Horace Silver In Seattle 1965

[Mark Stryker]

1 hour ago, Rooster_Ties said:

I had The Natives Are Restless on CD about 25 years ago — and I must have been pretty disappointed in it, because I apparently traded it off 10 years later before I moved to DC.

I kinda remember Natives looking INCREDIBLE on paper — but it never really clicking for me (like maybe it frustrated me SO much how it didn’t click for me, that I finally gave up on it). At least that’s my vague memory of it.

You say the entire Feb 18, 1966 Half Note recording is much better?? I may have to investigate.

BTW, I’ve only listened once to this first track from Silver in Seattle — and I have to say I’m a little nonplussed about it.

Seems like a lotta smoke, but maybe not much fire. Joe and Woody are blowing hard, but (maybe?) not really saying much.

One of the four tunes from 2/18/66. 

 

[bertrand]

13 hours ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

Supposedly Carmell Jones was heckled before (during?) the show and his playing was adversely affected. Michael Cuscuna gave the masters to Horace so there is a chance that they're out there somewhere. If someone knows Horace's son Gregory, maybe he has them... although I did read somewhere that Gregory may have also passed.

Gregory did pass away. His mother might still be around.

[Brad]

I had ordered the vinyl when that was the only option but now switched to the cd. 

[street singer]

Yeah... I've found that CD is typically the better option for these archival live releases, as the sound quality usually doesn't justify the additional expense and inconvenience of vinyl.  

[mikeweil]

What really turns me off with all of the Horace Silver live recordings I have heard are the faster tempos he chose on those gigs. I think e.g. Song For My Father is much less enchanting than the studio version.

[ghost of miles]

On 8/12/2025 at 3:51 PM, Kevin Bresnahan said:

Blue Note doesn't delay the CD. It's also available for pre-order... for $19.98 for a single CD!

In this day and age, putting a $20 price tag on a CD is ridiculous. Next they'll complain that no one is buying CDs anymore.

Amazon's pre-order price for the CD now sitting at $27.97.  The station has received a digital promo, so I'll probably live with that and use it for airplay.

[Eric]

5 hours ago, ghost of miles said:

Amazon's pre-order price for the CD now sitting at $27.97.  The station has received a digital promo, so I'll probably live with that and use it for airplay.

Wow - I wonder if they are trying to lead people to the vinyl?

[Rooster_Ties]

6 hours ago, ghost of miles said:

Amazon's pre-order price for the CD now sitting at $27.97.

Holy shit — that’s for just a SINGLE 1cd release??

WTF??!!! 

[T.D.]

36 minutes ago, Rooster_Ties said:

Holy shit — that’s for just a SINGLE 1cd release??

WTF??!!! 

Weird because Blue Note, who I wouldn't expect to be the cheapest, still shows the CD for preorder at $19.98.

[felser]

$19.14 at DeepDiscount, with free shipping on $30 orders.  Still a lot of money. Using an offer and pre-ordering it some time ago, I got it for $15.10 from DeepDiscount, and it was mailed out this morning to me (I have tracking #).

[JSngry]

Prime is still honoring my preorder price of $19.98.

Still too damn much., even with free shipping, but it will be here on Friday. And then that's it for me. Enough of this bullshit 

[Dan Gould]

Looks like I messed up by not pre-ordering so it may be a while before I hear this.

Wasn't going to be life-altering anyway and I am pretty confident that within six months or a year the Amazon price won't be as ridiculous.

[Eric]

Bought the vinyl, that should be fun and will stream.

[felser]

5 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

I am pretty confident that within six months or a year the Amazon price won't be as ridiculous.

I know that was the case with the Tyner/Henderson and the Kenny Burrell - I waited those out.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

This is odd... when someone on the Hoffman forums asked the LP mastering engineer, Matt Lutthans, whether this was digital or analog, instead of, "We mastered this from a 24/192 digital master" we got this word salad:

• Here's the deal. There's digital, and then there's digital. Cutting an album from a commercial CD, or from some sort of (often poorly) pre-mastered, processed digital file....that's one thing, and it's generally subpar; nearly always quite bad. Fine. We know about those.
•  
• This is not one of those.
•  
• In this particular case, the performances were recorded on an Ampex 600, if I recall correctly, and yes, the recordings are mono. A set of tapes has been in Jim Wilke's collection for all these decades, and those two reels were physically shipped to me for mastering. (Blue Note now owns and archives these original tape reels.)
•  
• As the production team and I started going through the contents of the tapes, we discovered a problem: One song was absent from the tapes I received, but a flat, existing, archival digital transfer existed for that track, and it sounded fine, so we included it -- and the album is better for it.
•  
• For the tracks that were on the analog reels: They were transferred by me, personally, at The Mastering Lab at 24/192, and those files remained UNPROCESSED and untweaked throughout the digital steps for LP production. (The digital work on those tracks consisted of flat editing for increased continuity/flow ONLY.) What you hear on the LP is those flat 24/192 files, edited slightly, no compression/limiting, "no nothing," run through the tube-based analog TML console for live-during-cutting EQ, then into the all-tube cutting system. (The track that came from an existing digital transfer required a little bit of in-the-box EQ to get its tonality to match with the newly-made transfers of the other tracks, but it was minimal, and final "artistic decision" EQ was still done on the TML analog console for that track, as with the others.)

