DrJ

Can I use this opportunity to ask a related question: why does it matter whether BMG music group did or didn't manufacture a CD? I'm not asking related to Mosaic sets (where I can understand people would care based on collectability/resale value alone), but for regular old CDs. I have many BMG music club discs that I have purchased at very good prices used (and a few I purchased new, when I joined briefly to get a boatload of CDs for their introductory price) and they all sound great to me...have people had quality issues?

You're right in one sense Kevin, but my point above didn't come across well I guess... Let's assume you listen to SACD through a cheaper HT receiver and it DOES really float your boat. Now you're left with basically two options: 1) You can use it for occasional listening, buying only the SACDs of dates you really really enjoy. Most of the people on this board, I'll wager, won't do that, being obsessive collector/listener types. If they cared enough about sound quality to buy an SACD player in the first place, they'll always want more, and every time they go to put in a standard CD and it doesn't sound nearly as good, they'll be disappointed. So eventually, they'll move to option 2... 2) ...which is "replace as much of your collection of standard CDs/LPs/etc as possible with SACDs." What I was getting at above about this was that, over time, you're flat out going to spend a fortune and it's largely duplicated spending, since you'll be "upgrading." Even if you only bought, say, 100 titles in SACD format - a paltry figure for most of us - you'll spend bare minimum $1500-2000 dollars, assuming you get really good prices, and I'll bet you'll in reality spend a lot more. For people who are ultimately trying to replace huge chunks of their large collection, say 1000s of titles, do the math - you'll spend a WHOLE lot of money over time, easily $5000-10,000. (All this assuming there will ever be that type of SACD catalog, which is highly debateable). So my point with option two is this: some or (if you want to go crazy) all of that money you could instead have invested up front in an inexpensive but good sounding integrated tube or solid state (depending on your taste) amp. Then over time (another year or two) you could invest in the better CD player or transport/DAC combo. Then the speakers/interconnects (assuming you even need to upgrade). You get the picture. Yes, it takes a little time and patience, but over a few years you would end up investing the same amount (or even less) of money you'd have blown on "upgrades" to SACD and will end up with a listening system that allows you to fully enjoy your standard CDs, which I guarantee will sound fabulous, and WON'T require you to repurchase a million titles in a new format. Just food for thought.

Yeah, Lon beat me to the punch - my comments exactly. If you limit yourself to buying recordings done by people/companies who treated the artists well, then I guess you'd exclude at least half of all jazz recorded before the 1980s. Kind of a silly notion given what I know about everyone's listening and collecting habits from this board (e.g. people raving about stuff like Strata East recordings - see Chuck's comments about their business practices - and the Savoys as Lon points out - etc etc etc), although this guy does sound like he's probably a big jerk. FWIW, I own exactly one Mapleshade recording, LIVE AT ETHELL'S by Clifford Jordan, which is outstandingly well-recorded (not just my opinion, many have raved about it on this board and it won all kinds of critical accolades and awards - so I doubt they "fooled" all of us), and that I bought used. The Mapleshade Samson rack is a quality product, no question - zero vibration, excellent craftsmanship, and it looks nice too. Personally I think a lot of the tweaker stuff they sell does sound suspiciously like snake oil, but much of it, including the conepoints (my Samson has these at the bottm) and isoblocks (under my amp stand) are definitely not. His being an idiot doesn't negate any of that. I greatly respect Frank Kimbrough and his opinion, and will in fact think twice about buying any of Mapleshade's recordings (honestly none are on my radar screen right now anyway), but again going by my experience with them, as a buyer of audio accessories, they were a nice company to deal with and delivered a quality product as promised.

Well, count me a fan. All the criticisms that he's weathered throughout the years (about having a marshmallow soft center to some of his PMG work, for example) are hard to refute, so I won't do that. I'll simply say that for me his many attributes far outweigh the downsides to his artistry. As a guitarist - hugely influential for my generation and beyond at least...while obviously (as I dig back through jazz guitar history) influenced by others and firmly "in the tradition." But ultimately, he really has his own sound - or rather, at least 2 or 3 of his own sounds, which is no mean feat at this late date in the development of jazz guitar. Personally I love the Synclavier sound, like a trumpet played through a fuzz pedal, really unique and penetrating and arresting. True that a little goes a long way, but nice. I do find myself listening less and less to PMG stuff over time (although when the rare mood hits me sometimes I'll listen to nothing else for a couple days solid, partly nostalgia for my college days) and more to the "straighter" jazz recordings...TRIO LIVE, QUESTION AND ANSWER, SONG X, and the co-led (w/ John Scofield) I CAN SEE YOUR HOUSE FROM HERE in particular remain favorites. For PMG, for some reason STILL LIFE (TALKING) and MESSAGE FROM HOME remain my favorites - and yes, the soft-center is on display at times but what they're doing is generally so moving and beautiful I could care less.

