Long Shot.... Looking For Black Unity Trio - Al-Fatihah

[926am]

VG or better. will part with $1300.

 

[clifford_thornton]

so you got outbid on that stupidly expensive copy?

It's a good record and I too have been searching for many years for a copy, but have pretty much given up at this point and will gladly spend those thousands of dollars on other stuff. 

[926am]

Yes I did. As much as I want the record I would have felt pretty silly paying that much. 1300 is still pretty nutty, but I doubt I will get a bite anyhow.

[Chuck Nessa]

For money like that you could do something useful like recording new music and present it to the world.

[926am]

 I see one went for 500 back in December. How in the hell did I miss that?!?!

Edited February 27, 2017 by 926am

[Homefromtheforest]

The copy that sold for $500 looked pretty trashy with scratches and marks and a taped cover.  $2300+ is a new level of insanity for this album...Popsike reveals most copies sell for around $300-600 but exceptionally clean ones really "pop".  It seems tough to find with a clean white cover.  I paid around $150 for mine some years ago but the cover is quite grubby - although the vinyl is borderline NM which is more important to me.  Sorry but I am not interested in selling at the moment!

 

[rostasi]

I have this, but it's in my iTunes
and I couldn't tell you where it's
at now in my collection even if I
did want to sell it. It shows up
online though now and then.

[Homefromtheforest]

1 hour ago, Chuck Nessa said:

For money like that you could do something useful like recording new music and present it to the world.

If only there was more new music out there that even came close to matching the emotion, passion, and intensity of this album...

[clifford_thornton]

10 hours ago, Homefromtheforest said:

If only there was more new music out there that even came close to matching the emotion, passion, and intensity of this album...

different times, different sources. 

also, perhaps one could record an album for $1500-$2500 I guess (maybe??), but most of us don't have the know-how in terms of getting a record from concept to the new arrival bins, so I feel that's a false equivalency. I've certainly thought about doing a few projects I really like as small-edition releases but in talking to musicians it seems like a dicey proposition. Better to be on the side that I'm on -- buying, listening, thinking, and writing.

[rostasi]

The other thing that you could consider is to save your money and
put some effort into writing some of these labels that love to
re-introduce older limited-edition vinyl and point them in that
direction. You could mention, for example, how much money
these pieces are fetching and other bits of enticing info and
maybe something may develop in that direction - maybe a
release in 2020, for instance, could happen. Even if the master
tapes can't be found, an extremely clean (or audibly adjusted)
copy may be used to produce a final product that's "good enough."

Also, I'd say that these are good days for re-introducing the
kind of spiritual jazz recording that this is - or the era that it
represented. It was a great time musically for when I got
this at either Rose or Hegewisch Records as a kid and
the interest is pretty high with a certain group of music
lovers these days.

Edited February 27, 2017 by rostasi

[clifford_thornton]

One member of the Black Unity Trio put the kibosh on a reissue, so it's not happening. The label was trying to be above board; not sure if it was a money issue or disinterest in the music being available again, to be honest, but it's unfortunate.

[ep1str0phy]

I agree that it's a bit of a false equivalency to the degree that the investment in recording inputs isn't quite the same thing as spending on recording output, but I do hear what Chuck is saying, at least in a private press/self-release sense.  

A digital only release where the musicians are the initial investors (i.e., you're not paying session fees because the artists are fronting the bread) can be done for pennies on the dime today. You can get professional level 2 track recording + digital mastering for under $600. After that, straight to bandcamp. If you're using bandcamp pro ($10/mo) you can even send out digital review copies without having to pay postage. The only unaccounted for expenses in this scenario are (1) time (including rehearsal/practice time and/or facility rental, though many working musicians will have already invested in one or the other) and (2) any possible design work.

As a longtime fan of classic free jazz/improvised music/creative music--and as an active participant in contemporary music that shares a lot of interstitial material with the classic stuff in question--I think that it's important to consider the degree to which things like press and historical fetishization alter our perspective on what constitutes a successful recording. I hear a lot of terrible improvised music these days but also a lot of truly extraordinary stuff that virtually no one--by virtue of geography, listener interest or initiative, and (again) press--will ever get to hear.

I know that it's sort of stock-in-trade for musicians to champion their regional communities, but I've been in and out of love with the practice of this music for decades now and I will gladly throw relatively untouted WC artists like Wiener Kids, Black Spirituals, Bad Luck, Beep!, Francis Wong and the like up against absolutely anything recorded in the past several decades barring the upper tier of material by acknowledged masters. Records like Nonaah or Derek Bailey's Aida are still pretty untouchable in their genres, but it's (again) important to consider that new musicians are trying and have been trying to generate new genres every day for the past, I don't know, eternity. 

[926am]

Found a copy!

 

[B. Clugston]

6 hours ago, 926am said:

Found a copy!

 

Congrats! It really is a great record--I really wish that reissue would go ahead.