Coltrane '58: The Prestige Recordings

[Scott Dolan]

11 minutes ago, JSngry said:

 

Just saying, I get what the phrase means to you, and I get the differences in how you hear the different periods. I'm just saying that I'm hearing the same music you are, but I think I'm weighing the elements differently, based on my personal experiences (as are you with yours). Don't know why that would be the case, nor do I care. There are no wrong answers as to what you like and why you like it, and, especially, what you hear how it makes you feel, not just emotionally, but spatially. That shit is inviolably personal, not for nobody to touch except you..

 

Two points: 

1. I’m not sure it has to do with “weighing the elements differently”. IMO, it is the difference between being a listener and and actual trained and skilled musician. I’m the former, you’re the latter. And yes, it does make a huge difference in how we perceive the music that we are talking about. For example, I hear differences that as a skilled musician you do not because you follow the logical progression that only a musician would. And while I can see that, hear that, and understand that, I still have to make sense of it all from a non musician standpoint. 

2. This really has nothing to do with how any of this music makes me feel. It has to do with how I interpret it and make sense of it, as I said above, as a non musician. Yes, it is inviolably personal, but that is a completely different conversation. That conversation comes when we both sit down and say, “this is how this shit hits me”. Musician or simple fan, that takes on a whole new dimension beyond what we are discussing here. 

[JSngry]

What's there is there, the notes were played. Perceptions can and should vary, but there is no variance in what is actually there.

I'm listening to much music nowadays that I doubt I will live long enough to fully hear - and then internalize -  everything that is there unless I sit down with a score and dig in. That ain't happening, except maybe every rare once in a while. But if I don't hear it, and I have a good score and the score says it's there, I should be able to get my eyes and ears to work to hear it. And if it's not there...UH-oh! But it probably is.

But yeah, we all "weigh the elements" based on what we hear and how we know within ourselves they fit into our perception. Otherwise, everybody would hear everything the same way and then, why bother? Have robots make music for other robots.

So, what I hear as "evolved sheets" and you hear it as something else entirely, ok, as long as we know we are hearing the same notes, saul goode.  I just recommend - to everybody -  being careful with jargon and/or "conventional wisdom" and especially the junction of the two. Don't let what you think you're hearing be the end of it because of what you've been led to think it "is". Don't trust that shit, it's ultimately like "magic", it's a distraction at least as often as not.

In other words, if you had never heard the term "sheets of sound" how would that perception then go? Of course, you have heard it, and of course I had, but think about how much of what we think we're hearing is based on a narrative that we got from someplace other than the actual music. No notes get changed, ever, but how we hear them? Maybe that's not so certain.

Or maybe it is. I don't know, but as an adopted child, i tend to be skeptical about other accepting people's names for things at face value.

 

[Scott Dolan]

Perception and jargon is all most of us have. There are no measurables.

 

[JSngry]

 

[Scott Dolan]

And just to clarify, I heard major differences between ‘58-59 vs ‘65 Coltrane before I heard the term sheets of sound. 

Would he have ended up where he was musically in ‘62, ‘65, ‘66-‘67 without going through the process, and using his “sheets of sound” phase to further his progress? I wouldn’t think so. And while certain aspects of that approach informed his latter styles, it wasn’t those latter styles, whether echoes of it existed or not. 

[Shrdlu]

I have just about all the recorded Trane. I bought and listened to all the late Trane. I am confident enough now, after years of listening, to say that I think that his recordings after McCoy and Elvin left are just a damned noise. All that screeching with Pharaoh. Pharoah can play nicely, and I saw him live a year ago - it was great. Alice just rumbles aimlessly on the piano, and the group doesn't swing.

It was crazy to drive away one of the finest pianists and drummers. Elvin's comments are not printable.

[Scott Dolan]

1 hour ago, Shrdlu said:

I have just about all the recorded Trane. I bought and listened to all the late Trane. I am confident enough now, after years of listening, to say that I think that his recordings after McCoy and Elvin left are just a damned noise. All that screeching with Pharaoh. Pharoah can play nicely, and I saw him live a year ago - it was great. Alice just rumbles aimlessly on the piano, and the group doesn't swing.

