The Blue Note Thread

Selaws said:
I seem to recall hearing that the non-gatefold releases are used when there arent any session photos available.
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Blue Note recorded a lot of music in the 60s. They made decisions to not release many sessions until later years that ended up being smoking. They were just covered in great artists and material at the time, so even the unreleased material was often gold.
 
Biscuit said:
Blue Note recorded a lot of music in the 60s. They made decisions to not release many sessions until later years that ended up being smoking. They were just covered in great artists and material at the time, so even the unreleased material was often gold.
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In the late 1970's Michael Cuscuna was brought in to review all the BN tape archive and find material suitable for release, particularly complete unreleased sessions.

He found quite a few of merit. He found quite a few that were justifiably held back, and some outright duds.

The ones that he felt had merit - and he said many times that in the majority of cases, he could see why the session was shelved - ended up being released domestically (the LT series) and by King in Japan. For the most part, these can be relied on as decent sessions that were held back as a stronger session was being released, or due to some flaws that didn't meet the BN standard despite the session being overall quite good.

Unfortunately, the search for more material led to some 'C' and 'D' grade material being released, and that is happening occasionally with the TP series as they search for material by top sellers to release. People will buy BN bottom barrel offerings these days.

In general, sticking to Cuscuna - reissues of LT series material - is a good guide.

BTW, there is no correlation between unreleased sessions and lack of session photos. The few sessions outside Van Gelder's generally were not photographed, and after Francis Wolff retired there are obviously none. During the transitional period where Wolff was acting as producer, there are no photos, as he was occupied being producer.

In other cases - nobody made the effort to find session photos. It can be challenging to find them as, with unreleased sessions, they have a date but no title to search by.
 
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I like gatefolds. I like looking at them. I also like that they are easier to find on the shelf. I also really like gatefold sleeves. But I’m crazy.
 
You can definitely tell there is a year between recording sessions (Dec 69 and Dec 70). Side 1 is more straight ahead but swings. Side 2 is more out there and more fusion oriented. I came across this post with an interesting write up on the sessions
nicksvinylpicks.wordpress.com

Donald Byrd, Kofi

Blue Note put out such a consistent slate of very-tasty-to-beyond-great albums that they often forgot about — or just decided it was not worth putting out — a surprising number of sessi…
nicksvinylpicks.wordpress.com nicksvinylpicks.wordpress.com
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
You can definitely tell there is a year between recording sessions (Dec 69 and Dec 70). Side 1 is more straight ahead but swings. Side 2 is more out there and more fusion oriented. I came across this post with an interesting write up on the sessions
nicksvinylpicks.wordpress.com

Donald Byrd, Kofi

Blue Note put out such a consistent slate of very-tasty-to-beyond-great albums that they often forgot about — or just decided it was not worth putting out — a surprising number of sessi…
nicksvinylpicks.wordpress.com nicksvinylpicks.wordpress.com
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He is wrong more than he is right. Very few of the 'unreleased back in the day' BN's had cover art and were at some point on the release schedule. Only a handful really.

Most received their first art with the LT series or from King in Japan.

Later day CD and vinyl reissues of these sessions have used newly created art using Francis Wolff photos, and try to make a nod to Reid Miles style but really not, just using the photo and some different font treatments or angle positioning. Some are very odd, but most people won't notice that the cover photo can be well out of sync with the sessions recorded. It can be odd to see a cover where Hank is using a rubber mouthpiece while the record is from a session where Hank had switched to an Otto Link metal piece. Chad does this too - a photo of Stitt playing alto, while on the actual record he plays only tenor, etc.

Kofi's cover is not bad at all. It was created in 1995 for the rare grooves CD series, using an earlier photo not related to the sessions included.
 
ngower said:
Not releasing Sonic Boom as a separate release? Hm.
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Sonic Boom is an album I already have but it was part of the LT series which didn't have particularly great artwork and the sound quality isnt anything to cheer about to be honest.

I guess they arent releasing it as a standalone to get people to buy into the set. I was really on the fence about it as I imagined I would already have a lot of what they could have included, but seems like they've focused on unreleased and new material coupled with a reissue of a lesser known album (Sonic Boom).

I just want to see if I can get a copy from a UK outlet before I commit, it doesn't appear to be on the UK Blue Note store annoyingly.
 
Selaws said:
Sonic Boom is an album I already have but it was part of the LT series which didn't have particularly great artwork and the sound quality isnt anything to cheer about to be honest.

I guess they arent releasing it as a standalone to get people to buy into the set. I was really on the fence about it as I imagined I would already have a lot of what they could have included, but seems like they've focused on unreleased and new material coupled with a reissue of a lesser known album (Sonic Boom).

I just want to see if I can get a copy from a UK outlet before I commit, it doesn't appear to be on the UK Blue Note store annoyingly.
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not sure about that first statement....artwork is subjective, but SQ is very good on the LT series which by default are all AAA albums, although I do not own Sonic Boom, but if that one is not great maybe its the tape or an off day for Rudy...any one have the Japanese GXF/GXK press of this as it would be the same tape...
 
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