Impulse or Village Vanguard

[neveronfriday]

I need some help. I can't read worth sh*t at the moment (eye problems) and want to get one of the Coltrane boxes from that (grrrrrr) amazon.co.uk box sale.

I have laughingly little Coltrane in my collection (Love Supreme, a comp or two).

I'm not much into the more, err, adventurous Coltrane (appreciate the quality, but haven't yet reached the musical maturity to actually listen to it with pleasure, so to speak) ... so which one should I get?

The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings

The Complete Impulse Studio Recordings

Instinctively, I would say the Impulse box, right?

Any advice?

Thanks!

[Chuck Nessa]

The Impulse box has proven to be incomplete by more recent "discoveries" but the Vanguard box IS complete, so that is the direction I would go unless.....................you don't think you will spring for the individual discs with the "extras".

Pardon the clumsy sentence. -_-

[Guy Berger]

A large chunk of the studio recordings box is dedicated to the quartet's 1965 recordings, which tend to be somewhat-to-very adventurous. (The earlier recordings are more conservative -- in some cases, even more conservative than the Atlantics.) However, none of it is as challenging to the ears as Ascension or Meditations. If you're concerned you might want to pick up the albums individually, though this path might be more expensive. Or it might not, I haven't done the math.

The music on the Vanguard box is, again, relatively adventurous. Coltrane was an explorer on stage. In this case, however, you won't be shocked by anything if you enjoy A Love Supreme.

The music on both boxes is extremely essential.

Guy

[JSngry]

Buy one, then steal the other. Wait a few months and do the same thing in reverse. Then donate the stolen sets to a public library.

Win-win, unless you're the one getten stolen from. But that too can be fixed over time.

[ASNL77]

I bought the Impulse studio last week and I have been listening to it since. Although it is not complete, I highly recommend it. I prefer it to the Village Vanguard.

[neveronfriday]

Hm.

Need to get a coin to toss.

Let me look at my credit card balance. I might spring for both ... they are relatively cheap at the moment.

Damn. Offers.

Now I need to talk my dad into giving me the Cole Bear Family set. On second thought, that might be the road to take ... that's a LOT easier than talking him into giving me Coltrane.

Thanks for the helpful advice, all of you.

@Chuck Nessa: The sentence was fine with me.

[RDK]

If you're not (yet) into the "more adventurous" stuff, then i would definitely start with the studio box. It's not nearly as "out" as the VV recordings (though it starts to go there toward the end), and i think it's a better intro to Trane's mid-later period than the live stuff. The VV recordings are amazing, but you should probably build up to them.

[JSngry]

Who are the Cole Bear family?

[Chuck Nessa]

Who are the Cole Bear family?

Think I met them at the food pantry last week.

[Uncle Skid]

Stephen Cole Bear has a pretty funny show on Comedy Central.

[JSngry]

Does he box on it?

Or was he getting boxes from the food pantry?

This thread has suddenly gotten very confusing...

[7/4]

Yes.

[neveronfriday]

[Chuck Nessa]

Based on that pic, I'd say avoid the Coltranes.

[John Tapscott]

If you're not (yet) into the "more adventurous" stuff, then i would definitely start with the studio box. It's not nearly as "out" as the VV recordings (though it starts to go there toward the end), and i think it's a better intro to Trane's mid-later period than the live stuff. The VV recordings are amazing, but you should probably build up to them.

Agreed. Wise advice. The studio box is amazing, too. If I could only take one box set of music by one artist to the desert island , this would probably be the one.

[David Ayers]

Studio. It contains more music, and more music you don't already have. The VV contains less music and less variety, since it is all from one set of dates. In fact the VV can be done quite well from the "Best Of VV" CD which exists, although habitual completists will frown on me for saying so (sorry guys!).

[J.A.W.]

Get both and don't look back

[tjobbe]

Get both and don't look back

good approach, I can only recommend to follow .. but having to many of the individual Coltrane Impulse recordings that would have been an overkill so I skipped them.

my Ella's and the Simone have been shipped already.

Cheers, Tjobbe

[mikeweil]

Get both and don't look back

good approach, I can only recommend to follow .. but having to many of the individual Coltrane Impulse recordings that would have been an overkill so I skipped them.

my Ella's and the Simone have been shipped already.

