Name some Blue Note cds you find overrated

[clifford_thornton]

Black-note Transamerica - yeah, not surprised that exists. I think you're right about Impulse vs BN but I wasn't there so only know this stuff through digging in the bins.

My copy of NY Is Now is a blue label UA. Wish it was a Liberty. It's all weird and you're right, regional stock preferences (not to mention greedy record store clerks) in the pre-pre-pre-Internet age made one's experience of what was findable quite variable.

[JSngry]

Black-note Transamerica? My label says United Artists (cover says Liberty, of course)...I've got some other things that say Transamerica, but this isn't one of them. Another variance, perhaps?

That's interesting about the blue label NYIN, gotta be a story there, it and Love Call didn't hang on too long, relatively speaking...my Love Call is an old school Blue Note Liberty label, but the back cover says it all - "Blue Note Records - Entertainment From Transamerica Corporation". And it's a cutout!

[clifford_thornton]

Transamerica owned UA at that point, IIRC.

Almost forgot, on the subject of both underrated and avant-garde, the Eddie Gale Blue Note records. Very good and very strange albums, especially in the context of Blue Note. Quite rare too, at least in their original incarnation.

[JSngry]

Especially unusual as post-Lion BNs. Wolff is credited as producer on Ghetto Music, with no producer being listed on Black Rhythm Happening (which is some more "Entertainment From Transamerica Corporation"). Wolff was doing mostly (but not only) the Lonnie Smith/Grant Green/Lou Donaldson-type stuff, but would likely have met/known Gale from Unit Structures...and he did take up with Ornette after Lion left. But I've heard it said more than once that his heart was in the organ band/neighborhood bar type stuff, that was he really was really feeling.

Still, yeah, has Gale ever told the story of how he got that deal? Gotta be a story there. Lots of people on those two records, lots of people.

[clifford_thornton]

ep1str0phy knows Gale and may know the story.

[JSngry]

Would love to hear it!

[Scott Dolan]

I'd normally say that you two need to get a room, but this conversation has actually been quite informative and entertaining.

So, please carry on!

Seriously...you both are throwing down some serious minutiae, but it provides me (and I'm hoping many others) some really excellent knowledge to draw from in the future.

And yes, Jim. This is genuine commentary. Even though I think you're a loon at times (as you do I), I do respect your overall knowledge when it comes to Jazz.

Going to listen to the Grachan Moncur album later this evening.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Scott Dolan

[clifford_thornton]

I've had a shit time at work this year, so this is my attempt at solace!

[JSngry]

Yeah, I've had a headache all day long...work has been a pain here as well, so this is constructive avoidance.

Here's a thought - Eddie Gale on Liberty-Era Blue Note vs Alan Shorter on MGM-era Verve, Frances Wolff vs Esmond Edwards, the battle of the avant-garde trumpeters...what kind of pissing match was that? Who got there first, and who said, oh shit, they got X, I better go get Y to keep up? I'll see your Ghetto Music and raise you an Orgasm! HA - I got a Black Rhythm Happening! AAAAARGH, You got me there, CURSES!

I jest, of course, becuase, well...it's funny to think about it in those terms. Most times a record's origins are somewhat obviously traceable, even if only by reverse engineering the known networking of all concerned. But those two guys, those two producers, those two lables, all in about the same timeframe...wow. The mind reels...I mean, ok Esmond Edwards surely knew Wayne & Alan both, but jeez, that does not explain Orgasm, much less Orgasm on Verve. The Eddie Gale BNs are perfectly logical presentations by comparison!

[clifford_thornton]

I wonder which one came first in terms of release dates? I'd assume around the same time.

My UK Polydor/Verve edition of the Shorter, from 1969, has an alternate sleeve image and is titled Parabolic. In the notes (by Richard Williams), it is mentioned that this was the first release of the material, though I thought for sure there was a deep-groove Verve stateside that preceded it. Also, I was under the impression that much of Orgasm/Parabolic was written in the early 1960s without much of an ear towards Ornette's music.

