John Coltrane - Blue World

[JSngry]

Live recordings, with and without Dolphy on board, yes.

[Shrdlu]

I remember all the excitement when stereo LPs first became available. 

But, for a quintet, say, mono will do. Who now cares if the tenor saxophone is on the left and the trumpet is on the right? Big deal. If you were listening to them live, it would be mono.

[JSngry]

2 minutes ago, Shrdlu said:

 If you were listening to them live, it would be mono.

For all the civilians in the house, this is a joke, don't take it seriously..

[Pim]

Any thoughts on this yet? Recieved my copy today but no chance so far to give it a spin.

[jazzbo]

A very relaxed feel to this session. Nice listening, nothing startling. Sound on the disc is quite good, Reeves has done a great job.

[Lazaro Vega]

His rhythmic approach on the head to "Like Sonny" is very different, more staccato, than on previous versions I've heard, or when he quotes at length while on tour with Miles in 1960. The title piece is a variation on "Out of This World" which he played the shit out of on that earlier Impulse album and digs in quickly here. It's interesting to hear him at this stage, with "A Love Supreme" and "Crescent" surrounding it, playing his own material from earlier. Nice long bass intro to "Traneing In," though it sounds like Elvin had to put down a smoke to get into tempo with everyone when it was time for the ensemble to enter. 

 

[JSngry]

I didn't pre-order and amazon is showing CD in-stock date as 10/05...is somebody shipping sooner, or are there advance copies out there already?

[sidewinder]

I had a copy of the CD in my hands at the local HMV yesterday - didn’t buy it. They had the vinyl in stock too.

[GregK]

6 hours ago, JSngry said:

I didn't pre-order and amazon is showing CD in-stock date as 10/05...is somebody shipping sooner, or are there advance copies out there already?

Weird. I pre-ordered from Amazon and received it yesterday. Guess they sold out of pre-orders?

[Pim]

My local shop owner told me its the only jazz record he really sells a lot (in a sleepy small town somewhere in The Netherlands). It is quite popular I think. 

[Shrdlu]

Very good to have. Anything by the Quartet at this stage is welcome.

There is a lack of production. I suspect that Bob Thiele wasn't involved. There are three takes of "Village Blues". All are equally good and there was no need for another take after the first one. It is too short, and there is no piano solo, but maybe the film guy wanted it that way. The tracks that feature the whole group are much more satisfying.

Now, let's have the rest of the unissued Trane from 1962 and 1963. It does exist, because there was a radio broadcast of it about 10 years ago.

[Robert Middleton]

OK, I bought it, I downloaded it. I listened to it. I liked it. But wasn't wowed by it. Two Directions at once was much more interesting. It's just that there was only one new track, Blue World. On to the next.

Liking the new Nat Birchall tribute to Yusef Lateef, The Storyteller. Most of Birchall's albums have been inspired by Coltrane's spiritual side. So this one is a nice change. 

If it was a toss-up, I'd get the Birchall.

[Guy Berger]

17 hours ago, Robert Middleton said:

OK, I bought it, I downloaded it. I listened to it. I liked it. But wasn't wowed by it. Two Directions at once was much more interesting. It's just that there was only one new track, Blue World. On to the next.

Aren't all the tracks new?  [Aside from the original soundtrack within the movie, which very few people appear to have heard or even heard of]

[kh1958]

Yes, all the tracks are newly issued. Blue World is a variant of Out of This World. It's a relaxed session from the Quartet; I'm enjoying it a lot.

[ghost of miles]

Nate Chinen’s review for Pitchfork:

John Coltrane’s Blue World

[RiRiIII]

Transparent Blue Vinyl is coming:

 

[Lazaro Vega]

Thanks for posting Chinen's review. 

[Brad]

This is an interesting article by the Times critic Giovanni Russonello on how he approaches a recording like Blue World. 

What a Jazz Critic Hears on Coltrane’s ‘New’ Album

[Dan Gould]

5 hours ago, Brad said:

This is an interesting article by the Times critic Giovanni Russonello on how he approaches a recording like Blue World. 

