Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

[jazzbo]

I got four copies of one email from Verve today. . . announcing that Charles Mingus' "Black Saint and the Sinner Lady" is being released. Buzz!

Well. . .was it out of print lately? Now coming back? Anyone have any knowledge (or clue?) as to this new version? Thanks.

[jazzbo]

Okay, even weirder. . . I got emails for Plays Piano, and Miingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus as well.

And the release dates are in the 1990s. . . .

Ah, weirdness from the weird Verve reissue program!

[tcd74]

All of them have still been in print for the last little while. In our cd store we always keep a copy of Black Saint in stock. I just checked my suppliers website and it's still listed there. I also went to the Verve home page and nothing there. Although they have Oliver Nelson's Blues and the Abstract Truth listed as the top new release. I clicked on the icon and it gave a release date of 1995 ????

Todd

[Patrick]

...Not that I think it's a real possibility, but I hope Universal/Impulse! does not acquire any castoffs from Concord or EMI.

[Claude]

Could it be that the Impulse! CDs have moved to the midprice range (like in Europe) and that this is the reason for mentioning them in the newsletter?

Edited June 10, 2007 by Claude

[jazzbo]

No idea Claude. They don't seem to be midline priced yet.

Ah well, Sue would get a good chuckle out of it at least!

[AndrewHill]

Great albums. Glad to see they're back in print.

[porcy62]

FWIW, there is a gorgeous sounding, tho pretty expensive, vinyl reissue on Speakers Corner, for you poor guy who haven't an original RVG pressing.

http://store.acousticsounds.com/browse_det...9&sct=music

[Bluesnik]

Okay, even weirder. . . I got emails for Plays Piano, and Miingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus as well

they are all in that new Verve Classics or just Classics collection which has been in the shops for some weeks now, together with the usual suspects which were last reissued as VMEs, that is Getz/Gilberto, Coltrane Ballads (sorry, that was an Impulse, just as Trane and Hartmann, which is also in the new collection), Oscar Peterson's Night Train, Bird and Diz and others.

From what i have seen only Ella's Mack the Knife and Sarah Vaughan with Brownie (i almost bought this personal favorite only to put it back at the last moment and to discover later at home that I already had it and that my early 90s version sounds really good, being a Japanese remaster) are fairly new having last been reissued at the dawn of the CD age.

i suspect they are just repressings of the existing titles, which are all from the mid to late 90s and sound pretty good. at least i haven't been able to find any remaster info on the packaging, something that as a strong selling point is usually made clear somewhere. and they're not midrange, they cost almost the same as the VMEs did. so now we have a new reissue series for existing titles thrown together out of already good Impulse and VME reissues. that's good news .

[king ubu]

Could it be that the Impulse! CDs have moved to the midprice range (like in Europe) and that this is the reason for mentioning them in the newsletter?

They had been midprize until somewhen in the late 90s, then all of a sudden and with no reason given they went high prize... some went down again, but several I'd be interested in (Coltrane's Ascension, Village Vanguard Again, Olatunji Concert and Interstellar Space - first and last I have in old editions, other two I don't have at all) are still labelled with the full prize here.

[Bluesnik]

are still labelled with the full prize here.

i got all my Impulses midprice (all over the years), though some of the crown jewels you mention have always been full prize. but i even got Ascension at midprice at a lucky moment. and it's true they're resurfacing again, even some rarer Alice Coltranes or that Blakey session.

so now we have a new reissue series for existing titles.

maybe i shouldn't be so negative about it. maybe that means it's time for a new generation to discover those gems. still, with so much material still to be reissued (if ever), so many great albums to be uncovered, it's a pity ...

and a lost opportunity to see long wanted titles resurface from the depths of the vinyl oceans.

Edited June 12, 2007 by Bluesnik

[Bluesnik]

in the meantime i found out the new Classics series is supposed to supersede the VMEs, although it features much less titles than that great collection did and others have been added (big focus on vocals). it's also possibly a Uni Germany initiative, though i'm unsure about that. i could be wrong.

so it's more of a repackaging program than a proper reissue series. a kind of all time jazz greats line to go along with their shrinking mainstream and vocal jazz catalog and to possibly supersede all reissue series.

or that's what it looks like. let's hope i'm wrong, but lately they have only launched new reissues in their vault program. so the logic would go hard digital for a handful of big sellers, soft digital for the residual fan items. and The Köln Concert gets a reissue

[king ubu]

I've mentioned the Classics and Originals series before. The LPRs (which were digipacks anyway towards the end) came out in the Originals series, the VMEs plus lots more in the Classics series. The Originals series also contains other Verve releleases, but it all looks very much like a best of thing, and it's indeed limited to Germany it seems (Universal france still does their admirable digipacks!)

I've started a thread on one of these series, I think, with links to the site where you can check out all of these series (though the listings seem to be incomplete).

Edited to add: the french releases are also available elsewhere in jewel case packages, they're also listed on said site (see other thread here: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=34194) as "Heritage Series".

Edited June 12, 2007 by king ubu