IF we were going to broaden to the earlier BN era, I would definitely say Sidney Bechet and Art Hodes would need to be included in the running for most consistently great sessions as leaders...having just burned to CD-R the LP Mosaic sets of their Blue Note stuff, I can say that despite the short track lengths and some of the formula conventions of recordings of that type of music in the era (as opposed to more chance-taking live recordings where there was a bit more opportunity to stretch out), I never ever felt it was getting repetitious, even with multiple alternate takes. Quite a feat to be able to sustain a listener's interest over that length of time.

METAMORPHOSIS as some pointed out a few posts back, a really excellent one...Zoller is quite the guitarist. Totally agree with Jim about the Blue Note comment, just the type of "inside/out" music they were recording heavily around that time and Chambers' presence is another push in that direction. On another tack: I found this one used yesterday and was blown away at how good it was (I was expecting solid, and got GREAT): So since this is (believe it or not) my first exposure to Counce's Quintet, how does this one rank relative to the other OJC CDs available? Hard to believe any of them could be sharper...

Yes, I don't begrudge them for doing it, for reasons you indicate, but would just prefer the "lazy man's" way - Verve Elites! Man, I dig 1984 - and all the Impulse! Lateefs...they do cry out for a Mosaic, but I've never gotten a nibble from them on this when I've e-mailed the suggestion. I would say they are all essential, I like his Savoys in a different way but these just seem so masterful and as Lon indicates infused with a healthy dose of humor a la the best of Roland Kirk's stuff from around the same era.

I have SUNDAY AT THE VILLAGE VANGUARD, Analogue Productions - of all the SACDs I own of vintage dates, I find their work to be the best. Both layers sound great.

There is no way I could pick any one artist. The ones that strike me as most consistently exciting as leaders who had enough dates to really qualify (to me, 2 or 3 leader recordings is not really worthy of consideration in this category) - in no particular order: McLean Shorter Henderson Rivers Mobley Hill Hutcherson Hubbard Sonny Clark One could probably include Morgan, Blakey, and Silver in there but honestly while I really enjoy many of their recordings, many others are just middling (Silver tailed off toward the end for sure, and Morgan had a doldrums period with uneven records in the middle to late 60s - obligatory rerun "Sidewinder" track leading off every record, for example, to lesser and lesser effect) and they fell closer to hard bop conventions on quite a few occasions. So less consistent. For Blakey I would personally say the sextet period with Curtis Fuller would qualify for a sub-set of his output that was fabulously consistently great. In the mood I've been in lately - I'd pick Shorter.

Never knew about that, but I have to say that I got fantastic service personally from Mapleshade...very knowledgeable staff, friendly, worked with me to design a slightly customized configuration that fit my system, delivered in great shape as scheduled, etc. There are two sides to every story, and ultimately I can only judge them based on my contact.

Yeah, "tube like," great term...first off, if they're honestly going for that sound, then why even bother with solid state in the first place? That kind of defeats any of the theoretical advantages of solid state...and I am very up front about the fact that until you get into pretty high-end monblock tube set ups, the very low bass response (floor rumbling stuff in house and other types of music) of smaller integrated tube systems is never going to touch that of solid state. But the point is, for acoustic jazz, I find this matters not one bit, totally irrelevant. Second...what Lon said. My advice, broken-record like as I have tried to say this in every audio-based post I've made, is find your own comfort level with how obsessive you do or don't want to be about all this and feel good about it - and then LISTEN to all the stuff in your particular price/obsession category and base buying decisions on that, not on reviews.

