The Blue Note Thread

Selaws said:
Really makes you question why some modern labels find it so difficult to get right. Theres significantly more technological and material advancements today yet the quality of a 60+ year old record can wipe the floor with them!
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It’s because labels put more emphasis on the business side than the music side now. It’s expensive to use virgin vinyl. Not sure how many places press deep groove anymore. Nice jackets are expensive. And people are still buying poor pressings of things so why raise the price and lower your profits?

Watching the Blue Note doc last night made me appreciate Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff more...those guys just loved the music and didn’t care if they lost money on something. They just wanted to record musicians they loved. They didn’t influence the music much. They even paid the musicians for practice sessions when most other labels didn’t. They wanted pure expression from their musicians and then they would market it later.
 
MikeH said:
It’s because labels put more emphasis on the business side than the music side now. It’s expensive to use virgin vinyl. Not sure how many places press deep groove anymore. Nice jackets are expensive. And people are still buying poor pressings of things so why raise the price and lower your profits?

Watching the Blue Note doc last night made me appreciate Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff more...those guys just loved the music and didn’t care if they lost money on something. They just wanted to record musicians they loved. They didn’t influence the music much. They even paid the musicians for practice sessions when most other labels didn’t. They wanted pure expression from their musicians and then they would market it later.
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Yeah, great points. A shame for sure, but at least theres still a few that place an emphasis on quality.

Im so excited to see the doc, im going to aim to see it at the weekend. I have read a few books on Blue Note (the Richard Cook book is superb). The paying for the session was groundbreaking, and really led to a better quality of music. In one of the books (might have been a youtube doc) one musician stated that he was in a rut of making the same music until blue note came along and encouraged development of songs.
 
Even Blue Note isn't exempt from this. There are a couple of BN80 releases (Lonnie Smith I know for sure) that were originally released as gatefolds. For the new reissue they won't be gatefolds
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
Even Blue Note isn't exempt from this. There are a couple of BN80 releases (Lonnie Smith I know for sure) that were originally released as gatefolds. For the new reissue they won't be gatefolds
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Well we all saw what the BN75th pressings were like...Blue Note is by no means exempt from it but we were talking about the quality of old jazz pressings versus new labels and even post 1970s quality of vinyl in general. Those OG and early BN pressings really hold up and still sound great even if they are quite scuffed up looking.
 
So I’ve been getting the Blue Note 80 reissues that have been pretty great so far! The Tone Poet series has just been delightful! I’m obsessed with that series! Today though, I got Lonnie Smith’s Think! (Blue Note 80 reissue) and it was the most warped record I have ever received.

This is a picture of the record on the turntable...

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NathanRicaud said:
So I’ve been getting the Blue Note 80 reissues that have been pretty great so far! The Tone Poet series has just been delightful! I’m obsessed with that series! Today though, I got Lonnie Smith’s Think! (Blue Note 80 reissue) and it was the most warped record I have ever received.

This is a picture of the record on the turntable...

View attachment 16111
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Luckily though it’s not a limited exclusive that’s sold out like VMP, otherwise I wouldn’t be getting any replacements! 😅

So I’m happy I know I’ll get a replacement, instead of receiving a refund because there are no copies left! ☺️
 
It’s absolutely ridiculous that they charge $75 for Blue Train just because it’s Coltrane and one of the most popular BN titles. I really want it but I keep missing out on it.

I also had the score of the century a couple weeks ago (even better than the Moanin’ Music Matters score) on EBay. A seller listed a Blue Train vinyl for buy it now at $37, saying it was a Music Matters pressing. It definitely was not a Music Matters pressing but rather a “first” mono pressing of Blue Train!! 😳 (hard to determine actual pressing dates I guess, but my copy has no trademark but is missing a NY 23 reference on the label, most likely late ‘57 early ‘58 pressing, 2nd run of pressings). I nearly broke my finger hitting the buy now button. I didn’t even care about the condition. Anyway I got the album last Friday and it plays VG to VG+ most of the way through and sounds sublime.

I do have needle drops of both the Blue Train and the MM Moanin’ LP’s that I recorded but I am not sure if I’m any good at doing that or if my equipment is sufficient enough for quality recordings, I mostly just do it for myself. At any rate, I have uncompressed and unprocessed wav files of the recordings if anyone is interested. I can probably get them to you somehow and you can cut tracks and clean up the sound if you want in Audacity or whatever. Just shoot me a message.
 
mitchwagz said:
It’s absolutely ridiculous that they charge $75 for Blue Train just because it’s Coltrane and one of the most popular BN titles. I really want it but I keep missing out on it.

I also had the score of the century a couple weeks ago (even better than the Moanin’ Music Matters score) on EBay. A seller listed a Blue Train vinyl for buy it now at $37, saying it was a Music Matters pressing. It definitely was not a Music Matters pressing but rather a “first” mono pressing of Blue Train!! 😳 (hard to determine actual pressing dates I guess, but my copy has no trademark but is missing a NY 23 reference on the label, most likely late ‘57 early ‘58 pressing, 2nd run of pressings). I nearly broke my finger hitting the buy now button. I didn’t even care about the condition. Anyway I got the album last Friday and it plays VG to VG+ most of the way through and sounds sublime.

I do have needle drops of both the Blue Train and the MM Moanin’ LP’s that I recorded but I am not sure if I’m any good at doing that or if my equipment is sufficient enough for quality recordings, I mostly just do it for myself. At any rate, I have uncompressed and unprocessed wav files of the recordings if anyone is interested. I can probably get them to you somehow and you can cut tracks and clean up the sound if you want in Audacity or whatever. Just shoot me a message.
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Thats a great score dude! If you are able to post a photo of the label and sleeve I can have a crack at dating it for you? I managed to pick up a first mono press a month or so ago and spent a decent amount of time reading up on the various pressings.
 
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