Modern Blue Note releases?

[jcam_44]

Has anyone else been disappointed by new Blue Note releases? This for me goes back a ways but I started thinking about it again while listening to the new Marcus Strickland album I got today. I think I'm only missing one of Marcus' releases and this was the least satisfying on first listen. Which was also the case with Takuya Kuroda's Blue Note debut after 3 extremely solid indie releases. To a lesser extent, the Jason Moran "All Rise" which I absolutely enjoy, and feel that Jason captured Fats with a unique and beautiful tribute that was still decidedly Moran, I was still left wondering if part of this release had "label direction". On a side note, I think what they've done for Gregory Porter and other vocalists, outstanding. Anyone else have similar feeling?

[CJ Shearn]

Interesting thoughts. I enjoyed the Kuroda and Moran when I first heard them and I think the new Lonnie Smith is nice, I don't like it as much as "In The Beginning", but I think it's quite good.  I've wanted to hear the new Charles Lloyd, I really liked "Wild Man Dance".  Personally I think Blue Note'sy had  as strong a recent renaissance as  ever, Logan Richardson's "Shift" is one of my favorites this year   The label direction under Don Was reminds me a lot of the pretty awful "Blue Note Hits A New Note" UA era as far as trying to do something different with the music, except the music is a lot better, and a lot more honest.  For those with an open mind, Blue Note now is quite nice, for those that wanna stay in the classic '54-70 era, well........... YMMV, but as a fan of Blue Note and known where the label's been I think things are pretty healthy now.

[kh1958]

To the contrary,  I wasn't expecting much from the Don Was era Blue Note, and I'm pleasantly surprised to like a number of the releases --the two Charles Lloyd releases, the Jason Moran Fats Waller disc, Cassandra Wilson's Coming Forth By Day, Terence Blanchard's E-Collective Breathless release, Marcus Miller's Afrodeezia, the new Lonnie Smith release. It seems to me he is doing a pretty decent job for this time.

[sidewinder]

Just the fact that they put a new recording out by Lonnie Smith after what must be 40+ years after the last one (Drives?) is cause for credit and kudos. Really must pick up a copy of that one.

Edited April 16, 2016 by sidewinder

[JSngry]

I dug that Cassandra thing quite a bit, but had no idea that it was on BN.

[danasgoodstuff]

5 hours ago, JSngry said:

I dug that Cassandra thing quite a bit, but had no idea that it was on BN.

It's not...or is that what you were saying?

[JSngry]

No, I was just confused about that. Ken named one record, I thought about another one.

[felser]

I love Lloyd's "Wild Man Dance", but in general, have been underwhelmed going all the way back to the mid-80's relaunch (or, for that matter, to the recordings made during UA era in the 70's, though they did some great catalog unearthing then).  With the exception of the classic catalog items, the label has long ceased to have any special meaning to me.

[kh1958]

My mistake of memory--the Cassandra Wilson Billie Holiday tribute is not on Blue Note.

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

No, I was just confused about that. Ken named one record, I thought about another one.

 

[JSngry]

Whatever label it was on, I liked it.

[ghost of miles]

I've really enjoyed Ambrose Akinmusire's work on the label.  Jose James did a good Billie Holiday tribute for BN last year (and like Jsngry, I dig the Cassandra one too, though not on BN--an underrated disc, IMO).

[kh1958]

The recent Logan Richardson CD Shift is also an interesting release, my qualm being that on a couple of the tracks Pat Metheny's guitar sound is really irritating.

Edited April 17, 2016 by kh1958

[CJ Shearn]

On 4/17/2016 at 0:41 PM, kh1958 said:

The recent Logan Richardson CD Shift is also an interesting release, my qualm being that on a couple of the tracks Pat Metheny's guitar sound is really irritating.

Really? I thought that was one of the most interesting aspects.  Since at least "Tap", Pat's been exploring new colors and textures in his sonic toolkit.  He's using his classic Roland GR300 guitar synth on most of the album, but he has the regular guitar sound blended with the synth and distortion at the same time which is new for him.  Nasheet Waits and Jason Moran play fantastic as well.  It really sounds like a band that's been together for a while (though they weren't at all which is what Logan told me in my interview with him) instead of just a collection of all stars.

[Eric]

4 hours ago, CJ Shearn said:

Really? I thought that was one of the most interesting aspects.  Since at least "Tap", Pat's been exploring new colors and textures in his sonic toolkit.  He's using his classic Roland GR300 guitar synth on most of the album, but he has the regular guitar sound blended with the synth and distortion at the same time which is new for him.  Nasheet Waits and Jason Moran play fantastic as well.  It really sounds like a band that's been together for a while (though they weren't at all which is what Logan told me in my interview with him) instead of just a collection of all stars.

Yeah, I loved the Pat on the Logan Richardson thing for the reasons you mentioned.

[StarThrower]

I have Lloyd's latest on loan from the library. Pretty disappointing. It's more like easy listening, which isn't easy listening.

[7/4]

11 hours ago, StarThrower said:

I have Lloyd's latest on loan from the library. Pretty disappointing. It's more like easy listening, which isn't easy listening.

 

Bit of twang going on there.