Cheers, Tjobbe

I had the individual reissues and still bought the set for the unissued material - and then had to watch updated reissues coming out with even more unissued material. Under that perspective, I probably would go for the individual CDs, but having all of this in recording order is great. Well, it no longer is that great ...

I found the individual CDs sound a trifle better.

And remember you still have to get the dates with Roy Haynes (which are excellent) and Africa/Brass .....

Tjobbe: How much did you pay then for the Simone box, shipping included? I noticed on Monday that Zweitausendeins in Frankfurt still has this in stock for € 39.99 ....... and please tell how you like the music.

Edited April 26, 2006 by mikeweil

[tjobbe]

The Simone is at 15Pounds + S&H for three items of less than 4€, so its roughtly 22€ for the Simone box. As I was thinking about buying one or two from the individual CD's only, there was no question to immeadialy press the "put into shopping basket" button for the complete 4CD box set.

As soon as I hold it in my hands...I'll let you know about it Mike.

Cheers, Tjobbe

EDIT: S&H at Amazon.uk is very cheap as they rated the Box set as a single CD rather so all in all that's uncompeteable. As said: the VAT Amazon UK adds is not that of UK rate but the German one

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ordered Title Price Dispatched Subtotal

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 The George & Ira Gershwin Son £19.72 1 £19.72

1 Four Women: the Nina Simone P £14.78 1 £14.78

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Subtotal: £29.74

Delivery Charge: £2.27

Total tax: £5.12

Total: £37.13

This completes your order.

Edited April 26, 2006 by tjobbe

[neveronfriday]

That UK offer was just great.

I always thought the Ella/Armstrong complete set was too expensive since I had one of the single Verve remasters already. Now it was affordable. Ditto for the Ellington & Gershwin Songbooks (the latter I only bought because it was that cheap ... Ella is a bit too subdued on that one for my taste ... I heard my dad's LP box many times).

The Nina Simone I had on my list forever, now I could finally jump on it.

Etc.

I'm really looking forward to the stuff, which has (mostly) been shipped already.

Early Christmas (again).

I decided to not get any of the Coltranes (not an easy decision). I'll go for some individual discs once I've checked out what is worthwhile in regard to my current listening habits and tastes. Thanks for all the advice here!

I've just bought too much lately, also quite a bit of it because of frustration with a million hospital visits, etc.

Currently I'm enjoying the Vogue box set and some Telarcs I bought from zweitausendeins dirty cheap. When I looked the other day, they had many (apparently only one or two copies) of their (uneven) jazz line.

Plus, I got myself the 2gether (Warren Vaché & Bill Charlap) which is not only a really good album but also sounds fantastic (the sound being the reason I sprung for those Telarcs in the first place ... some Brubeck, Shearing, Jazz Messengers (Legacy of Art Blakey) and some uneven late Mulligan recordings ... all at, what, 2 or 3 Euro? I can sell them for more on eBay if they turn out to have been a "waste" of money and/or my time).

If I do manage to finance the Cole set, I will definitely have to stop shopping for quite some time. It has become excessive these past weeks and months (I bought a ton of on-sale DVDs from around the globe to stock up on classics as well).

...

Edited April 26, 2006 by neveronfriday

[mikeweil]

I just ordered the Simone box - at € 25.00 incl. shipping & VAT at the current exchange rate it's a steal.

Now all I have to do is stay off the Zweitausendeins website for all the other ZYX clearance bargains ......

Edited April 26, 2006 by mikeweil

[neveronfriday]

Now all I have to do is stay off the Zweitausendeins website for all the other ZYX clearance bargains ......

Good luck.

[king ubu]

Now all I have to do is stay off the Zweitausendeins website for all the other ZYX clearance bargains ......

Good luck.

easy for me.... my 150 € package has been sent out, and the credit card bill which came a week ago was painful enough already... ouch! I won't pay any further visits to that evil site for at least a few weeks now (unless... you get the picture, I assume... )

[tjobbe]

...... ouch! I won't pay any further visits to that evil site for at least a few weeks now (unless... you get the picture, I assume... )

you can be shure that they have some more ZYX stuff hidden for the next Merkheft expected in July that will stress your budget but I will try get my CC a break now, promised

Now all I have to do is stay off the Zweitausendeins website for all the other ZYX clearance bargains ......

@mike: do you believe in the "Osterhase" and the "Weihnachtsmann"