Edited September 5, 2014 by clifford_thornton

[JSngry]

I've got the US Verve issue (found used in Fort Smith, Arkansas of all places ca. 1988)...sometimes you wish records could talk, because there's got to be some kind of a story there), but not a deep-groove.

Check it out...you might want to look at this, if you don't already know it (I didn't): http://books.google.com/books?id=0TkDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA48&lpg=PA48&dq=Parabolic+alan+shorter&source=bl&ots=xALUPTOed9&sig=SccN-ktu3SQYSZgKLtuJxiYTU5c&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mAYJVP7zDoGoyAT4gYKwBw&ved=0CFAQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=Parabolic%20alan%20shorter&f=false

That's pretty much an alternative history of the record right there, true or false. Whole nother recording date, wow, and totally contradicted by the CD issue (which contains that for me pretty incredible story about Rashied Ali getting into it with Esmond Edwards). The idea that it was never supposed to be issued but a few copies found their way into the bargain bins fits with Chuck asking Bill Fenohr if any copies existed without a DJ sticker on them, becuase he never saw one without one (this was on Board Krypton, iirc). Bill said, no, he had the slicks for it, so it was inteneded to be released, anyway, they were taking orders for it. But how many orders he filled for it, I don't remember, or even if he mentioned filling any. Makes you wonder if there was so much disinterest that Verve dumped their pressings immediately w/o anything getting into stores. My copy does not have the DJ sticker, but it does have a nice clean round hole punched out of the lower left cover. So make of that what you will.

It's a mysterious record, but I will take any Alan Shorter there is. I loved that guy's work, the little of it there was.

Too bad he lost the Publicity Wars to Eddie Gale... :alien:

[clifford_thornton]

Ah Ron Welburn, Bill D spoke very, very highly of him. Great piece.

My Polydor copy doesn't list a recording date at all; the US pressing seems to list '68 (though that could be wrong - you'd have to see the session logs I guess). I've definitely seen non-promo, non-deletion copies around but it's not easy to find.

Edited September 5, 2014 by clifford_thornton

[charlesp]

Very thought-provoking discussion. Compared to most (but certainly not all) popular of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century pop recordings, no Blue Note recordings are "overrated" - so I interpret the gist of the question as "which Blue Note recordings enjoy critical acclaim that you just don't dig?". The last several days of posts include a very thorough discussion of Blue Note's inside/outside foray in the mid-1960's - Ornette, Cecil, Hill, Dolphy, Hutcherson, Rivers, Moncur, Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, Jackie McClean's reaction to Ornette, etc. - that happens to be my favorite stuff on Blue Note - but all that reveals is my preferences....(I will be re-investigating Love Call hased on Jim's impassioned discussion). but what about the hard bop and soul Blue Notes?

If I approach the question as "What if you had to limit the recordings that you had to live with to 1000 recordings ?", I would have to limit the Blue Notes to no more than 100 - so a healthy dose of Bechet, all of Monk's Blue Notes, all of Herbie Nichols, considerable Sonny Clark and Tina Brooks, all of Wayne and Ornette, Anthony Williams, some Cassandra Wilson (guilty pleasure).....it doesn't take long to get to 100 records.

Why only 10% Blue Note? I want all of the nessa catalog, a considerable # of India Navigation, Black Saint and Soul Notes, almost everything John Carter and Bobby Bradford recorded together, all of Ornette's Atlantics, Monk's Columbias, a heathy dose of Ellington, Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, some Louis, some Billie, some Evan Parker...some William Parker, a few ECM's - Art Ensemble, Conference of the Birds, Kenny Wheeler, Charles Lloyd ... And at least 100 (maybe of few more) Steve Lacy records....1000 goes fast!!!

Edited September 5, 2014 by charlesp

[Guy Berger]

What it was, I think, was Lion recognizing that these were proven artists with something significant to say within the jazz tradition, and he wanted them documented on his label. Call it an ego move or a vanity move if you want, that's not necessarily wrong (either factually or "morally") best as I can tell, but Lion approached his label the same way Goddard Lieberson did at Columbia - one eye on moving the product, one eye on builing a meaningful cultural legacy, and quite often/generally using different artists for each end. Good thing he had two eyes!

