Live at the Blue Note--Halfnote records

[montg]

Some of these look interesting. Any comments on this series? How's the sound?

New York Cool: Live at the Blue Note [LIVE]

Donald Harrison,

Out of Nowhere

James Carter Organ Trio

Another Kind of Blue: The Latin Side of Miles Davis

Conrad Herwig Nonet

Live at the Blue Note

Arturo Sandoval

Detained at the Blue Note

Jeff "Tain" Watts Quintet

Remember Love

Mary Stallings

The Truth: Heard Live at the Blue Note

Elvin Jones

Native Lands

Will Calhoun

Live at the Blue Note

Roberta Piket Trio

Live at the Blue Note

Will Calhoun Quintet

Peace

Kenny Werner Trio

Live at the Blue Note

Irvin Mayfield Sextet

Live at the Blue Note

Jaz Sawyer & Irvin Mayfield

Three Point Landing

Tony Vacca

Live at the Blue Note

Roland Guerin Sextet

Edited (forgot these):

VON FREEMAN'S

75th Birthday Celebration

featuring Chico Freeman Quartet

and Special Guest Dianne Reeves

Miri Ben-Ari

Sahara

Onaje Allan Gumbs

Return to Form

Bill Watrous Quartet

link:

halfnote

Edited December 15, 2005 by montg

[jazzbo]

I have the Mayfield Sextet. Sound is excellent. Performance is. . . okay to good.

[Dan Gould]

I recommend Another Kind of Blue.

I also picked up the Ben E. King Shades of Blue which shows him to be very much at ease in the genre, definitely recommended.

I think I liked the Mayfield a bit more than Lon did.

[montg]

I had a Mayfield CD--a Gordon Parks tribute-- that was OK, but kind of boring. Mayfield is talented but the CD was too long and, as I remember, the music was all over the map stylistically. Plenty of good young jazz musicians could benefit from a strong producer with a good ear and intuition..calling Alfred Lion.

I've heard the "Jaz Sawyer & Irvin Mayfield" CD a few times on XM, however, and thought it sounded pretty good.

[jazzbo]

I like the Gordon Parks collaboration a bit more than the live at the Blue Note.

[kh1958]

I have the Elvin Jones and like it.

[jlhoots]

I have the Roberta Piket CD.

Pretty nice.

Wonder what she's up to now.

[White Lightning]

I have several of the half-Notes and can recommend some of them:

Conrad Herwig's The Latin Side of Miles is excellent.

Same goes with Miri Ben Ari's "Temple Of Beautiful". I prefer this album over Sahara.

Von and Chico Freeman's Album is EXCELLENT. A lot of fun. It inc. a great track with Dianne Reeves on board. Reeves outshines her usual self.

Bill Watrous' album is perhaps his best performance that I've heard pf him. Nothing of the over-produced studio records that he's doing.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I have 3 of them:

Another Kind of Blue: The Latin Side of Miles Davis - Conrad Herwig Nonet

Live at the Blue Note - Roberta Piket Trio

Return to Form - Onaje Allan Gumbs

All three are very good but I would give two thumbs up for the Herwig. Well worth picking up. Only negative about it is that it comes in a flimsy digipak.

Kevin

[CJ Shearn]

I have Tain's album.. best I've heard of him as a leader, nice mix of tunes (even one by Bjork!) and Kenny Garrett's appearance on half the record is smokin'. I've since acquired live shows of Garrett's showing how heated he can get live, but its nice to have a live performance on an official recording. Think I'll go play it now.

[sal]

I have the Elvin Jones and the Tain Watts, and enjoy them both. Along the lines of what CJ Shearn said, the Tain album makes one really salivate for an official Kenny Garrett live recording.

[JSngry]

What I have/have heard:

New York Cool: Live at the Blue Note [LIVE] Donald Harrison - Good, fine even, but Harrison's done more invigorating work elsewhere. For this, I blame Mister "Elegant", Ron Carter. But Harrison continues to grow as a player, and not coincidentally, he continues to project increasing warmth in his music, far more the the Sterile Ice King who first came on the scene several deacdes ago. Getting out of New York and away from all the Young Lions bullshit and going home to New Orleans for a while was probably a lifesaver, that's my guest. But check out his NAgel-Hayer sides for some more of the same, only better.

