Black Saint/Soul Note Box Sets

[cliffpeterson]

the vendor site mention in post 578 has the photos of the front of the boxes. So you can read the albums included in each box. At the moment, the bley box does not include maslak's "not to be a star". But, the bley includes the "giuffre" - "conversations with a goose". and "memoirs" co-led with haden and motian

[PHILLYQ]

Welcome, Chris!

[xybert]

Thanks for the welcome, everyone.

the vendor site mention in post 578 has the photos of the front of the boxes. So you can read the albums included in each box. At the moment, the bley box does not include maslak's "not to be a star". But, the bley includes the "giuffre" - "conversations with a goose". and "memoirs" co-led with haden and motian

Aside from Conversations With a Goose, there's also a double up with the Motian set with the inclusion of Notes.

Full list FWIW:

Sonor

Tango Palace

Hot

Notes

Mindset

Live at Sweet Basil

Memoirs

Conversations With a Goose

Chaos

[GA Russell]

Welcome Chris!

[jazzbo]

These are on amazon.fr now, and there's also a Gaslini.

[Michel_M]

Hi everyone,

How about the Farmer ? I have a lot of Jazztet and numerous Farmer's but don't

know those Soul Note ...

[jazzbo]

I've only heard a few of them, but they're nice. Art is pretty consistent! And these are good labels.

[king ubu]

Bad with the Maslak! The duplicates of albums in earlier boxes were to be expected, but duplicate and omit other things makes no sense.

Also weird that the other Lyons/Cyrille duo album is missing.

The Murray leaves off five albums of those a search on the CAM site does display (I'm no Murray expert and he recorded a ton of stuff ... but missing are: Children, Interboogieology, the two volumes of Live at Sweet Basil and the duo with Randy Weston).

I count 13 Gaslini albums (plus four great volumes of his Intégrale) - another one with omissions.

[JohnS]

Thanks for doing the work on them Murray set Flurin, without checking it looks like it will be his quartet discs.

Edited August 3, 2013 by JohnS

[king ubu]

Thanks for doing the work on them Murray set Flurin, without checking it looks like it will be his quartet discs.

Not quite, "The Hill" is a trio (good one!), and there are some among the ones included that are quintets, too, I think?

[Д.Д.]

OK, I finally got around to doing some A/B-ing of these boxes with the old CD issues using headphones. I checked Muhal Richard Abrams's "Blues Forever". It's a large band music allowing for a lot of dynamic variety. So yes, the new versions sound very treble-heavy and harsh. The large-ensemble passages are blurred and messy. The older versions sound significantly softer in comparison. For my ears, the old edition is much more enjoyable.

Checked the Dixon "Live in Italy 1" - same thing.

Edited August 3, 2013 by Д.Д.

[J.A.W.]

OK, I finally got around to doing some A/B-ing of these boxes with the old CD issues using headphones. I checked Muhal Richard Abrams's "Blues Forever". It's a large band music allowing for a lot of dynamic variety. So yes, the new versions sound very treble-heavy and harsh. The large-ensemble passages are blurred and messy. The older versions sound significantly softer in comparison. For my ears, the old edition is much more enjoyable.

Checked the Dixon "Live in Italy 1" - same thing.

I'm glad to see that erwbol and I are not the only ones who are critical of the remastered sound.

[Guy Berger]

I have a question - have any of these boxes gone out of print?

[colinmce]

No.

[Chuck Nessa]

I have a question - have any of these boxes gone out of print?

You can wait for them to go away and say "Oh, shit". Seems like a plan.

[Kyo]

- Art Farmer (6CD / BXS 21025)

I haven't checked the other new titles, but discplus.ch has the cover for this one, which as usual lists all the albums contained in the box:

Edited August 9, 2013 by Kyo

[king ubu]

Yes, the covers are all there by now ... except for the Gaslini.

[CraigP]

Holding Together is still my favorite Oliver Lake album. I've never heard anything else by him I've liked as much. Can someone comment on the Bley recordings? They get decidedly mixed reviews on All Music.

[Face of the Bass]

Holding Together is still my favorite Oliver Lake album. I've never heard anything else by him I've liked as much. Can someone comment on the Bley recordings? They get decidedly mixed reviews on All Music.

I'm a big fan of the duo with Gary Peacock.

[tranemonk]

Anyone got an order page yet?

[Guy Berger]

Holding Together is still my favorite Oliver Lake album. I've never heard anything else by him I've liked as much. Can someone comment on the Bley recordings? They get decidedly mixed reviews on All Music.

I'm a big fan of the duo with Gary Peacock.

Memoirs with Haden and Motian is definitely worth hearing. Fun.

[Ligeti]

I have Notes and Minset from the Bley box, and they're truly excellent.

I have perhaps ten of these sets. The first I got was the Dixon, and I thnk it's excellent. Surprised to hear someone say they sound "shrill", because I have not noticed that at all.

The thing with these boxes is always that I often have one or two discs from each set. But for the price they beat getting the individual releases. They're excellent value, that could only be improved by the inclusion of some kind of booklet.

[erwbol]

Perhaps it's a good thing most people aren't convinced CAM is butchering the Black Saint/Soul Note catalogue with these sets. That leaves more individual discs on the second hand market for people like me to pick up.

[xybert]

Have the original CDs ever sounded that good? In the grand scheme of things i've only heard a small slice but i've always thought of them as being on the 'okay to not that great' side and i'm not an audiophile by any means. Not that two wrongs make a right if they are indeed butchering the remasters on the boxsets... myself i've only done a few really quick A/B comparisons on an admittedly low end sound system and heard no obvious difference.

[erwbol]

My BN/SN collection isn't that extensive, but imo the early studio recordings generally do not sound as nice as the later recordings. These limitations are in the recordings themselves. The new remasters make both early and later recordings sound (even) worse (harsh & hot treble).

So, there is a significant improvement in the (studio) recording quality around the time of the David Murray Octet album Home (November 1981) over Ming (July 1980, same recording studio) and earlier Murray albums like Interboogieology, Sweet Lovely, early WSQ.

The later studio recordings I've heard generally sound warm and pleasant in the original masterings (e.g. David Murray's The Hill & Body And Soul, Anthony Braxton's Monk disc, Andrew Hill's Shades and Verona Rag).

The live recordings I've heard are more problematic.