It was crazy to drive away one of the finest pianists and drummers. Elvin's comments are not printable.

I have a total of 92 CDs worth of Coltrane as a leader. Perhaps not everything he ever recorded, but damn close. 

While his late period quintet is not my favorite, there are some great moments. Stellar Regions and Expression are very good at times, and Live At The Village Vanguard Again is spectacular, IMO. 

I’m not a fan of Interstellar Space, Live In Seattle is incredibly messy and chaotic in a bad way, and Live In Japan is an absolute, bloated disaster. 

As for McCoy and Elvin, it was pretty clear that Coltrane was looking to take his next evolutional step, and wasn’t going to be able to do it with them. I wished it hadn’t happen, but I get it. 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

So now Craft Recordings is releasing an LP version of this set: https://store.craftrecordings.com/collections/john-coltrane/products/coltrane-58-the-prestige-recordings-8-lp-box-set-free-prestige-t-shirt

No mention of who mastered these records. No mention of who cut these records. No mention of where they are being pressed. No anything, really. You would think that for $32.50 per LP, they would at least tell you something about it.

But hey, I should go pre-order it to get that spiffy Prestige tee shirt. I wonder if it has bits of ground up vinyl embedded in it?

[Scott Dolan]

5 minutes ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

So now Craft Recordings is releasing an LP version of this set.... for $32.50 per LP

Good fucking lord!!!!

Hey, maybe the less you know, the better!

[sonnymax]

24 minutes ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

So now Craft Recordings is releasing an LP version of this set: https://store.craftrecordings.com/collections/john-coltrane/products/coltrane-58-the-prestige-recordings-8-lp-box-set-free-prestige-t-shirt

No mention of who mastered these records. No mention of who cut these records. No mention of where they are being pressed. No anything, really. You would think that for $32.50 per LP, they would at least tell you something about it.

But hey, I should go pre-order it to get that spiffy Prestige tee shirt. I wonder if it has bits of ground up vinyl embedded in it?

You didn't click on the "features" tab which provides this info:

Includes eight 180-gram LPs - remastered from the original analog tapes by Paul Blakemore (all of which were recorded by renowned engineer Rudy Van Gelder) - Cut by Clint Holley from 24-bit/192kHz transfers.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

1 hour ago, sonnymax said:

You didn't click on the "features" tab which provides this info:

Includes eight 180-gram LPs - remastered from the original analog tapes by Paul Blakemore (all of which were recorded by renowned engineer Rudy Van Gelder) - Cut by Clint Holley from 24-bit/192kHz transfers.

Thanks for finding that.

I don't understand how can they keep a straight face and say "remastered from the original analog tapes" and cut "from 24-bit/192kHz transfers" in the same sentence. They are cut from a digital master. It doesn't matter that they used the original analog tape to create the digital master. It's still cut from a digital master. That's all we need to know. No reason to buy these LPs when they are cut using a digital master - just buy the CDs. Since I already have all of this music on CD, there is no need for me to buy this box set at all.

And don't get me wrong - I have no problem with digital mastering. None. I just don't understand why they don't cut the LPs with the analog master. I assume it is to make it easier to cut due to the ability to use a digital delay circuit as a "look ahead" during the cutting process.

The more I think about this, I am betting that they went digital because it made it easier to cut. Without dubbing & splicing analog tape, you cannot make an analog tape to play back for these cuts and I doubt that you want to stop/start an LP cut to swap tapes.

Edited January 31, 2019 by Kevin Bresnahan

[Scott Dolan]

Kevin, the problem being most have no clue either way. There are still those that insist on vinyl only. And they LOVE to hear the words “original master tape”. After that, whatever else is said sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher. 

I kid you not, just the other day I had this cat emphatically telling me that vinyl is the only “high resolution” format, and that CDs are low resolution audio. 

He wasn’t trying to be funny. 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

7 minutes ago, Scott Dolan said:

Kevin, the problem being most have no clue either way. There are still those that insist on vinyl only. And they LOVE to hear the words “original master tape”. After that, whatever else is said sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher. 

