Jump to content

A Thought Regarding Universal now owning Blue Note


Recommended Posts

Do you think that a larger company would have reissued recordings like Don Ellis' New Ideas, The Louis Cottrell Trio, Shorty Baker & Doc Cheatham, Joe Albany w. Warne Marsh: The Right Combination, the four George Russells, Art Taylor: Taylor's Tenors, Rene Thomas: Guitar Groove, the Lem Winchester material, Fats Navarro w. Tadd Dameron, The Brew Moore Quintet, Charles McPherson: Bebop Revisted!, Prince Lasha & Sonny Simmons: Firebirds, Steve Lacy w. Don Cherry: Evidence, Taft Jordan's Mood Indigo, The JFK Quartet: the 3 Ernie Henry LPs, not to mention all of the gospel and blues material - I could go on and on and on. I can't imagine that happening with a large company.

Has Concord done anything like this? Not even in your dreams. That's what happens when a large company takes over.

Amen.

Well, yeah, but Concord has given us "Miles Davis Plays for Lovers"... :crazy:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 59
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

But then the Fantasy diligence was so much better than anything Concord ever did ...

By far!

Yep, Fantasy was doing some great sets when they sold out to Concord. The 3 Trane boxes, the Davis Quintet, the Stitt, the Evans VV, etc. Beautiful stuff. Concord gives us the "... Plays for Lovers" series.

Those were all released after the Concord sale. Excellent sets far superior to anything Fantasy put out.

Sadly Concord got cold feet ater an initial flurry of great releases. My summary of the situation would be:

Fantasy = quantity but no quality

Concord = quality but no quantity.

Take your choice!

Not sure ... I agree about the presentation of those boxes, mostly the three Coltrane ones, which are indeed wonderfully done (but the way the discs are stored is still beyond moronic).

How many of those were in the planning stages when Concord took over and/or prepared by Fantasy folks that were laid off soon after?

Anyway, certainly OJCCDs were "basic" if you want - but I love them still, don't feel any need to get Japanese replacements, they sound alright in 99% of the cases, which cannot be said of the product that Verve put out in the late 80s/early 90s (they only started doing nice presentations in the second half of the nineties, too, just in case ...), neither can it be said of the early Sony CDs or of any BN CDs (we're past all those fights, but there are bad-sounding McMasters, bad RVGs ... to an extent I never felt there were bad Fantasy discs ever - and early BN CDs, 1987-89 or so, when they put out virtually their entire catalogue - were just as basic presentation wise as OJCCDs were).

As for Concord, I'm not a nay-sayer in general, they put out some good stuff (those late Getz albums for instance!) that goes a bit further than their reputation (as I perceive it) admits. But their taking over of Fantasy really hasn't resulted in all that much.

Previous discussions have indicated that those boxes were all developed by Fantasy, and that Concord just pushed out what had already been done, then laid off the people involved. Overall, I have no complaints about Fantasy. Unbelievable how many obscure but worthy titles they re-released from the Prestige/Riverside/Contemporary catalogs.

That's what I had in mind indeed!

And I still disagree - Fantasy CDs may have never featured the snazziest layouts, but they never had any of the quality control issues EMI suffered from or the kaputt remastering of early CBS/Columbia/Sony albums or the silliness in packaging coming from PolyGram/Verve/Universal ... and to your regular listener like me, they always sounded very much alright. I never felt an urge to replace early OJCCDs, really. I couldn't care less about them being reissued in Japan these days.

Also, regarding EMI and actually putting out stuff of small labels and minor artists - if they weren't on Blue Note, I'm not so sure either. Colpix? Roost? Roulette? Pacific Jazz? In way too many cases it either took Mosaic or Toshiba/EMI Japan to bring things to light. And when EMI did a run of Nina Simone's excellent Colpix albums, you had to search for the rare one without that silly copycrap thing added.

So no, you won't convince me this time, I'm afraid :) - Fantasy was alright and then some!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The original Manfred Mann recorded for EMI, as did their singer Paul Jones after he left the group. Yet now I see that Warner will issue next week an Original Album Series box of their material.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00KM478P4/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=15OXMQC9Z0YS9&coliid=I1SFY5HTKU2UTR

I wonder what other EMI material Warner obtained.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kenny Burrell Prestige = 70s material as well? Yes? If I get a vote, yes, please.

I would drift off a lot, any period, but some drifts are significantly more enjoyable than others, and KB has always been such for me.

If we include the Prestige 70s material, we're up to an insane number of discs. But count me in.

The original Manfred Mann recorded for EMI, as did their singer Paul Jones after he left the group. Yet now I see that Warner will issue next week an Original Album Series box of their material.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00KM478P4/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=15OXMQC9Z0YS9&coliid=I1SFY5HTKU2UTR

I wonder what other EMI material Warner obtained.

I think Warner got Parlophone. See also:

71vS0X7Po5L._SL1476_.jpg

No Freddie and the Dreamers???

Edited by mjzee
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, Warner now owns Parlophone with the exception of the Beatles masters, which are owned by Universal.

Warner also owns EMI Classics and Virgin Classics, which have been subsumed into Warner Classics and Erato, and Chrysalis with the exception of the Robbie Williams masters, also owned by Universal.

UMG owns most of the rest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...