Here's another link to top Jazz albums under $5, showing more the Blue Note bargains. I'm going to get the Andrew Hill, at least. I also noticed some non-album-priced Soul Note to be had, like this Mal Waldron bargain...cheaper than eMu.
@thom I grabbed the aforementioned Mal Waldron Quintet, Herbie Hancock's Empyrean Isles, Hank Mobley's Roll Call, and Grant Green's Idle Moments. I'd also recommend Lee Morgan's Sidewinder, Jackie McLean's A Fickle Sonance, and of course any Coltrane.
There is indeed a fair amount of bargain Black Saint/Soul Note on Amazon, compared to the emu album-pricing model. E.g. Rova's 50 min version of "Ascension" for $0.89.
The same set of Blue Note recordings (plus at least one more -- Wayne Shorter's Adam's Apple) are at lala.com for $2.99 each. Some of the other Blue Note titles are at lower prices there (e.g. Andrew Hill's Dance with Death for $4.99). I wonder if this is a one off or if they will rotate more of their catalog through this lower pricing?
For Blue Note fans what would folks consider to be a "must have" list to be aware of? $3 per disc is in my price range and I would like to fill in some of these titles?
For Blue Note fans what would folks consider to be a "must have" list to be aware of? $3 per disc is in my price range and I would like to fill in some of these titles?
The RVG Blue Notes are typically a safe buy for anybody, especially those who aren't neck deep into jazz and are just looking to expand their collection by getting new artists. But here's some on the list that even myself, who's owned a couple hundred Blue Note albums, still gets excited to listen to...
These are stictly off the Amazon list of under 4 bucks. I tried to do it off Lala, but the site makes it impossible to navigate through by label, so fuck 'em.
Herbie Hancock - "Empyrean Islands"
McCoy Tyner - "The Real McCoy"
Art Blakey - "Free for All"
Bobby Hutcherson - "Happenings"
Bobby Hutcherson - "Stick Up"
If you like Avant Guard, that Andrew Hill "Point of Departure" is pretty damn good, but it's not really what I'm into anymore so it just sits on my shelf.
Lots of people really like Hank Mobley's "Workout" and "Another Workout". Nothing wrong with those albums, but I've always thought Mobley's sound was a bit too much hard-bop by the numbers. If you want a Mobley album, I'd go with Hi-Voltage.
Lee Morgan's "The Sidewinder" is considered a classic, but I find it somewhat underwhelming. If you ever see "Search for the New Land" or "The Gigilo" or "Sixth Sense" on sale, grab those up.
There's a Stanley Turrentine on sale, too, but I don't own it. However, I do own about six other Turrentine on Blue Note, and they're all good or great.
There's some Joe Henderson up there ("Inner Urge" and "Page One"). They're both good albums. While Joe is a huge plus for me when I see him as a sideman (ie, on Tyner's "The Real McCoy"), Joe's work under his own name has never connected with me. Kind of bland compositions. He's a great player, though, and if you want to binge on this Blue Note sale, both of those albums are good. I prefer Inner Urge.
jonaphwll -- thanks for the feedback. I purchased "Empyrean Islands" and "Happenings" off of the sale, along with "Adam's Apple" (Wayne Shorter), "Soul Station" (Hank Mobley), "Cool Struttin'" (Sonny Clark) and "Idle Moments" (Grant Green). So far I like all of these, but especially gravitate to Empyrean Islands and Happenings. I already have a couple of other Wayner Shorter Blue Note discs -- I like "Adam's Apple" almost as well as "Speak No Evil" (and I do like Shorter from this period!). The Mobley does seem to me to be a bit too "by the numbers."
I already have Hill's "Point of Departure" and I agree that while impressive, it isn't the Hill that I most gravitate to (I like his smaller combo work a lot -- I haven't yet tried his solo piano recordings).
I also tend to agree with you about Joe Henderson -- "Page One" was one of the first Blue Notes that I purchased years ago and rarely listen to it. I like "Power to the People" better from 1969, but don't have any more of his '60s dates. I got his "Lush Life . . ." off of the earlier 7dig sale and like it quite a bit, but it seems to lack some of the edge he had in the '60s. The samples from "Inner Urge" sound better to me than "Page One."
So, as for now, if I further indulge myself on the current sale, I am looking at the McCoy Tyner discs (I have several of his '70s but none of his Blue Notes). The Turrentine is interesting, but I can't tell if it has been remastered. "Stick Up" also looks good.
