The Blue Note Thread

Skalap said:
Interested in reading your impressions. I don't know what to do with this Classics serie. On one hand having high quality reissues of all these amazing albums is very tempting. On the other, I would love to have a premium "product" with gatefold sleeve and all that stuff (MM, AP or whatever.
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Just more of a reason to dislike MMJ for monopolizing on so many albums. As I completely agree with you, and that’s the exact reason I’ve fallen for so many of MMJ’s releases.

They lost me after their poor handling of the last SRX releases. Had bought the first 6 and then they go and randomly drop Shorter and Burrell. Oh well, it was a welcomed wake up call.

And, hopefully there is a timed limit on their licensing and they’ll be available for the 2025-2030 Tone Poet lines. Fingers crossed.
 
Dark Star Boogie said:
Just more of a reason to dislike MMJ for monopolizing on so many albums. As I completely agree with you, and that’s the exact reason I’ve fallen for so many of MMJ’s releases.

Hopefully there is a timed limit on their licensing and they’ll be available for the 2025/2030 Tone Poet line. Fingers crossed.
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I'll try to wait :p It's great to have this serie though, I prefer music over packaging but these albums are so legendary that I wouldn't mind waiting for another serie. Meanwhile, there are Tone Poets and Acoustic Sound Series.
 
Dark Star Boogie said:
Just more of a reason to dislike MMJ for monopolizing on so many albums. As I completely agree with you, and that’s the exact reason I’ve fallen for so many of MMJ’s releases.

They lost me after their poor handling of the last SRX releases. Had bought the first 6 and then they go and randomly drop Shorter and Burrell. Oh well, it was a welcomed wake up call.

And, hopefully there is a timed limit on their licensing and they’ll be available for the 2025-2030 Tone Poet lines. Fingers crossed.
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The SRX was the last attempt to cash in on the original license. It is over now and you won't have to wait until 2025, although most will end up in the Classics line, not Tone Poet, as BN clearly want to make these easily accessible to the broad market.
Besides - Classics is already starting to crash the market for MMJ. Those who still want MMJ when a title is available on Classics will probably be able to get it for much less than the going rate today.
MMJ have grabbed all the cash they can, I would expect that they are only going to be alive to get rid of current stock in the future, and at some point, I would expect them to just liquidate whatever is left when the trickle of sales drops off.
 
RHANDMJ said:
The SRX was the last attempt to cash in on the original license. It is over now and you won't have to wait until 2025, although most will end up in the Classics line, not Tone Poet, as BN clearly want to make these easily accessible to the broad market.
Besides - Classics is already starting to crash the market for MMJ. Those who still want MMJ when a title is available on Classics will probably be able to get it for much less than the going rate today.
MMJ have grabbed all the cash they can, I would expect that they are only going to be alive to get rid of current stock in the future, and at some point, I would expect them to just liquidate whatever is left when the trickle of sales drops off.
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Good riddance. Only thing Im grateful for them is inspiring BN to step it up themselves with Tone Poet and these high quality BN80 and classics lines.
 
You don't have to but their product , but there is no need to be nasty, as you say without them, no Tone Poet and probably no BN80/classic
wynn72 said:
Good riddance. Only thing Im grateful for them is inspiring BN to step it up themselves with Tone Poet and these high quality BN80 and classics lines.
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KG pressings .
 
kafunis said:
You don't have to but their product , but there is no need to be nasty, as you say without them, no Tone Poet and probably no BN80/classic


KG pressings .
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They lied about their reasons for pulling distribution (preventing price gouging) and then price gouged, which rightfully soured them to many people. Good riddance indeed.

I don't understand how they get credit for tone poets. Are the same people involved or something?
 
Joe Harley is/was involved in MM. Don Was saw the product and asked if Joe would like to do something similar through Blue Note , Joe said great but no MM titles to be released under the TP banner .
dhodo said:
They lied about their reasons for pulling distribution (preventing price gouging) and then price gouged, which rightfully soured them to many people. Good riddance indeed.

I don't understand how they get credit for tone poets. Are the same people involved or something?
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kafunis said:
Joe Harley is/was involved in MM. Don Was saw the product and asked if Joe would like to do something similar through Blue Note , Joe said great but no MM titles to be released under the TP banner .
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Ok, that's good, but they were around for like 9 years doing a great job before they turned into a price gouging hype outfit, so I'm glad Don Was wanted to recreate that part of their company instead of why they are now disliked by some.
 
kafunis said:
You don't have to but their product , but there is no need to be nasty, as you say without them, no Tone Poet and probably no BN80/classic
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dhodo said:
They lied about their reasons for pulling distribution (preventing price gouging) and then price gouged, which rightfully soured them to many people. Good riddance indeed.
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Exactly. I had a conversation on FB with the one of the guys in charge where he straight up admitted they raised prices since they were being flipped on discogs, so they might as well make that money themselves.
It is a really shitty practice for a company to do, especially one called "Music Matters". The quality of their products was outstanding and I don't mind paying big money for a great product, but they made it cost prohibitive for people to get these classic albums strictly because of greed. Not a company I want to support or am sad to see go.
 
wynn72 said:
Exactly. I had a conversation on FB with the one of the guys in charge where he straight up admitted they raised prices since they were being flipped on discogs, so they might as well make that money themselves.
It is a really shitty practice for a company to do, especially one called "Music Matters". The quality of their products was outstanding and I don't mind paying big money for a great product, but they made it cost prohibitive for people to get these classic albums strictly because of greed. Not a company I want to support or am sad to see go.
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Yea I think it was John Dark (is that his name?) that said MMJ saw the prices they were selling for on discogs and eBay and decided to raise the prices as things got closer to selling out. The guy at The In Groove who posts lots of videos has that pretty scathing review of MMJ too...pretty much saying their product is amazing but the company is shit to customers and record stores. If MMJ still sold in record shops I don’t think they would have any stock left.

