Quality 70's Blue Note Albums

[JSngry]

But seriously, my thing is that I've become increasingly wary of telling people flat out "don't bother with this", because people need to find out for themselves what they like or don't, and although I'm not above calling something crap, that doesn't mean I won't like it if in the right mood. And it definitely DOES mean that I took the time and had the life experience to heard it and decide about it myself. My opinions and tastes, I want them to borne of as much direct, personal experience, thought, and evaluation as possible, and I'd like to facilitate the same in others. The seems only fair.

Imagine all the things they tell you in WyntonWorld, hey, don't waste your time with THIS...minds being molded, not developed. Acceptance of dogma trumping accepting personal challenge.

BOO!!!

So, ok, I will tell you that Album X is vapid crap, but I would strongly encourage you to listen for yourself, decide for yourself, and with an open mind, not going into it expecting it to be vapid crap, reach that conclusion inside yourself entirely for yourself. I might be trying to save you some money, but I'm not trying to form your opinion before you have one.

Now, after you have one, hey, that's why we have discussion, right?

[Big Beat Steve]

Man does not live by fruit alone, look everywhere for everything, get a well-stocked pantry from around the world of variability, then you can have all the delicacies at your disposal as well as all the things to fix for the unwelcome guests, to say nothing of that junk-binging fits we all get every once so often.

Ha, right on ... but I will file this quote for reference when in OTHER threads about 50s jazz the usual drooling about BN, more BN and still more BN (yes, and PJ and a handful of the usual other suspects) will gather steam once more and other equally enjoyable (because at least "good" though not earth-shattering and mindboggling) labels will be given short shrift again too!!

Edited January 28, 2015 by Big Beat Steve

[xybert]

Bobby Hutcherson's Montara (not part of the Select as far as i know) is a classic AFAIC.

Agreed

Yay i was beginning to feel alone on that one, although i guess it might not quite fit in with the OP's preference.

OTOH, hell, part of the education of any music lover is getting burned by buying some steaming pile of crap thinking it's going to be halfway decent. That's a life lesson for us all.

Definitely been there! And nothing anyone says will dissuade you from picking up those less well regarded albums that you have your heart set on. And then you discover... and then you really wish that you had the money that you had spent because you've got 20 albums from Captain Dipshiz stinking up your shelf and can only afford to get a couple of albums from your new Lord And Saviour and you need everything he has ever recorded RIGHT NOW! It's pretty much the natural order of things. And then one day you go back and realise that you actually quite like Captain Dipshiz's music, for what it is.

Part of this discussion reminds me of separate conversations (in person or online) with Paul and The Magnificent Goldberg. I find that I don't want to listen to "great" music all the time. I often want/need good, approaching-good, not-really-that-good-but-interesting, mediocre, and mostly-bad-with-good-parts music. (A lot of 70s BN falls toward the right of that continuum.) I listen to this stuff for different reasons at different times - I don't want to give full attention to the music at that time ("great" music forces my attention its way), I want variety, I want to learn something, I want something "lighter" than great, I just enjoy it.

I mean, take Donald Byrd. I could listen to The Cat Walk, Royal Flush, and Free Form for the rest of my life and know that I'm listening to the best work that musician produced. But if the pleasures of Electric Byrd, Ethiopian Nights, and (God help me) occasionally even Black Byrd are don't reach the heights of those earlier albums, those pleasures are there (for me, anyway), and they're different enough that I want to sample them sometimes.

Thanks for saying this. I've always felt this way, and am open and honest about some of the less well regarded stuff that i listen to. It's been interesting being so immersed in Bird's music recently though, i've sort of started to see why, maybe, if people take Bird as setting the standard, well, no wonder they look out across the current landscape and feel like there are no happening musicians out there. Anyway, i had more coherent thoughts gathered when i started posting this but got distracted and have lost my train of thought. I really just wanted to thank you for posting this as i do sometimes feel that those who's musical listening activities aren't perfectly aligned with the narrative of what's considered Great are looked down upon.

[clifford_thornton]

Electric Byrd is cool.

I guess it is increasingly rare that I pick out something to listen to because of the label that it's on. That said, there are of course labels with vision, which Blue Note had up until the late '60s - rare for a sizable operation.

Sometimes I go days without listening to jazz because there's so much else to listen to. There are days I don't even feel like listening to music... it happens.

[Royal Oak]

Moacir Santos's "Saudade" has some nice moments IMO, especially "Kathy" (you'll find a nice rendition of this tune Horace Silver's "In The Pursuit of the 27th Man" album)

Edited January 28, 2015 by rdavenport

[felser]

I LOVE 50's/60's Blue Note, but also love some very different sorts of musical experiences. From the Jefferson Airplane to Shelby Lynne to Leslie Gore. "You Don't Own Me" is a stunning recording.

Edited January 28, 2015 by felser

[JSngry]

Speaking of distinctions between good/great/mediocre/etc...the people who amaze me are the hardcore Doo-Wop collectors, the really hardcore ones who know every record and can expound about the distinctiveness of each with apparent knowledge and passion. Me? I can hear one or three different Doo-Wop songs (the difference being in the bridges) and variations in tempo...a few really distinctive lead singers. But other than that, when you get into an endless loop of I-vi-ii-V 12/8 ballads by groups that even the members themselves never heard of, hell, it all sounds alike to me. No bad, necessarily, just alike. But you got people who KNOW the difference, hear them plain as day. I respect the hell out of that, even if I won't even pretend to understand it.