Sorry, but I can't buy that even a little. There has never been a record executive in history that ran a multi-million dollar company that said "fuck money, I've got a legacy to build!"

Alfred was no fool, and by the mid 60's it was pretty clear the direction Jazz had moved in. The Three Sounds comparison is trite at best. There were outliers, but AG was the main attraction.

You might as well have refused to sign a Hair Metal band in the 80's while continuing to look for the next Jim Croce.

Empirical evidence supports Jim here. In the pre-1967 era, if BN had wanted to simply sell more jazz records, then (assuming some sort of constraint on production resources), they would have released a lot more soul jazz and less avant-garde stuff. Avant-garde jazz (or inside/outside music) was perhaps the main attraction in terms of critical response (indeed, an interesting discussion would be the long-running critical discomfort with soul jazz), but not in terms of $$$$. There's a reason why Jimmy Smith, Grant Green, Stanley Turrentine, the Three Sounds made so many frickin records.

No reason to pretend that AL/BN ever said "fuck money", but pretty clearly the more commercial stuff subsidized the more esoteric music.

[sidewinder]

Ah Ron Welburn, Bill D spoke very, very highly of him. Great piece.

My Polydor copy doesn't list a recording date at all; the US pressing seems to list '68 (though that could be wrong - you'd have to see the session logs I guess). I've definitely seen non-promo, non-deletion copies around but it's not easy to find.

I've yet to see one of those 'Parabolics' over here. All of the copies must have been sold in the US !

[Scott Dolan]

Avant-garde jazz (or inside/outside music) was perhaps the main attraction in terms of critical response...

And here you accidentally made my point for me.

That is what is called "getting in on the ground floor". Great record executives try to stay ahead of trends, or at least recognize them as quickly as possible. When the critics are lauding, you best move your ass.

In other words, if this had simply stayed an underground thing that the critics ignored (or if they had all gone down the John Tynan rabbit hole), Alfred Lion wouldn't have been recording it just because he thought it was important to document. That's just a silly Wikipedia quote.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Scott Dolan

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

David Rosenthal's book 'Hard bop' had some interesting money numbers about Blue Note albums. Where from, dunno, but I doubt if he made 'em up.

The average first year sales (and BNs sold for decades) of hard bop LPs were about 7,000.

The usual break-even point for an album was sales of 2,500.

Blue Note were probably making money on pretty near everything they put out. Of course, as Guy says, they could have made more by making more soul jazz albums (or maybe not - there were cashflow problems arising from having to sell too big a proportion of your output to firms who wouldn't pay you until the NEXT hit came along, so maybe that was why they restricted the numbers).

MG

[sidewinder]

Ah Ron Welburn, Bill D spoke very, very highly of him. Great piece.

My Polydor copy doesn't list a recording date at all; the US pressing seems to list '68 (though that could be wrong - you'd have to see the session logs I guess). I've definitely seen non-promo, non-deletion copies around but it's not easy to find.

Just thinking again about this - it feels like the incentive to record and put out Alan Shorter was more a Polydor/Polygram thing than Verve. At that time I think that the European Verve imprints were Polygram pressings. Thinking about it at the time, Polygram here in the UK were linked up with Marmalade, who were putting out SME, John McLaughlin and (a bit later) Clyne/Carr so Alan Shorter on Verve/Polygram doesn't feel too outlandish.

Having said that, around the same time in the US verve were putting out left-field things like Marvin Stamm 'Machinations' so maybe they were testing the waters somewhat.

Edited September 5, 2014 by sidewinder

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

And, to continue with the finance bit, avant garde jazz albums could be small hit albums, too. Not many and not until 1967, but....

Nov 67 John Coltrane - Expression 3 wks on pop chart

Aug 69 Pharoah Sanders - Karma 4 wks pop., 8 wks R&B

May 70 Pharoah Sanders - Jewels of thought 2 wks R&B

Jul 71 Pharoah Sanders - Thembi 3 wks pop

Nov 71 Alice Coltrane - Universal consciousness 2 wks pop

Nov 71 John Coltrane - Sun ship 3 wks pop

Oct 74 Alice Coltrane - Illuminations 8 wks pop, 7 wks R&B

Apr 78 Pharoah Sanders - Love will find a way 5 wks pop, 10 wks R&B

(I don't know the last 2 - were they AG albums?)