I kid you not, just the other day I had this cat emphatically telling me that vinyl is the only “high resolution” format, and that CDs are low resolution audio. 

He wasn’t trying to be funny. 

In today's world, if you say something false but enough people cheer, it's the truth.

[sonnymax]

6 hours ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

In today's world, if you say something false but enough people cheer, it's the truth.

But Rudy said "the truth isn't the truth". 

[Brad]

3 hours ago, sonnymax said:

But Rudy said "the truth isn't the truth". 

Rudy Van Gelder? 

[JSngry]

 

[sonnymax]

7 hours ago, Brad said:

Rudy Van Gelder? 

sure   

[JSngry]

Rudy put it on a record, all of it.

[Shrdlu]

Scott, I appreciate all you said, and I have listened carefully to all the late Trane. He knew what he was doing, and his technique is excellent, but the bottom line is that I don't really like it. The piano just rumbles and that drummer is no Elvin. There is nothing like his playing on "Wells Fargo", with Wilbur Harden, for example. He is so satisfying on a thing like that.

I have the 4 CD "Live In Japan" set. I think I played it once. Yamaha gave Pharaoh and Trane a new alto each, and they play those. Why not tenors? (The Yamaha saxophones are good: I have played an alto and a tenor. The keywork is pure Selmer, of course, but whose isn't, these days.)

For me, it's Trane's Prestige, Savoy, Atlantic and Impulse recordings up to "Transition".

[Scott Dolan]

You don’t like Sun Ship and First Meditations?

Wow, those are two of my favorite Jazz albums of all time. 

[JSngry]

On 1/30/2019 at 7:17 PM, JSngry said:

But I I still hear the sweeps in there as the years pass and the music evolves goes along, too. It never goes away, really, no matter what other tools have been added, the "sweep tool" remains. And by the time you get to Interstellar Space, it sounds to me like your "two string" analogy has been maxed out into a total sweep all its own, as if the harp had been rebuilt. Of course, that wouldn't work physically with a harp (although I don't know about extended techniques or such as they pertain to harp). But it can certainly be done with other instruments, including piano, which is a harp with keys, right? Cecil, for sure, and Colin Nancarrow, player piano, hands no longer needed!

Regarding harps...I learned something last night from the program notes at the DSO, regarding Debussy's Sacred & Profane Dances, which was on the show that evening. Turns out that this piece was commissioned by a manufacturer to showcase their new type of harp, a chromatic harp. Apparently the instrument was quickly deemed impractical, almost unplayable, and soon became obsolete. Looking at it, one is not surprised!

What's perhaps even more interesting is the response by a competing manufacturer of the by-today's-standards normal pedaled harp - the commissioned Maurice Ravel to wire an "answer record" so to speak. Format wars, speed wars, it's not new!

More about that here: http://www.interlude.hk/front/harp-headaches/

[Scott Dolan]

Bizarre! 

[JSngry]

Harps are bizarre enough as is...the pedals. Harps and pedal steels are two instruments that I think I could never even begin to fathom how to play. Too many moving parts, too much physical coordination, I'm not a graceful guy.

[Rooster_Ties]

30 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Harps are bizarre enough as is...the pedals. Harps and pedal steels are two instruments that I think I could never even begin to fathom how to play. Too many moving parts, too much physical coordination, I'm not a graceful guy.

Maybe this is naive of me to say, but I think Pedal Steels seem half(?) more intuitive than harps.  Of course I don't even play regular guitar, so maybe if I knew even a tiny bit more than I do, I might well not think that.  Could also be that when I've seen Pedal Steel players play, it just seems more fluid and not as intimidating.  Like I could almost imagine myself playing Pedal Steel, but sure as hell NOT harp.

[JSngry]

Dude, pedal steels, you gotta work the feet and the knees. You don't really get the full extent of body movement involved until you stand behind one of them and watch all that stuff going on. Dizzying! Country playing gets involved enough, but to watch somebody play jazz on one of those things....whew.