I took a cursory glance at the AllMusic review, which suggests that it is not (it says "no further mastering", which might be it got some early treatment, but not the RVG special touch).
Thanks for the recs, starting to listen to some now. On a side note, I noticed that Herbie's Head Hunters does not have any album-only tracks. Same for Bitches' Brew (I noticed, and took advantage of, a few months ago).
RE: Rollins. I'd hold out for the RVG of the Village Vanguard tracks. They still don't sound awesome, but there's a huge improvement over the old version (which I assume is in that box.)
Another thing to keep in mind is that not everyone is crazy over the RVG reissues. There's complaints of sharpness to the sound and an irritating homogeneity from one album to the next. I think they're both fair criticisms. There are some Blue Notes that have better sound prior to their RVG treatment just as there are those that really needed some sort of remastering, RVG or otherwise.
I only bring this up to caution you that you don't necessarily have to pass on something just because it's not an RVG. I haven't listened to those Sonny Rollins for a while, so I don't know if my statement applied to these or not. Just others.
Also, McCoy didn't do his best work on Blue Note, but, IMO, "The Real McCoy" is one of his three best albums ever. "Tender Moments" is pretty good. I don't listen to it often, but enough so that it never gathers much dust. I also have Extensions or Expansions, I can't remember which, and it's fine. I've always liked McCoy's sound very much, so even his mediocre albums are valued quite a bit on my cd shelf.
Unless you dislike his sound, it's pretty hard to go wrong with a McCoy Tyner album (well, other than those trio sessions in the 80's with Avery Sharpe & Aaron Scott).
I'm glad the Sonny Clark was mentioned. I forgot to in my post. He's well thought of and worth exploring. There was a Blue Mitchell up there, too, I think, but it was one that I wasn't familiar with. Blue Mitchell, like Sonny Clark, was a great player that sometimes gets lost in the crowd of bop musicians past.
Y'know, I've never actually heard Shorter's "Adams Apple", which surprises me because I enjoy his Blue Note albums. I listen to "JuJu" often, and "Speak No Evil" and "Night Dreamer" get popped into the stereo regularly, too. That stretch of albums on Blue Note was a strong period for Shorter music; not his best, but taken as a segment of his playing career, pretty damn solid.
Good point, but trust me on the Rollins. I've owned both. I'm not a double dipper, but it's one of two I can think of where the RVG was a huge upgrade from the standard. (The other being "Birth of the Cool.) The old version sounded like a bootleg cassette from the audience. While the RVG isn't going to be a show off your system disc for anyone, it sounds much more like a professional recording than the old one. It's a great session too. Mostly, I find the RVG series to be a mixed bag, like the McMaster originals.
Re: RVG remastering -- I have heard/seen the differences of opinion regarding these remasters. But, I began my collecting of Blue Notes after RVGs were available, and have no idea which RVG makes things better vs. those which make things worse. So far, I have only purchased the RVG versions (when they are available) and can't complain about the sound quality, primarily b/c I don't have the originals against which to compare. Are there notable examples (or even better, a list) of titles where RVG (a) greatly improves the sound, as in the case of the Rollins and Birth of the Cool, (b) provides little change or (c) degrades the sound?
Thanks for the recs. So far I've picked up McCoy Tyner's The Real McCoy, Herbie Hancock's Empyrean Islands, and Hank Mobley's Roll Call. Possibly more to come.
Re: RVG remastering -- I have heard/seen the differences of opinion regarding these remasters. But, I began my collecting of Blue Notes after RVGs were available, and have no idea which RVG makes things better vs. those which make things worse. So far, I have only purchased the RVG versions (when they are available) and can't complain about the sound quality, primarily b/c I don't have the originals against which to compare. Are there notable examples (or even better, a list) of titles where RVG (a) greatly improves the sound, as in the case of the Rollins and Birth of the Cool, (b) provides little change or (c) degrades the sound?
I'm sure there's a list out there somewhere, but I haven't yet seen it. Maybe on one of the audio-freak sites, like the Steve Hoffman forum, I'll bet, has a thread on that topic.
Another thing about the RVGs (and this is probably something I should research a bit more), but the RVG line isn't just for old Blue Note albums. Some old Prestige label albums have been receiving the RVG treatment, too. The "We Three" series (Haynes, Newborn, and Chambers) just got a needed upgrade. I don't know what kind of agreement was struck with Prestige/OJC, but he's been hitting those too. And then there's the Orin Keepnews Collection, which I can't remember how that's being handled.