What a Jazz Critic Hears on Coltrane’s ‘New’ Album

" When my subject is an album from the archive, full books on the performer’s life are usually available, as is a complete discography. For Davis, who died in 1991, the authoritative tome is his autobiography.  "

This would be the autobiography that was mostly invented by the author and poor transcription?

 

[mikeweil]

I can't understand his attitude. Autobiographies and interviews always must be taken with some grain of salt, memories can fail. I experienced that while researching Pony Poindexter's discography while consulting his memoirs. Some of the dates he remembers are unplausible, some are exact to the day and pass the test. 

Oh, and discographers can be mistakne, too, unless they get acces to a label's vaults, which rarely is the case, and even then ..... all of the dates for Cal Tjader's live recordings for Verve are one week off. There are reliable concert reviews that tell the correct dates. You always have to double check.

[JSngry]

Listened to it this evening. I felt like I felt when I hear The Beatles Christmas Records for the first time, like, yeah, it's those guys all right, being themselves...but although still The Beatles, nor really "Beatles records". And yet, very (and thoroughly) enjoyable precisely because of that.

Three things stand out for me (and three there will be, look, numbers!):

1. This was certainly a very casual session. Not a lot of pre-planning (maybe none?), not a lot of budget, obviously, just everybody show up at Rudy's, decide on tunes, get levels, and give the money guy what he needs (shades of Prestige!). So it's a little startling to hear Coltrane so casually throw out some of this really advanced harmonic shit, like, you know, even when he wasn't looking for the mountaintop, this is where his head was at, no turning back, a truly evolved mind in that way.
2. Whoever cleaned the tapes up did a good job, but there's no hiding the fact that, however they started out, they were in pretty rough shape by the time this project got going. Oh well!
3. Elvin on the 2nd take of "Naima" is just stone cold motherfucking NUTS. I've never heard anything like that before, from anybody.

I see that this was recorded "at" Rudy's studio, and the legends of Rudy not letting anybody touch his stuff is no doubt a true fact, but...can I be forgiven for thinking that either Rudy was not behind the knows for some/all of this? Or maybe just that everybody knew what kind of a deal it was going in, both time and money were tight, so, you know, just get something down...or maybe it's just that the tapes were old and whoever had them had played them a lot over the years?

Now - when do we get an official CD of The Beatles Christmas Records?

[Teasing the Korean]

I listened to this film the other night.  I say "listened to" because there are no subtitles, and I don't speak French, so I didn't want to spoil the experience, in the event that a version with subtitles becomes available.  I just had it on YouTube with the volume up high, while I did things around the house.

What is interesting is that Coltrane is used in the first half of the film, and the baroque music is used in the second half.  This suggests some sort of a shift in the narrative, but again, I didn't watch the film.

When I compile my soundtrack album, I will probably alternate Coltrane and the baroque pieces to create a more varied listening experience. And because "Naima" is used more than once, and because the film is in French, I will also include the stunning vocal version of "Naima" by the Double Six of Paris.

Edited October 15, 2019 by Teasing the Korean

[Teasing the Korean]

Who was the dumbass who thought it would be a good idea to include the control booth chatter before every track?  Way to screw up an otherwise decent album. (I already forgave the producer for the bad cover art and lack of Couperin and Vivaldi.)

Now I have to load this into Audacity and get rid of the engineer.  It should not be the listener's job to finish someone else's album.  

Edited December 29, 2019 by Teasing the Korean

[Daniel A]

You might want to look at it as the soundtrack equivalent of an IKEA product. Sans the meatballs in the in-store restaurant. 

[Teasing the Korean]

37 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

You might want to look at it as the soundtrack equivalent of an IKEA product. Sans the meatballs in the in-store restaurant. 

Nonsense.  IKEA is all about style and presentation, and they would have much better taste than to include the mood-busting control room banter.  The square celibate who compiled this album could learn a thing or two from IKEA.