Sadly MD raises some prices now with the last few copies of MoFis and I think I’ve seen AP do it too. MD has some $200 copies of some of their Dead albums.

I do agree that MMJ helped the Tone Poets get off the ground purely from the standpoint of knowing that high quality jazz pressings have a robust audience and consumer base. I’m not entirely sure that BN would have come to that conclusion without MMJ. Super smart of Blue Note to let MMJ test the waters with very little skin in the game financially and then hire the people who made it a success.

I still maintain that the BN75 series was the smartest thing Don Was ever did. It helped get an entirely new generation into jazz music and has created a huge revenue stream for BN.
 
MikeH said:
I do agree that MMJ helped the Tone Poets get off the ground purely from the standpoint of knowing that high quality jazz pressings have a robust audience and consumer base. I’m not entirely sure that BN would have come to that conclusion without MMJ. Super smart of Blue Note to let MMJ test the waters with very little skin in the game financially and then hire the people who made it a success.
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I don't know about this. All they proved was that the vinyl boom has reached a point that there is demand for their SRX type of overpriced limited releases to sell out fast in the last couple years. But, thankfully, Blue Note didn't exploit learning that lesson.

Outside of that it took MM 10 years to sell out of the first ones and I guess it got shorter as it went, but none went fast. Some of them might still have overpriced old stock. I'm not sure that taught Blue Note anything that the other places like AP doing quality reissues of their records didn't in the same time period.
 
dhodo said:
I don't know about this. All they proved was that the vinyl boom has reached a point that there is demand for their SRX type of overpriced limited releases to sell out fast in the last couple years. But, thankfully, Blue Note didn't exploit learning that lesson.

Outside of that it took MM 10 years to sell out of the first ones and I guess it got shorter as it went, but none went fast. Some of them might still have overpriced old stock. I'm not sure that taught Blue Note anything that the other places like AP doing quality reissues of their records didn't in the same time period.
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They took what worked from MMJ (high quality jackets, KG and Joe Harley’s mastering, and pressing at a reputable plant instead cutting corners like the BN75 series). Don Was saw the potential from the success of the BN75 and the great reviews of the MMJ and created the TP series.

ultimately it doesn’t matter though because we got it the TP series and the BN80/classic and thats that all really matters.
 
MikeH said:
They took what worked from MMJ (high quality jackets, KG and Joe Harley’s mastering, and pressing at a reputable plant instead cutting corners like the BN75 series). Don Was saw the potential from the success of the BN75 and the great reviews of the MMJ and created the TP series.

ultimately it doesn’t matter though because we got it the TP series and the BN80/classic and thats that all really matters.
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I dunno I guess to me there's nothing novel about MMJ, maybe putting session pics in the gatefold as standard, which is cool. But I certainly don't think Don Was was oblivious to well done audiophile reissues before MM came around. They certainly weren't the first and wouldn't have been the last to do a Blue Note reissue justice.

I'm not trying to say they weren't great, just like the other top audiophile reissue companies, when they were on the level, but the only thing that made them truly special was that they had access to and were able to put out so many Blue Notes.

It is moot for sure, I agree. I just hadn't thought about the connection to Tone Poets other than the similar gatefolds, so I'm thinking out loud about it.
 
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VinylGuy said:
This forum has a very Hoffmanesque feel to it this evening.
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Yes.

Also, while I don't know what drove Rambach, Harley, Gray, Cuscuna etc to set up MMJ or to make the eventual changes. I am confident that:

1. They produced quality work during a long period where it wasn't as sexy
2. The work they did helped make possible a broader revival
3. They didn't exactly have some big pay out -- be it licensing, or Blue Note taking it internal, or whatever -- MMJ wasn't some giant IPO where they all got rich. My guess is that some of them had the chance to become employees (or contactors) and continue doing something they loved. Yay....hourly!

I don't love the what happens with the MMJ approach and stopped buying the subscriptions -- and hey I did 3 years -- and I was really bummed when the business model changed. I'm guessing though that it changed because it didn't work for them anymore and they don't own the content.

I've seen a lot of shops, restaurants go out of business this past year. Some of those were passion projects that while they were viable made good sense and money. Then things shifted. Some ended with grace and some ended hard.

I don't love what MMJ did with their approach, but I am very grateful that the stakeholders helped keep alive something that is special to me during stretches where it wasn't so cool and profitable.
 
Got to listen to my 71 RVG copy and the new Classic "Speak No Evil" back to back. The classic series definitely sounds good, well worth the 22 buck, but I would say it is not up to snuff against the RVG. To my ear there is a lack of punch in both the lows and highs, as if the whole soundscape is a little bit squished. The overall volume is also lower, which I have found to be pretty universal in all reissues vs RVG mastering.
 
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