Chiming in about my tube gear: First and foremost, wolff is right - I love the sound, and there's very little question that you get less ear fatigue with tube gear, but you may not like it. As I said, GO LISTEN to both solid state and tube stuff and decide for yourself. Now, about my Audio Note set up. As wolff indicated, their gear includes high quality parts at every step of the way; my amp (integrated model, Meishu) has a single ended triode tube output, a sound that I love (lots of articles on the web to describe how this differs from other tube configurations); and for the DAC (2.1 signature model), their "1x oversampling" philosophy, which eschews the industry trend of CD players that use computer algorithms to up/oversample discs in an effort to try and compensate for their shortcomings. In the 1x approach, you get exactly what's on the disc, no over/upsampling, and I have to say that my ears tell me this is definitely the way to go. Again I think it only works if you have very high quality electronics throughout the chain though. FWIW I also went with Audio Note interconnects, which are silver and I've never heard anything come close...fantastic. And finally, a relatively inexpensive Audio Note Zero transport (that will be upgraded in the future), and Zingali Overture .2s speakers - which are fantastic paired with this set up, very sensitive, "tube friendly" speakers. All of this sits on a Mapleshade Samson rack. You might check out: www.audionote.co.uk www.zingali.it www.mapleshaderecords.com Forgot the "power conditioner" - Richard Gray 400 MKII (actually not really how it works, unlike most of these devices no current flows through the device but rather it delivers consistent power directly to any gear on the same circuit...you can read about it at the site if you're interested, www.richardgrayspowercompany.com) I'm not trying to sell any of this gear, though...again, LISTEN. There are an infinite number of great set-ups out there, many of which probably cost less. Just LISTEN though, and decide based on that rather than specs. For example, for people who want mega-high output and floor shaking bass response, my rig would not be their choice...but for my very small listening room and listening habits (mostly acoustic jazz), it's ideal. Also, I have a tube gear dealer right here in Sacramento that carries these products as well as others...he's spent years experimenting with matching amps to speakers, finding the best DACs to go with them, etc...so I was lucky to be able to benefit from that and listen to his various set-ups. Having someone who can service tubes that go out etc is very nice.

Have been diggin' GUITAR GROOVE (Rene Thomas) ever since it arrived the other day...that Fantasy/OJC catalog is DEEP...

Oh I guess in one sense it's cool Verve are doing this, not trying to slag the company or anything. As I said, it's probably more about me. I'm just saying personally I'm pretty much not going to be able to take advantage of it. With a 17 month old child, and the typically overloaded schedule of a physician, I barely have time to eat most days let alone wait for downloads, resize cover art, fix gaps in the tracks, etc...sadly just not plausible. I wish it were, but I suspect many people will also give up on dealing with this as well. When I get 2 minutes free time I am planning on spending it listening, not doing all that crud. Just makes me nostalgic for being able to walk into a store or go online and (gasp) purchase an actual finished product, end of story.

scottb - I think you made a good choice, keep us posted on your impressions if you get a chance. PRISONER has one of the most unique sounds of any BN session, largely due to the combination of Hancock's use of less traditional reed instruments (alto flute) and Johnny Coles' soft flugelhorn in the ensembles, and his unique voicings. I get a lump in my throat every time I play "I Have a Dream." This is one of those later BN recordings that has quite a bit of reverb (apparently in the masters as they haven't really toned it down for the RVG) but it doesn't matter, and in fact this is one case where the slight murk just adds to the mystique. FWIW, 27th MAN isn't the most funky of Silver sessions, at least to my ears - in fact it's refreshing in that it's got such a different, more "open" feel than most of his other BNs to me.

Pryan: Hell, no argument here - that whole tune is a masterpiece. But therein lies my point - CORNBREAD has 2 or so GREAT tunes and the rest are merely good. Nearly every mid to later 60s Lee Morgan album fits that description for me....again I listen to 'em often, long, and loud and dig 'em, but in a way it's their very UN-evenness that I enjoy. SIXTH SENSE is a good example - fun throughout, some great moments along the way, but in NO WAY a great album by any measure I can see. After PROCRASTINATOR and SIDEWINDER, SEARCH FOR THE NEW LAND comes close to greatness...I've always been really fond of CARAMBA! for some reason, "Suicide City" gets me every time...and THE GIGOLO is awful close too. But everything else to me is a notch below from a consistency standpoint until the excellent LIGHTHOUSE and LEE MORGAN double LP finish. The later 50s Morgan stuff (the ones after the first couple, where as I say he was just maturing) are uniformly great...I agree with whoever said THE COOKER and CANDY are timeless great ones, and I'd definitely add PECKIN' TIME (Mobley's name as leader but this has always felt to me like more of a co-led date). These rank easily with his best work, and are far more consistent than most of his 60s sessions - during that period as I say I believe he only made a couple or three outright classic recordings (start to finish, every tune). Freddie's BNs, on the other hand...well, other than BLUE SPIRITS (half great) and NIGHT OF THE COOKERS (fun for "Pensativa" but imminently and rapidly forgettable after that) there's not a clunker anywhere, solid greatness. That's all for me, by the way - your mileage may vary. BTW I like Spaulding, quite a lot, mostly his tone - as a soloist, in those BN days he WAS limited in terms of ideas, falling back on patterns but his Muse recordings reveal that he really grew in that area. A quality player.