Out of Nowhere - James Carter Organ Trio - We had a discussion on this one a while back. I like it just fine, although it could've benefitted from a more focused production in terms of presentation, tune lenghts, etc.

Another Kind of Blue: The Latin Side of Miles Davis-Conrad Herwig Nonet - Dandy, just dandy. I was a bit suspect of the concept going in, but it ends up being a superior Latin-Jazz outing that just happens to use the material from KOB as a springboard. Conrad's "Latin Trane" side is equally recommended.

Detained at the Blue Note-Jeff "Tain" Watts Quintet - yeah. Good stuff. It's "New York Jazz", if you know what I mean, and as such has its limitations, but hey, deal with it. They all came to play, and they all did. Good enough for me, although the New York Jazz Claustrophobia of the last 30-35 years does sit in after a while. Oh well...

The Truth: Heard Live at the Blue Note - Elvin Jones - maybe not the greatest Elvin side ever, but still a keeper. Michael Brecker impresses here, and believe me, that's not something I say lightly.

Native Lands-Will Calhoun - a personal "flawed favorite". Ambitious, and not always sucessfully so, but when it's good... Certainly not one for the "hard bop traditionalists", too many non-ching-ching-aching rhythms, and plenty of electricity. But if that's not a turnoff...Some of the most gripping Pharoah Sanders of recent years, btw.

VON FREEMAN'S 75th Birthday Celebration featuring Chico Freeman Quartet and Special Guest Dianne Reeves - when Von plays, which is on about half the tunes, iirc, it's indispensible. When he doesn't, it isn't. Von RULES!

Edited December 18, 2005 by JSngry

[sal]

The Truth: Heard Live at the Blue Note - Elvin Jones - maybe not the greatest Elvin side ever, but still a keeper. Michael Brecker impresses here, and believe me, that's not something I say lightly.

His playing on Body and Soul is really beautiful.

[montg]

Well, I'm gonna have to pick me up some of these--I definitely respect the collective wisdom on this board. The love for the Herwig disc is interesting because on the surface the 'Latin side' of Miles just sounds like a transparent marketing ploy. Just goes to show you can't judge a book.... That's one I'll check out.

For this, I blame Mister "Elegant", Ron Carter.

JimS., thank you for the synopses. I'm curious what you mean by 'Mr. Elegant'??

[bertrand]

Has the Arthur Blythe gig with Dewey Redman and Dr. Lonnie Smith been released yet? I read a blurb about it, and it said this gig was definitely going to be recorded and issued. The gig was earlier this year.

Dewey Redman and organ is a very rare combo indeed. It also would be Dewey's first recording in a long time.

Bertrand.

Edited December 24, 2005 by bertrand

[JSngry]

For this, I blame Mister "Elegant", Ron Carter.

JimS., thank you for the synopses. I'm curious what you mean by 'Mr. Elegant'??

Just a tongue-in-cheek dig at his tendency to rely on his big ol' bag o'bass tricks rather than genuinely contributing to the spontaneous creativity. But I've listened some more, and I think Harrison is just not in top form, so maybe Carter's just going with the flow. It's a "good" side for sure, but like I said (and Mike Weill sung their praises elsewhere), the Nagel-Hayer sides are where the real action is.

[montg]

I picked up 'Tain Watts' 'Detained CD--my first entry into this series. This CD really smokes. Not just Kenny Garrett, but 'Tain also. 'Like the rose' is one weird song...sort of like a '70s prog rock anthem mutated into a serious jazz form and bookended by Tain's odd sounding vocals. I love it!

[BFrank]

Looks interesting, but I think I prefer "Live at the Half Note"--Blue Note records.

[Alexander Hawkins]

Has the Arthur Blythe gig with Dewey Redman and Dr. Lonnie Smith been released yet? I read a blurb about it, and it said this gig was definitely going to be recorded and issued. The gig was earlier this year.

Dewey Redman and organ is a very rare combo indeed. It also would be Dewey's first recording in a long time.

Bertrand.

I'd be very interested in this - I'd have thought it could work very well indeed.

[CJ Shearn]

yep, that Tain indeed is a hot album.