I guess to sum things up, there's a lot of stuff out there and eventually you'll adopt a system to culling out the good audio from the bad. But as far as these remasters go, whether it's RVG Blue Note, RVG Prestige/OJC, Keepnews Prestige/Riverside/Contemporary, Impulse 20-bit, 32 Super-bit, or any of the usually excellent Japanese imports on all the labels, they're almost across the board a good buy, and if it's not, if something went horribly wrong with the remaster, then believe me, there'll be a hundred comments in the review/comments section bemoaning it no matter which site you're on.
I wouldn't sweat it too much really. Unless you are the kind of person who listens to the sound of the music rather than the music itself, I think you'll be ok with any recent issue. Most of the old ones aren't too bad either. You can drive yourself nuts and broke buying and comparing all these different versions. I've got better things to do with my time.
(And as for the aforementioned Steve Hoffman site, I'd take any recommendations there with a shaker of salt. That place used to be a pretty good source of information, but there's just too much misinformation presented as unquestionable fact, heavy handed moderation removing anything that deviates from the forum approved message and blind hero worship (of a re-mastering engineer!) there to make it worth much these days. The discussion about RVGs there is slanted, to put it mildly. Steve Hoffman has his own line of Blue Note and Prestige remasters to promote (and isn't above putting down RVG to do so) and too many of the posters there accept anything Hoffman says or touches as definitive. My favorite bit with regards to the Blue Note catalog was when Hoffman was patting himself on the back for uncovering the original master for Lee Morgan's "Sidewinder" and using it for the first time. On another site, someone with an inside placed a call to Ron McMaster, who has worked these tapes since the 80s, and he had no idea what Hoffman was talking about. The tape Hoffman got came straight off McMaster's workstation and is the same tape they've always used.)
I've just begun noodling around the Hoffman site. I'd heard some things here and there, but it's pretty much a blank slate for me. That's pretty funny and good to know. Board dynamics are a fascinating thing to me.
Well, I won't ruin it for you. Like you, I find board dynamics interesting. Probably why I still read that one. There is still some good info there, it's just that the signal to noise ratio is a little out of whack these days.
I finally got around to listening to Shorter's "Adams Apple". Not bad at all. Certainly consistent with the rest of his BN output. I still like "Juju" and "Night Dreamer" better, but at three bucks, no reason not to get it. I'm considering picking it up myself, but I have such a hard time buying jazz on mp3. But at three bucks, I could really pick up a few albums and plug holes in my collection. We'll see.
Comments
For Blue Note fans what would folks consider to be a "must have" list to be aware of? $3 per disc is in my price range and I would like to fill in some of these titles?
These are stictly off the Amazon list of under 4 bucks. I tried to do it off Lala, but the site makes it impossible to navigate through by label, so fuck 'em.
Herbie Hancock - "Empyrean Islands"
McCoy Tyner - "The Real McCoy"
Art Blakey - "Free for All"
Bobby Hutcherson - "Happenings"
Bobby Hutcherson - "Stick Up"
If you like Avant Guard, that Andrew Hill "Point of Departure" is pretty damn good, but it's not really what I'm into anymore so it just sits on my shelf.
Lots of people really like Hank Mobley's "Workout" and "Another Workout". Nothing wrong with those albums, but I've always thought Mobley's sound was a bit too much hard-bop by the numbers. If you want a Mobley album, I'd go with Hi-Voltage.
Lee Morgan's "The Sidewinder" is considered a classic, but I find it somewhat underwhelming. If you ever see "Search for the New Land" or "The Gigilo" or "Sixth Sense" on sale, grab those up.
There's a Stanley Turrentine on sale, too, but I don't own it. However, I do own about six other Turrentine on Blue Note, and they're all good or great.
There's some Joe Henderson up there ("Inner Urge" and "Page One"). They're both good albums. While Joe is a huge plus for me when I see him as a sideman (ie, on Tyner's "The Real McCoy"), Joe's work under his own name has never connected with me. Kind of bland compositions. He's a great player, though, and if you want to binge on this Blue Note sale, both of those albums are good. I prefer Inner Urge.
That's something to start with, I guess.
I already have Hill's "Point of Departure" and I agree that while impressive, it isn't the Hill that I most gravitate to (I like his smaller combo work a lot -- I haven't yet tried his solo piano recordings).