Hey, no explanation necessary about forgetting about JAZZ IMPRESSIONS OF FOLK MUSIC...as my collection grows I have to sometimes pass on stuff in CD stores because I have a vague feeling I already have it! Couple times when I got home and checked, I was right!

I must say that I used to think my stock Pioneer DV45A sounded fantastic - good for CDs, great for SACD - until I got rid of my workmanlike Denon home theater receiver as primary listening amp and got a really good tube amp and tube DAC/CD transport set up. Now the Pioneer sits gathering dust. My point is not to dis' the Pioneer, a really good buy for the money. My only point in this is to emphasize how important it is to consider your current and possible future listening set up AS A WHOLE when deciding a) whether to even bother with SACD (I no longer do), and b) which player to go for. My hunch is that if I bought a really high-end SACD player to match the quality level of my current system, with a really quality output stage, it would probably give a SLIGHT margin of improvement over redbook CD played through my Audio Note tube DAC, but SLIGHT is the key word. I'm not even convinced of that, honestly, and probably I could attain similar improvements by beefing up my amp a bit (going from an integrated to monoblocks, which I will do over time). That seems more reasonable to me as a future major tweak - I definitely don't feel like replacing my several 1000 standard CDs at this point, even assuming that most of the titles ever see SACD release (which most probably will not), and even though monoblocks can be pricey in the long run replacing 1000s of CDs with SACDs is MORE expensive.

Nicely said Lon, my sentiments exactly. The 12-15 SACDs (most hybrids) that I have I've had now for almost a year, stopped buying them when I got my tube amp and DAC, which make redbook CD sound fantastic. On lower end systems, you probably will hear a definite advantage for SACD, as I did, but this begs the question about whether you would be better off spending the money on a better listening system. Something to seriously consider if you have a large collection (in the 1000s at least) of regular CDs...upgrading your amp and CD player rig is a bit expensive up front but probably (no, definitely) money saving in the long run as you won't have to rebuy your core collection of recordings. Also, it will be YEARS (if ever) before the more obscure stuff many of us like ever sees SACD reissue. I'm just glad I didn't invest much money in my (now basically dormant) SACD player.

Wasn't Land's JAZZ IMPRESSIONS OF FOLK MUSIC already included in the Carmell Jones Mosaic Select? I'm sure it was... I know there's a lot of later Hutcherson that hasn't seen light of day on CD, but I'd live with missing a few to get a Hutch/Land collection. One of the great partnerships in jazz, highly worthy of a full-sized Mosaic devoted to their work. Re: work being spread across labels, that's just another reason for Mosaic to take this on - one of their specialties is bringing together such scattered work.

Bingo

It's the old fogey coming out in me, probably, but honestly at this point I want nothing to do with this. I simply don't have the time to hassle with downloads (and the glitches that Bertrand mentions), creating my own liners, etc. Plus they sound like crap, and they're ridiculously expensive considering what you aren't getting. Man do I miss the Verve Elites...

I like 27th MAN, but THE PRISONER is a classic.

Well I'm glad to see nobody shot me down in flames...again my goal was not to say "Hub is better than Lee" but to say that I personally find Hub's consistency in the Blue Note period was far greater than Lee's. And to prompt a re-evaluation of Hubbard's early, pre-commericalism/showboating work, by the skeptics. Along the same lines - people need to take a hard listen to Morgan's 50s recordings for BN. After the first couple where he was just getting his young feet on the ground, they are OUTSTANDING, and easily rank with his best of the 60s, yet for some reason just don't get much mention.

Well, I bought 10 of the "Limited Edition" OJCs from Alldirect last week and just got them yesterday, again very quick service as others have noted. Listened to McKusick's TRIPLE EXPOSURE on the way to work in the car today, very nice so far. I will definitely be frequenting them over the next few months - assuming their stock holds up - to continue filling in some of the gaping holes in my OJC collection.