effort, and yes, comparisons to Miles in this regard have been made, and, yes, they are appropriate), and then it's over, on to the next one, lather, rinse, repeat.

Now, this kind of session may, by the nature of the music being made (i.e. - working to perfect a "known quantity") might hold more intrinsic interest than a jazz session, where it's basically don't screw up the heads, get the best solos, and on we go (exceptions abound, I know, but the Blakey session mentioned early is pretty much like that. Then again, it was rejected & has never been issued. Then again again, it could be, and most folk would say "Hey! Not bad!", which would be correct. but "not bad" and "good" are not quite the same thing...

All I'm saying is that the notion of listening to an entire session tape is certainly an intriguing one, but the results will no doubt vary widely and wildly. And trust me when I say that "studio chatter" is highly overrated, coming as it usually does off-mike and in the middle of long-ish streches of nothing in particular. The music, though, well, yeah, that can be pretty interesting to listen to as it evolves.

[JSngry]

The other interesting thing people say is that on the Peggy Lee album, "The man I love", Sinatra was doing nothing more than waving the baton at the orchestra (and getting a presumably large fee for doing so). In the light of what you've reported, Jim, it seems far more likely that he was making, and had presumably been hired to make, a signficant input. The session tapes for THAT one would indeed be interesting to hear.

Well, thoise are Riddle's charts, and Riddle usually conducted his own date. But Riddle was known as a not particularly..."forceful" conductor. So I've no doubt that Sinatra could well have been doing something besides being a figurehead.

Stories abound of him noticing something in some deeply inner part of an arrangement that needed fixing, something that nobody but the most "inner circle" would even hear, much less notice the need for change. Now, it would be easy to think that some of this was maybe hype, seizing upon a random incident or two and turning it into "institutionalized" lore. But besides that one full album's session tapes, there's also been a few other collections of such candid outtakes of less-than-complete sessions, and in every one of them, Sinatra emerges as a musician of extremely high awareness & sensitivity.

So yeah, love him, hate him, or anywhere in between, that's one thing. But skills? Hell yeah, the man definitely had skills, and waaaay above average ones at that.

[DukeCity]

I've heard some of those Sinatra session tapes, and I too came away with increased respect for Sinatra. He was much more "fully engaged" than I would have guessed. I think I probably pictured it more like Phil Hartman's SNL parody of Sinatra skating through the Duets session.

[JSngry]

Oh, now, the Duets stuff, that's another story altogether...

This was from the time when his mind was slipping, remember, and his voice...well, sometime the spirit was willing, but etc. Still there were times when he could still put it all together.

For the Duets album, they assembled the band in the studio, gave Frank a mike, let his stand in front of the band, and they just did it live, like a gig. And supposedly, he hit his zone, at least in terms of phrasing (and really, isn't Sinatra pretty much all about phrasing?) Pitch correction was allegedly needed in sometimes...large doses, but the phrasing was left as is.

And that's what I'd like to hear - the Duets sessions w/o the duets, just Old Raggedy Frank in front of a band, more than a little senile, but finding that zone for one of the last times and just riding the hell out of it like it might be the last time he'd be able to. I can really hear it on "Come Rain Or Come Shine" too, sounds like it could be a deeply moving performance. But everytime Sinatra starts giving goosebumps, here comes...who is it...Gloria Estefan?

Not quite the same thing, is it now....

[Bluerein]

" Then again, it was rejected & has never been issued."

Then we're talking about a different session. I've heard the complete session of the Africane CD. Not issued at the time but as an LT LP later so not rejected.

[Swinging Swede]

Perhaps JSngry is talking about this session:

Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers

Lee Morgan (tp) Hank Mobley (ts) Bobby Timmons (p) Jymie Merritt (b) Art Blakey (d)

Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, March 8, 1959

tk.5 Jimerick Blue Note rejected

tk.10 Quick Trick -

tk.14 Hipsippy Blues -

tk.15 M And M -

tk.19 Close Your Eyes -

tk.21 Just Foolin' -

This is one of those sessions about which one wonders how bad it really can be. It should be made available as a download at least.

[JSngry]

Perhaps you are correct, sir!

As far as "how bad can it be?", the answer is, "not very bad at all, actually". If memory serves, the main issues seemed to be a squeaky reed on Hank's part, Blakey's insistence on keeping the tempos asa up as they can be, & some ongoing just-a-tad-sloppier-than-is-comfortable execution of the heads. Nothing sucks, but nothing really hits on all cylinders for a complete take either, and with all the other Blakey sessions in the can, I caa see why this one's just sorta sat there. Freaks like us would dig hearing it, but really, it's not one you'd want to revist with any frequency, and "general listener" appeal is gonna be very, very low, even if it gets edited into a usable album.

I would really enjoy hearing that Africane session as well!

[AndrewHill]

I agree that making the tapes available for researchers on a listen-only basis would be the best. I would be willing to take a trip to Rutgers just to hear the rejected Jackie McLean session. The internet is just an alternative - they could keep it unmixed to save on costs.

Concerning this session (the 1968 date), I think it was mentioned that Jackie rejected this session, not BN because he didn't like Norman Connors' drumming (I think that's who it is), but does that mean that BN cannot go ahead and release it if they want? Does Jackie's word (or maybe written) mean that BN is not authorized to release it? From what I recall, it has some heavy cats on it like Grachan Moncur III and Woody Shaw. Maybe they could release it as a Conn with Hipnosis

Edited December 27, 2007 by Holy Ghost

[bertrand]

The details from Mike Fitzgerald's site (jazzdiscography.com) are as follows. McLean/Shaw/Washington/Hutcherson - how bad can this be???

Bertrand.

Date: July 5, 1968

Location: Plaza Sound Studios, New York City

Label: Blue Note

Jackie McLean (ldr), Jackie McLean (as), Tyrone Washington (ts), Woody Shaw (t), Bobby Hutcherson (vib), Scotty Holt (b), Norman Connors (d)

a. 3054 In Case You Haven't Heard (Woody Shaw)

b. 3055 Hymn To Rap (Jackie McLean)

c. 3056 One For Jeru (Norman Connors)

d. 3057 Kupenda

e. 3058 Abrasion (Jackie McLean)

All performances were rejected.

[Rooster_Ties]

BTW, I asked MC about the unreleased Tyrone things just a couple weeks ago, and about the McLean date above, he specifically said (and I quote)...

..."The McLean session is no where to be found"... -- MC

[bertrand]

I'll put it back next week.

[andybleaden]