Blue Note - time to seriously re-appraise this label?

[Ian Thumwood]

Elmo

That was a brilliant live performance but a shame that the piano was so out of tune. (Very much like Matthews piano paying.) I think that Dorham and Henderson sounded really good and as inspired as on the studio recordings.

"Trompetta Toccata" is really good. I was listening to this in my car this morning. Tommy Flanagan's piano solo on the title track totally changes the perspective of the piece as it the best thing he does on the album. Tootie Heath's drumming dovetails effectively in to the ensemble even if the combination of Flanagan and Richard Davis is decidedly odd. Flanagan isn't someone I am too familiar with . I like his trio playing and would probably have been fantastic live. I feel that Dorham never seemed to settle on any one pianist , flitting from Hill, Drew, Hancock, Tyner and Flanagan despite the partnering with Henderson being so resilient. I've not digested the whole album yet and the drummer Tootie Heath sounds like the wild card on this one despite Davis' best efforts to pull things off-centre. Tenor and trumpet are exceptional.

[elmo]

Ian

Yes TT is a very interesting track lots of good stuff happening on that track - Tootie Heath is a very underrated drummer and is still pushing ahead in his recent collaborations with Ethan Iverson.

Have you got the other Dorham/Henderson Quintet Blue Note album "Inn Out", if not you definitely need it - strong forward looking compositions with McCoy Tyner, Richard Davis and Elvin Jones and a marvellous Reid Miles cover.

Re Ronnie Mathews piano on the "I can't get started track" its dreadfully out of tune - it doesn't get any better on the rest of the tracks from the album. I reckon someone shipped in the piano from the Five Spot, the one that Mal waldron battled with on the Eric Dolphy/Booker Little albums.

elmo

[Ian Thumwood]

Elmo

Out of tune pianos are my main bugbear. IT is one of the reasons why I have been hesitant with historic live recordings but I find it a problem that is more abundant that you imagine. Mobley's "Roll call" is ruined by Wynton Kelly's piano - a real shame as the pianist is the best thing about this record which I've always felt was a bit average. It was amazing to hear this problem on a Blue Note album. The piano isn't too great on "kind of blue" where the re-mastering of the recordings brought the problem to my attention. It even happens on recent records such as Brad Goode's "Tight like this" which is an otherwise brilliant up-dating of trumpet repertoire akin to Dave Douglas' acoustic tuff.

The worst label for pianos seems to be Prestige with Monk being given a dog of a piano to perform on. Of all the "classic" jazz labels, Prestige seems to be the most homespun and the limited budget would have enhanced the risk of problems like this. I was surprised to find the problem on a Blue Note record which always strike me as being finely crafted although the piano on "Roll call" is better than the Five Spot piano as you say. Reminds me that I need to get my own piano retuned although I don't get to play it more than a couple of times a month.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Elmo

Out of tune pianos are my main bugbear. IT is one of the reasons why I have been hesitant with historic live recordings but I find it a problem that is more abundant that you imagine. Mobley's "Roll call" is ruined by Wynton Kelly's piano - a real shame as the pianist is the best thing about this record which I've always felt was a bit average. It was amazing to hear this problem on a Blue Note album. The piano isn't too great on "kind of blue" where the re-mastering of the recordings brought the problem to my attention. It even happens on recent records such as Brad Goode's "Tight like this" which is an otherwise brilliant up-dating of trumpet repertoire akin to Dave Douglas' acoustic tuff.

The worst label for pianos seems to be Prestige with Monk being given a dog of a piano to perform on. Of all the "classic" jazz labels, Prestige seems to be the most homespun and the limited budget would have enhanced the risk of problems like this. I was surprised to find the problem on a Blue Note record which always strike me as being finely crafted although the piano on "Roll call" is better than the Five Spot piano as you say. Reminds me that I need to get my own piano retuned although I don't get to play it more than a couple of times a month.

Its odd but I cant now imagine the Dolphy/Little date WITHOUT Mal's out of tune piano. Sealed in time and memory. My bugbear is Warne Marsh's All Music where Lou Levy fights his way around the keyboard. On a record date that is inexcusable - Chuck Nessa.

BN.

"These from here to here don't work, OK" - Stan Tracey to Oscar Peterson sitting in at Ronnies.

[Serial_Apologist]

Its odd but I cant now imagine the Dolphy/Little date WITHOUT Mal's out of tune piano.