Not much, but they have to hide a much larger number of albums that weren't hits but which enabled people to recognise something or other in the albums that WERE hits.

I'm very inclined to think that avant garde jazz wasn't ever thought about as a tax write-off for a short period of time, anyway.

MG

[JSngry]

And, to continue with the finance bit, avant garde jazz albums could be small hit albums, too. Not many and not until 1967, but....

Nov 67 John Coltrane - Expression 3 wks on pop chart

Aug 69 Pharoah Sanders - Karma 4 wks pop., 8 wks R&B

May 70 Pharoah Sanders - Jewels of thought 2 wks R&B

Jul 71 Pharoah Sanders - Thembi 3 wks pop

Nov 71 Alice Coltrane - Universal consciousness 2 wks pop

Nov 71 John Coltrane - Sun ship 3 wks pop

Oct 74 Alice Coltrane - Illuminations 8 wks pop, 7 wks R&B

Apr 78 Pharoah Sanders - Love will find a way 5 wks pop, 10 wks R&B

(I don't know the last 2 - were they AG albums?)

Not much, but they have to hide a much larger number of albums that weren't hits but which enabled people to recognise something or other in the albums that WERE hits.

I'm very inclined to think that avant garde jazz wasn't ever thought about as a tax write-off for a short period of time, anyway.

MG

Coltrane died in 67. And those were all (except one) Impulse! albums by Trane, his widow, and his right-hand front-line man. Impulse was well-positioned to sell their records. And again, impulse! after Theiel left was a different label. impulse! agressively marketed their new music roster, but also brought in some Californian tihngs too, a very interesting subset of the LA scene of the time.

However, Alice & Pharao were both moving into a more overertly" "spiritual" music, which was not at all the type of "avant-garde" of, say, Marzette Watts, or even Cecil Taylor.

Love Will Find A Way was on Arista, produced by Norman Connors iirc, and was pretty much a pop album. I love it, actually, it's got the great single "As You Are", but it's not relevant to the discussion here at all.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

And, to continue with the finance bit, avant garde jazz albums could be small hit albums, too. Not many and not until 1967, but....

Nov 67 John Coltrane - Expression 3 wks on pop chart

Aug 69 Pharoah Sanders - Karma 4 wks pop., 8 wks R&B

May 70 Pharoah Sanders - Jewels of thought 2 wks R&B

Jul 71 Pharoah Sanders - Thembi 3 wks pop

Nov 71 Alice Coltrane - Universal consciousness 2 wks pop

Nov 71 John Coltrane - Sun ship 3 wks pop

Oct 74 Alice Coltrane - Illuminations 8 wks pop, 7 wks R&B

Apr 78 Pharoah Sanders - Love will find a way 5 wks pop, 10 wks R&B

(I don't know the last 2 - were they AG albums?)

Not much, but they have to hide a much larger number of albums that weren't hits but which enabled people to recognise something or other in the albums that WERE hits.

I'm very inclined to think that avant garde jazz wasn't ever thought about as a tax write-off for a short period of time, anyway.

MG

Coltrane died in 67. And those were all (except one) Impulse! albums by Trane, his widow, and his right-hand front-line man. Impulse was well-positioned to sell their records. And again, impulse! after Theiel left was a different label. impulse! agressively marketed their new music roster, but also brought in some Californian tihngs too, a very interesting subset of the LA scene of the time.

However, Alice & Pharao were both moving into a more overertly" "spiritual" music, which was not at all the type of "avant-garde" of, say, Marzette Watts, or even Cecil Taylor.

Love Will Find A Way was on Arista, produced by Norman Connors iirc, and was pretty much a pop album. I love it, actually, it's got the great single "As You Are", but it's not relevant to the discussion here at all.

Thanks Jim.