Point just being, go for it, and follow it where it goes, not where people tell you to go (or not go). You'll always hear more by listening than by avoiding listening, that's just basic math. The rest is on you.

[Guy Berger]

I mean, take Donald Byrd. I could listen to The Cat Walk, Royal Flush, and Free Form for the rest of my life and know that I'm listening to the best work that musician produced. But if the pleasures of Electric Byrd, Ethiopian Nights, and (God help me) occasionally even Black Byrd are don't reach the heights of those earlier albums, those pleasures are there (for me, anyway), and they're different enough that I want to sample them sometimes.

So I've heard a bunch of Byrd's 50s/60s hard-bop albums, and while they're enjoyable, I don't think they're "better" than Electric Byrd or Ethiopian Knights.

[JSngry]

And although the Mizell BN stuff just does not work for me on a personal level (liked 'em at Motown, though), consider the somewhat real-time parallels that were going on with the funk-attempts on Fantasy. At least the Mizell stuff sounded like there was a detailed vision going into it. Not so much the fantasy things, even/especially the things with Wayne Henderson producing. So, there are degrees even within that which is not liked, or could (should?) be.

[danasgoodstuff]

And although the Mizell BN stuff just does not work for me on a personal level (liked 'em at Motown, though), consider the somewhat real-time parallels that were going on with the funk-attempts on Fantasy. At least the Mizell stuff sounded like there was a detailed vision going into it. Not so much the fantasy things, even/especially the things with Wayne Henderson producing. So, there are degrees even within that which is not liked, or could (should?) be.

Agreed, there is a vision there, I just don't share it. Same, to lesser degree on both ends, with the guy whose name I'm forgetting who did Blu Mitchell's Bantu Village & Collison in Black, who some people also love.

[danasgoodstuff]

nd isn't there anyone here who likes McDuff, McGriff, and/or Ronnie foster's BN work? They certainly have their followers elsewhere. Me, I'm down with Idris on BN, McD's Downhome Style (so Memphis! '69?) and Lonnie Smith's Live @ CM, GG @ LH, some BH, the Andrew Hill - all pretty much spillover from the '60's, Elvin @ the LH might be the last one I can really say 'yeah!' to.

[JSngry]

And although the Mizell BN stuff just does not work for me on a personal level (liked 'em at Motown, though), consider the somewhat real-time parallels that were going on with the funk-attempts on Fantasy. At least the Mizell stuff sounded like there was a detailed vision going into it. Not so much the fantasy things, even/especially the things with Wayne Henderson producing. So, there are degrees even within that which is not liked, or could (should?) be.

Agreed, there is a vision there, I just don't share it. Same, to lesser degree on both ends, with the guy whose name I'm forgetting who did Blu Mitchell's Bantu Village & Collison in Black, who some people also love.

Monk Higgins.

[David Ayers]

If nobody else is going to speak up for Ronnie Laws, Pressure Sensitive and Fever, then I will. Fusion. It's fusion. Not jazz. Fusion.

[Late]

Fusion. It's fusion. [...] Fusion.

Fusion is good.

[ArtSalt]

Woody Herman's fusion is good too!

[Royal Oak]

If nobody else is going to speak up for Ronnie Laws, Pressure Sensitive and Fever, then I will. Fusion. It's fusion. Not jazz. Fusion.

I can't hear the word "fusion" without thinking of the 1990s Jazz FM show "Fusion Flavours". The presenter had a lisp, so the "s" sound in Fusion always sounded a bit funny to me (the audible effect defies explanation in writing, except to say that Hugh Lawrie has a similar quirk of enunciation). I almost never listened to the show, just heard the trailers.

[felser]

If nobody else is going to speak up for Ronnie Laws, Pressure Sensitive and Fever, then I will. Fusion. It's fusion. Not jazz. Fusion.

I can't hear the word "fusion" without thinking of the 1990s Jazz FM show "Fusion Flavours". The presenter had a lisp, so the "s" sound in Fusion always sounded a bit funny to me (the audible effect defies explanation in writing, except to say that Hugh Lawrie has a similar quirk of enunciation). I almost never listened to the show, just heard the trailers.

I actually like 'Pressure Sensitive' quite a bit, especially "Always There", which I played quite a bit back in the day.

[Bill Nelson]

Part of this discussion reminds me of separate conversations (in person or online) with Paul and The Magnificent Goldberg. I find that I don't want to listen to "great" music all the time. I often want/need good, approaching-good, not-really-that-good-but-interesting, mediocre, and mostly-bad-with-good-parts music. (A lot of 70s BN falls toward the right of that continuum.) I listen to this stuff for different reasons at different times - I don't want to give full attention to the music at that time ("great" music forces my attention its way), I want variety, I want to learn something, I want something "lighter" than great, I just enjoy it.

I mean, take Donald Byrd. I could listen to The Cat Walk, Royal Flush, and Free Form for the rest of my life and know that I'm listening to the best work that musician produced. But if the pleasures of Electric Byrd, Ethiopian Nights, and (God help me) occasionally even Black Byrd are don't reach the heights of those earlier albums, those pleasures are there (for me, anyway), and they're different enough that I want to sample them sometimes.

Exactly. For myself, it's a guilty pleasure just to gauge the 'differential' imposed by changing market conditions, record label expectations, and desired target audience.

Also, when it comes to playing CDs in my car, grooving to lighter-grade albums suits the horizontal plane of the road ahead because they're less demanding (vertical). Among my auto-faves are 'Black Byrd', Idris M's 'Power of Soul', and most anything by the Crusaders.