Black Saint/Soul Note Box Sets

[Steve Reynolds]

Thanks to Niko & Ubu

I'll get the box for a holiday gift for myself at year end

[clifford_thornton]

only Trovesi LP I have is this one, but it's a corker:

http://www.discogs.com/AR-Penck-Peter-Kowald-Gianluigi-Trovesi-Free-Jazz/release/2218825

[king ubu]

Only LP you have? Only Trovesi you have? Only Trovesi you know?

If either of the latter two, do change that! How about Italian Instabile Orchestra?

[StarThrower]

How about Italian Instabile Orchestra?

I bought their Litania Sibilante CD many years ago, but never really took to it. I love modern big bands, and they are amazing players, but it's a bit too hyper technical and over the top for my taste.

[colinmce]

Putting a plug in for the Dave Douglas box set: 3 albums with his Dresser or Gress/Friedlander/Feldman/Sarin group, including the incomparable Convergence; ROVA's "Ascension"; a Tim Berne-produced Mark Dresser date; and a John Lindberg date w/ Ed Thigpen, Douglas, & Larry Ochs. Which is to say the set is split equally between state-of-the-art 1990's NYC Downtown music and some of what was happening on the West Coast at the same time. Great variety on here and this is when Douglas was on fire. The writing on the leader dates is superb and the improvisations on the sideman dates are incisive. A joy from top to bottom, and one of the essential sets in this series IMO.

[Head Man]

Putting a plug in for the Dave Douglas box set: 3 albums with his Dresser or Gress/Friedlander/Feldman/Sarin group, including the incomparable Convergence; ROVA's "Ascension"; a Tim Berne-produced Mark Dresser date; and a John Lindberg date w/ Ed Thigpen, Douglas, & Larry Ochs. Which is to say the set is split equally between state-of-the-art 1990's NYC Downtown music and some of what was happening on the West Coast at the same time. Great variety on here and this is when Douglas was on fire. The writing on the leader dates is superb and the improvisations on the sideman dates are incisive. A joy from top to bottom, and one of the essential sets in this series IMO.

I agree, he was on fire during this period. I already have all the CDs so won't buying the boxset, though.

[jlhoots]

Lyons is arriving today.

Looking forward.

[Ligeti]

I have a few of the Soul Note sets - such a great label!

The ones I have:

Bill Dixon

Dave Douglas

Paul Motian

George Russell

Lester Bowie

Muhal Richard Abrams

Anthony Braxton

Cecil Taylor

Steve Lacy

I started with the Dixon set since I have an abiding love for his playing. I had individual discs from some of these sets, but didn't hesitate to get the box anyway if it contained titles I wanted. They work out to be good value considering the price the individual discs go for sometimes.

Packaging? Well, it's a sturdy box, and looks good on the shelf. The cardboard covers are clearly low rent, and the lack of a booklet is disapointing. I will say though - even as individual discs, there were different production runs. I already had two copies of the individual disc release of a Dixon album - one of them had 8 pages of an article, the other only had pages 1 and 7! And no, no staple marks to suggest the pages had just been torn out and lost.

I decided that the music was the thing, and happily bought a bunch of them. I'd like more, but at the moment I'm engrossed elsewhere.

[bogdan101]

I just received the Trovesi set today, and the remastering job is brutal; compressed and limited to hell and back. The weird thing is some tracks are fine, but too many are not. Got it from amazon.ca and am thinking of returning it....

[Van Basten II]

That bad ?

[jazzbo]

I've only listened to From G to C so far. About three times (I have had these on cd for some time as well). I think it sounds great.

On the Hoffman board several are complaining about the 75th anniversary Blue Note cds from Japan saying they are loud and compressed and bad eq. Most of these sound great to me on my system, with real depth and dynamics. I guess I'm lucky, my Decware and PS Audio component system really gives me a lot of listening pleasure and I don't worry that much about mastering.

[bogdan101]

I've only listened to From G to C so far. About three times (I have had these on cd for some time as well). I think it sounds great.

On the Hoffman board several are complaining about the 75th anniversary Blue Note cds from Japan saying they are loud and compressed and bad eq. Most of these sound great to me on my system, with real depth and dynamics. I guess I'm lucky, my Decware and PS Audio component system really gives me a lot of listening pleasure and I don't worry that much about mastering.

Try "Around Small Fairy Tales".

[David Ayers]

Lon! A dollar in the box, please, every time you mention how great your system is!

[jazzbo]

I'm just saying my system really satisfies me because I don't seem to have to worry about masterings the way others seem to. I like to talk audio, sorry. It's important in my life, and I could probably buy a Porsche with what I have in my stereo systems.

I'll get there to that one bogdan but I have little listening time these days and much lined up to listen to.

Edited December 23, 2014 by jazzbo

[David Ayers]

I'm just saying my system really satisfies me because I don't seem to have to worry about masterings the way others seem to. I like to talk audio, sorry. It's important in my life, and I could probably buy a Porsche with what I have in my stereo systems.

I get it. But it's going to cost you a dollar every time. Payable to B3groover.

[jazzbo]

Sorry, no dollars to go anywhere. I've little sense of humor this week, some major bad mojo going on so forgive me if I didn't get the humor before.

[Steve Reynolds]

Around Small Fairy Tales on the original CD is one of the best sounding recordings of a large band I've ever heard.

[bogdan101]

I usually don't like looking at waveform graphs and such, but this time something sounded off, so I opened Audacity to look at some of the files, and here's what I saw:

[GA Russell]

What does that graph tell us?

[bogdan101]

What does that graph tell us?

Basically that this particular track, "Verano" from "Around Small Fairy Tales" has been compressed and clipped; the peaks don't have any room left under the 1.0 line, which is the maximum amplitude that can be represented by the digital file. And indeed it sounds loud from start to finish, harsh and fatiguing.

[GA Russell]

Thanks.

[Steve Reynolds]

What does that graph tell us?

Basically that this particular track, "Verano" from "Around Small Fairy Tales" has been compressed and clipped; the peaks don't have any room left under the 1.0 line, which is the maximum amplitude that can be represented by the digital file. And indeed it sounds loud from start to finish, harsh and fatiguing.

Have you done the same analysis on the original CD release?

[bogdan101]

What does that graph tell us?

Basically that this particular track, "Verano" from "Around Small Fairy Tales" has been compressed and clipped; the peaks don't have any room left under the 1.0 line, which is the maximum amplitude that can be represented by the digital file. And indeed it sounds loud from start to finish, harsh and fatiguing.

Have you done the same analysis on the original CD release?

No, I don't have it.

[erwbol]

I HATE these box sets. The ones I've heard and compared to the original CDs sounded horrible.

CAM jazz is butchering the Black Saint & Soul Note catalogs. They should have just collected the original CD masterings in budget box sets.

[xybert]

I HATE these box sets. The ones I've heard and compared to the original CDs sounded horrible.

CAM jazz is butchering the Black Saint & Soul Note catalogs. They should have just collected the original CD masterings in budget box sets.

The ones i've heard (about 14 sets, though not the Trovesi or any of the other recent ones) sound fine to me, at least not butchered. Not really wanting to get into a massive discussion about it as i feel like we've been there before: just want to present an alternative viewpoint FWIW.