I also tend to agree with you about Joe Henderson -- "Page One" was one of the first Blue Notes that I purchased years ago and rarely listen to it. I like "Power to the People" better from 1969, but don't have any more of his '60s dates. I got his "Lush Life . . ." off of the earlier 7dig sale and like it quite a bit, but it seems to lack some of the edge he had in the '60s. The samples from "Inner Urge" sound better to me than "Page One."
So, as for now, if I further indulge myself on the current sale, I am looking at the McCoy Tyner discs (I have several of his '70s but none of his Blue Notes). The Turrentine is interesting, but I can't tell if it has been remastered. "Stick Up" also looks good.
Cheers all!
I only bring this up to caution you that you don't necessarily have to pass on something just because it's not an RVG. I haven't listened to those Sonny Rollins for a while, so I don't know if my statement applied to these or not. Just others.
Also, McCoy didn't do his best work on Blue Note, but, IMO, "The Real McCoy" is one of his three best albums ever. "Tender Moments" is pretty good. I don't listen to it often, but enough so that it never gathers much dust. I also have Extensions or Expansions, I can't remember which, and it's fine. I've always liked McCoy's sound very much, so even his mediocre albums are valued quite a bit on my cd shelf.
Unless you dislike his sound, it's pretty hard to go wrong with a McCoy Tyner album (well, other than those trio sessions in the 80's with Avery Sharpe & Aaron Scott).
I'm glad the Sonny Clark was mentioned. I forgot to in my post. He's well thought of and worth exploring. There was a Blue Mitchell up there, too, I think, but it was one that I wasn't familiar with. Blue Mitchell, like Sonny Clark, was a great player that sometimes gets lost in the crowd of bop musicians past.
Y'know, I've never actually heard Shorter's "Adams Apple", which surprises me because I enjoy his Blue Note albums. I listen to "JuJu" often, and "Speak No Evil" and "Night Dreamer" get popped into the stereo regularly, too. That stretch of albums on Blue Note was a strong period for Shorter music; not his best, but taken as a segment of his playing career, pretty damn solid.
Thanks for the helpful responses everyone.
I'm sure there's a list out there somewhere, but I haven't yet seen it. Maybe on one of the audio-freak sites, like the Steve Hoffman forum, I'll bet, has a thread on that topic.
Another thing about the RVGs (and this is probably something I should research a bit more), but the RVG line isn't just for old Blue Note albums. Some old Prestige label albums have been receiving the RVG treatment, too. The "We Three" series (Haynes, Newborn, and Chambers) just got a needed upgrade. I don't know what kind of agreement was struck with Prestige/OJC, but he's been hitting those too. And then there's the Orin Keepnews Collection, which I can't remember how that's being handled.
I guess to sum things up, there's a lot of stuff out there and eventually you'll adopt a system to culling out the good audio from the bad. But as far as these remasters go, whether it's RVG Blue Note, RVG Prestige/OJC, Keepnews Prestige/Riverside/Contemporary, Impulse 20-bit, 32 Super-bit, or any of the usually excellent Japanese imports on all the labels, they're almost across the board a good buy, and if it's not, if something went horribly wrong with the remaster, then believe me, there'll be a hundred comments in the review/comments section bemoaning it no matter which site you're on.
I wouldn't sweat it too much really. Unless you are the kind of person who listens to the sound of the music rather than the music itself, I think you'll be ok with any recent issue. Most of the old ones aren't too bad either. You can drive yourself nuts and broke buying and comparing all these different versions. I've got better things to do with my time.
(And as for the aforementioned Steve Hoffman site, I'd take any recommendations there with a shaker of salt. That place used to be a pretty good source of information, but there's just too much misinformation presented as unquestionable fact, heavy handed moderation removing anything that deviates from the forum approved message and blind hero worship (of a re-mastering engineer!) there to make it worth much these days. The discussion about RVGs there is slanted, to put it mildly. Steve Hoffman has his own line of Blue Note and Prestige remasters to promote (and isn't above putting down RVG to do so) and too many of the posters there accept anything Hoffman says or touches as definitive. My favorite bit with regards to the Blue Note catalog was when Hoffman was patting himself on the back for uncovering the original master for Lee Morgan's "Sidewinder" and using it for the first time. On another site, someone with an inside placed a call to Ron McMaster, who has worked these tapes since the 80s, and he had no idea what Hoffman was talking about. The tape Hoffman got came straight off McMaster's workstation and is the same tape they've always used.)