I used to really respect Matt's work but this explanation from him on this has really messed that up. "There's digital and then there's digital"?? No Matt, this is digital. Which is not a bad thing in my book, but it's still a thing. Is Blue Note trying to replicate the Mobile Fidelity fiasco? If it's a digital master, just fess up.

[Dan Gould]

12 hours ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

This is odd... when someone on the Hoffman forums asked the LP mastering engineer, Matt Lutthans, whether this was digital or analog, instead of, "We mastered this from a 24/192 digital master" we got this word salad:

• Here's the deal. There's digital, and then there's digital. Cutting an album from a commercial CD, or from some sort of (often poorly) pre-mastered, processed digital file....that's one thing, and it's generally subpar; nearly always quite bad. Fine. We know about those.
•  
• This is not one of those.
•  
• In this particular case, the performances were recorded on an Ampex 600, if I recall correctly, and yes, the recordings are mono. A set of tapes has been in Jim Wilke's collection for all these decades, and those two reels were physically shipped to me for mastering. (Blue Note now owns and archives these original tape reels.)
•  
• As the production team and I started going through the contents of the tapes, we discovered a problem: One song was absent from the tapes I received, but a flat, existing, archival digital transfer existed for that track, and it sounded fine, so we included it -- and the album is better for it.
•  
• For the tracks that were on the analog reels: They were transferred by me, personally, at The Mastering Lab at 24/192, and those files remained UNPROCESSED and untweaked throughout the digital steps for LP production. (The digital work on those tracks consisted of flat editing for increased continuity/flow ONLY.) What you hear on the LP is those flat 24/192 files, edited slightly, no compression/limiting, "no nothing," run through the tube-based analog TML console for live-during-cutting EQ, then into the all-tube cutting system. (The track that came from an existing digital transfer required a little bit of in-the-box EQ to get its tonality to match with the newly-made transfers of the other tracks, but it was minimal, and final "artistic decision" EQ was still done on the TML analog console for that track, as with the others.)

I used to really respect Matt's work but this explanation from him on this has really messed that up. "There's digital and then there's digital"?? No Matt, this is digital. Which is not a bad thing in my book, but it's still a thing. Is Blue Note trying to replicate the Mobile Fidelity fiasco? If it's a digital master, just fess up.

He in no way says  its a digital master.

One track was somehow missing from the reels and a digital transfer was used. What would be nice is to know what tune was sourced from a digital transfer so that others could make their own judgements.

What this really does is call into question is what else was lost on the misplaced reel because its pretty rare that a single tune is all that was recorded.  It sounds like Mr. Wilkie did his own mix tapes from the recordings he preserved of these broadcasts.

[jazzbo]

Dan he clearly says it was mastered from digital files! Doesn't bother me--I'm not buying the LPs but his "there's digital and then there's digital" phrase is. . . wonky. I think he is trying to stress there is limited digital editing, but he should have tried again.

Edited 3 hours ago by jazzbo

[Dan Gould]

2 hours ago, jazzbo said:

Dan he clearly says it was mastered from digital files! Doesn't bother me--I'm not buying the LPs but his "there's digital and then there's digital" phrase is. . . wonky. I think he is trying to stress there is limited digital editing, but he should have tried again.

• In this particular case, the performances were recorded on an Ampex 600, if I recall correctly, and yes, the recordings are mono. A set of tapes has been in Jim Wilke's collection for all these decades, and those two reels were physically shipped to me for mastering. (Blue Note now owns and archives these original tape reels.)
•  
• As the production team and I started going through the contents of the tapes, we discovered a problem: One song was absent from the tapes I received, but a flat, existing, archival digital transfer existed for that track, and it sounded fine, so we included it -- and the album is better for it.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

36 minutes ago, Dan Gould said:

• In this particular case, the performances were recorded on an Ampex 600, if I recall correctly, and yes, the recordings are mono. A set of tapes has been in Jim Wilke's collection for all these decades, and those two reels were physically shipped to me for mastering. (Blue Note now owns and archives these original tape reels.)
•  
• As the production team and I started going through the contents of the tapes, we discovered a problem: One song was absent from the tapes I received, but a flat, existing, archival digital transfer existed for that track, and it sounded fine, so we included it -- and the album is better for it.

I don't know what you're missing. He also said:

• They were transferred by me, personally, at The Mastering Lab at 24/192, and those files remained UNPROCESSED and untweaked throughout the digital steps for LP production.

Maybe you're unaware that 24/192 is a digital term? Even if you are, he clarified that when he talked about "digital steps" & then bluntly stated, "What you hear on the LP is those flat 24/192 files".

He digitized the analog tapes to 24 bit/192 kHz digital, period. 24/192 is digital - it's not analog.

Given this info, I don't see why anyone would buy the LP. Although at my age, I do appreciate the large LP artwork.