Yes! - now you come to mention it. Clanky in the upper register, rather than out-of-tune, I think, but I'd need to re-check for certainty.

"Probably the first time their f*****g piano had ever been played properly" - Jon Taylor
"I've never been so insulted in my life!" - Keith Tippett.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Yes! - now you come to mention it. Clanky in the upper register, rather than out-of-tune, I think, but I'd need to re-check for certainty.

"Probably the first time their f*****g piano had ever been played properly" - Jon Taylor
"I've never been so insulted in my life!" - Keith Tippett.

Clanky and....Funky!

BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

In Leonard Feather's book "The world of Earl Hines" there was a story about how Hines' band played at a venue where the piano was atrocious and made Earl Himes sound terrible. The musicians were aghast and after the gig Billy Eckstine and the other members of the band sat huddled around the instrument. The proprietor thought they were playing the piano but he later discovered that they had cut all the strings with wire cutters to prevent anyone else from playing it!

Out of tune pianos are a real disgrace. I don't think it is acceptable by any standards. The Five Spot concert is marred by the piano and I struggle to listen to any recording where the piano sounds like it has been lifted from a John Wayne film.

[Serial_Apologist]

Out of tune pianos are a real disgrace.

Stan Tracey reckoned that he came by his unorthodox Quasimodo way of playing piano as a consequence of the poor pianos that were his eternal adversaries in the early days, and went so far as to name a 1978 solo album "Hello Old Adversary". It was evidently only later on, when presented with decent instruments, that he felt the time had come to put in some practice!

[Ian Thumwood]

I dug out "our thing" this week to listen to whilst typing up some notes on candidate's papers from RICS on Thursday night. It is odd how Blue Note seems to epitomise "Hard Bop" whereas so many of the records actually hint more towards post-bop. "Our thing" is a good example and, like "Whistle stop," I feel that is shows that the label was frequently encouraging more ambitious writing. The idea of head-solo-head performances might not have been totally overcome but there does seem to be more writing going on that you might have expected from a label where blues themes and funky numbers are alleged to have been at a premium. Something like Freddie Redd's "Shades of Redd" and "Tina" Brooks' "True blue" also feature a lot of composed material. Listening to Horace Silver of late, the same can be said for things like "Blowing the blues away" where the band is performing an arrangement. Ditto for Freddie Hubbards' "Ready for Freddie." It's never really struck me before just how much was actually written on so many seminal recordings.

[Pabmusic]

"... time to seriously re-appraise this label?"

Pedants' Paradise contributors please note. This is good English ("To boldly go...") and under no circumstances a grammatical error - the fictitious split infinitive.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

"... time to seriously re-appraise this label?"

Pedants' Paradise contributors please note. This is good English ("To boldly go...") and under no circumstances a grammatical error - the fictitious split infinitive.

Absolutely I agree.

[Pabmusic]

Absolutely I agree.

[Ian Thumwood]

I would have thought that being both a Trekkie and a Blue Note fan would have been mutually incompatible.

[Ian Thumwood]

Been playing a number of Blue Notes whilst working this weekend. I'd forgotten just how good Bobby Hutcherson's "Dialogues" was and am now playing Sonny Clark's "Sonny Crib" which always struck me as being woefully underappreciated. Some of John Coltrane's earlier work outside of Miles' quintet suffers in comparison with the music he produced in the 1960's yet this album is something of a minor classic. Curtis Fuller is a marvel on this record and his ballad performances would be reason enough to snap this record up were it not for the wonderfully sly originals by Sonny Clark. "New for Lulu" is a favourite.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Been playing a number of Blue Notes whilst working this weekend. I'd forgotten just how good Bobby Hutcherson's "Dialogues" was and am now playing Sonny Clark's "Sonny Crib" which always struck me as being woefully underappreciated. Some of John Coltrane's earlier work outside of Miles' quintet suffers in comparison with the music he produced in the 1960's yet this album is something of a minor classic. Curtis Fuller is a marvel on this record and his ballad performances would be reason enough to snap this record up were it not for the wonderfully sly originals by Sonny Clark. "New for Lulu" is a favourite.

Very fine album. Makes one despair that Clark's personal life was such a train wreck. Talking of train disasters, I've just discovered that Oliver Nelson cut an album with Chas an Dave in the 70s, "Oily Rags". WTF? Bob Theile managed them.

THIS IS NOT A JOKE.


BN.