Yes, I noticed Trane died in '67 And that those were all Trane-related albums. The point I was trying to make was that those albums couldn't have been hits without what one might call an infrastructure of other music being widely heard to enable a decent section of the pop market being able to relate to the stuff. Getting onto the pop chart isn't a matter of quality so much as hooks; you can't get the hooks though, unless you are just a little bit familiar with the language.

And marketing is also of key importance - which may be why 'Jewels of thought' made it, but 'Izipho Zam' didn't.

(I've always wanted to get that Arista album, but never seen it. Always harboured a bit too much suspicion of Clive Davis to search hard. Maybe I'll look now.)

MG

[JSngry]

Trane had a tremendous crossover appeal. All the "hippies" knew Trane.My Favorite Things was a pretty big seller, and it wasn't all jazz people buying it. It was a big part of the whole 60s zeitgeist thing. And then, of course, A Love Supreme crossed over, and that sealed the deal.

Sorta the same thing with Ravi Shankar...don't know if he was on the pop charts or not, but World Pacific was putting out a buttload full of Ravi Shankar records in the late 60s...but did hippies buying Ravi Shankar records mean that everybody was digging into Indian music , that the market was open to all kinds of offshoots, not just one guy playing ragas? it just means that they had heard Ravi Shankar somewhere (he played at Monterrey, remember) and decided that he was a meaningfully worthwhile lifestyle accessory.

What ended up happening, and god love 'em for it, is that impulse! built on that to build a legitimate post-Trane legacy..at least until the corporate structure shifted and put an end to all of that. Truly The House That Trane Built. But do note that "avant-garde" in the 70s was an evolving propostion becoming less and less about the pure "energy/fire" music of the mid-60s.

But that's impulse! and that's the '70s.

Avant-garde jazz (or inside/outside music) was perhaps the main attraction in terms of critical response...

And here you accidentally made my point for me.

That is what is called "getting in on the ground floor". Great record executives try to stay ahead of trends, or at least recognize them as quickly as possible. When the critics are lauding, you best move your ass.

In other words, if this had simply stayed an underground thing that the critics ignored (or if they had all gone down the John Tynan rabbit hole), Alfred Lion wouldn't have been recording it just because he thought it was important to document. That's just a silly Wikipedia quote.

Well, now you're getting closer to it.

Of course, Lion thought the music was important, and of course he hoped it would sell some records.

But recognizing the true importance of an artist & then wanting to present them on your label in the marketplace because you feel that theirs is a worthwhile music deserving of an audience is nowhere near the same as waking up one day and saying oh shit look at downbeat, this avant-garde stuff is taking over, I better get off my ass here before everybody stops buying three Sounds records and I go broke I GOT TO GET ME SOME AVANT GARDE RECORDS ASAP, I mean, those are two wholly different propositions..

Allusions to feeling "left out" or deperation moves or whatever do not take into account Alfred Lion's dedication to quality, and his seemingly perpetual refusal to put out product that he himself did not believe in.

Of course, Lion was coming to all of this from somewhat of a "reactionary" standpoint. It took him a while to grasp the meaning and importance of Monk, for crissakes, he came into the game a deep "trad" guy after all. So he weighed evrythng new against his rooting. But, like any "progressive conservative", he was open to change, and would get behind it once convinced of its value. He was not the only "old guard" jazzperson to come to hear the continuity of the tradition in these guys in a what now seems like a relatively soon time. It's worth noting that Blue Note's "avant-garde" records were almost all done by it's established roster. Signing Cecil, Ornette, and Cherry....that's not going on an AG binge just to have product, the streets were "teeming" with AG people waiting to be discovered if that would ahve been the game, that's an acknowledgement that these are leaders of their time doing important work within the tradition, and they should be heard on my label. If I were to put money on it, I'd put it on ego more than profit being the motive. Again - nobody's suggesting that he was making these records expecting to lose money, but the implication that he made them becuase AG was "hot now" so they would move product like Jazz Beatles is just...not a credible argument to me.

To use the Goddard Lieberson model again, Cecil, Ornette, these were "status signings", meant to enhance the overall catalog, not to get out the hits and generate the cashflow. The hope is to keep the product out there for it to find its audience over time, not to throw product out there to fly off the shelves. The one strategy is of long-term investment with delayed payout, the other that of a sure thing cashflow generator. It's not a question of do you expect to make money or not, it's a question of how you expect to make it.

Failure to take this into serious account reuslts in a distorted picture of what was going on. The musical effectiveness of these records is certainly debatable, but seeing the motives behind them as any sort of cluelees reactionary panic move is just not based in the known realities of the particulars.

And really really really - Lion selling and then leaving the label changed everything.

[Scott Dolan]

... but the implication that he made them becuase AG was "hot now" so they would move product like Jazz Beatles is just...not a credible argument to me.

I agree. I'm glad no one here implied anything like that.

[JSngry]

Indeed. Nuance is not just what you get when your uncles remarry.

[ep1str0phy]

Speaking on a total tangent, I'm always really thrilled when the boards erupt into conversation like this. I was walled off with gigging for one day, and all this knowledge got dropped. Organissimo was a huge part of my learning process when first getting into this music (which is odd to say, but I guess that's part of how lore has been communicated since the inception of an affordable public internet), and this makes me feel weirdly nostalgic.

On a completely different note--I worked with Eddie for two or three years. The topic of his Blue Note albums came up constantly--so regularly, in fact, that we wound up re-recording several of the pieces for a "remix/remake"-type deal. It's actually on itunes. That project was very complex, if fulfilling, in no small part because I was only then exposed to Eddie as both a working bandleader and a working conceptualist. I had a number of issues with the regular repertoire in groups, largely due to a language disconnect in terms of "how" the free improvisation was supposed to happen (i.e., it was never clear if the band would play "free" because that was the direction the music needed to go on, or if we were going to play free because we couldn't collectively hold down a given form). It was an uncomfortable experience that had some pretty fucked up bumps, but I came out of it with a really profound understanding of what made his music tick--and a healthy dose of respect for Eddie as a man of musical vision.

Somehow, it was never addressed how Eddie got his Blue Note deal, but it was clear that it was related to the Cecil Taylor/Larry Young association (i.e., Eddie was a label alum). Knowing Eddie's aesthetic and being inside of the Ghetto Music bag, I'm pretty sure that Eddie's signing also had something to do with how his music tapped into both a psychedelic/Age of Aquarius ethos and Black cultural nationalism. Both of the Blue Note albums are heavily centered on community/family themes, and there are doses of new age esoterica ("Look at Teyonda") and protest music ("The Rain"--it's about acid rain) thrown in. Factor in obvious overtures to funk and soul grooves, and you have a unique synergy. It seems clear to me that Blue Note (as Impulse had with Albert Ayler) identified Eddie has having unusual crossover appeal for an AG artist--maybe even tapping into soul jazz markets looking for something left-of-center.

I should also note that the very things that made both Ghetto Music and Black Rhythm Happening work so well are the selfsame characteristics that make Eddie's musical ethos so complex. His desire to embrace popular music endowed his BN albums with a sheen of commercial viability, but this same instinct produced some long term musical output that is, again, very complicated. (We regularly played a tune called "Jazz Rap" that was meant to hold down a backbeat in the A section and go into uptempo swing for the B/improv. This tune is notorious among Eddie sidemen for how difficult it is to finesse the transition--in the dozens of times we played it, we never got the tempo/feel change right--and the whole thing, admittedly, could have worked in uptempo swing.) Eddie's desire to stick to community gives the Blue Note albums a really unique and profound sort of groove, but it also led to some questionable hirings (including a rhythm section that never truly gelled, during my time).

But--Eddie's bag is one of those contexts that is deeply necessary and and positively ecstatic in its realest moments. Eddie has done an intense amount of charity work within his community, and his penchant for assembling unlikely groups collaborators and just letting them go at it is rare and admirable--he has some of that rare Sun Ra juju. And his playing never diminished--he played some insane shit during my tenure in the band. However it happened, I'm glad those Blue Note albums exist, because they capture both a very relevant facet of American life and the sort of music that I would wager no post-Wolff iteration of the label would ever be brave enough to champion.