My top 5 Blue Notes

[Mark Stryker]

There are a zillion combinations of five Blue Note recordings I might recommend to newcomers. Off the top, these five would work. These records are not about introducing people to the Blue Note label per se but to jazz in a broader sense. I've recommended them all to various folks through the years, depending on the background, prior listening, and personality of the person I'm talking to -- though this is the first time I've ever grouped these particular five together. I tend to think about sound, vibe, and compositions when making suggestions to listeners new to the idiom. A list of my own favorites on Blue Note would of course be different, though I would note that Roll Call is my favorite Mobley record and Horace-Scope and Cape Verdean Blues are my favorite Silver recordings. Anyway, in chronological order: 

Sidney Bechet, The Best of Sidney Bechet

Horace Silver, Horace-Scope 

Hank Mobley, Roll Call 

Herbie Hancock, Maiden Voyage 

John Scofield, Meant to Be

 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Mark Stryker

[colinmce]

A borderline impossible ask but off the cuff:

Personal top 5, simply in terms of the importance of the music to me, less so as a full picture of what BN has to offer in full (and with some CD-era cheating included):

The Complete Blue Note Recordings of Herbie Nichols
Sonny Rollins - A Night At The Village Vanguard (Complete)
Jackie McLean - One Step Beyond
Bobby Hutcherson - Dialogue
Ornette Coleman - At The "Golden Circle" Stockholm Vols. 1 & 2
 

What I might tell a newcomer, roughly trying to choose 1 album from each era (as much as I like the pre-bop BN recordings, you can hear that style to better advantage elsewhere):

J.J. Johnson - The Eminent J.J. Johnson Vols. 1 & 2 (bop)
Hank Mobley - Hank Mobley Quintet (hard bop)
Baby Face Wilette - Face To Face (soul jazz)
Joe Henderson - Page One (post-Coltrane)
Don Cherry - Complete Communion (avant)

ack I'm already dying inside

 

[Dub Modal]

John Patton Got a Good Thing Goin’

Tina Brooks Back to the Tracks

Horace Parlan On the Spur of the Moment

Bobby Hutcherson Montara 

AB & the JMs Mosaic

And that’s neglecting a whole lot of great albums. Picking 5 is so difficult.
 

I’ve got a friend who prefers big bands so which BN big band albums rate highly? Part of Morgan’s Delightfulee ain’t bad, but what else? 

[felser]

My five (no particular order), off the top of my head - but how can you pick only five ?!?

Lee Morgan - The Gigolo

Donald Byrd - Free Form

Jackie McLean - One Step Beyond

McCoy Tyner - Expansions

Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers - Indestructible

[Peter Friedman]

Ok, I will pick 5 of my favorites. Maybe tomorow, I would have a different selection? 

Jackie McLean - Jackie's Bag

Sonny Clark - Cool Struttin"

Horace Silver - Finger Poppin'

John Coltrane - Blue Train

Art Blakey - At Cafe Bohemia

[Mark Stryker]

1 hour ago, Dub Modal said:

John Patton Got a Good Thing Goin’

Tina Brooks Back to the Tracks

Horace Parlan On the Spur of the Moment

Bobby Hutcherson Montara 

AB & the JMs Mosaic

And that’s neglecting a whole lot of great albums. Picking 5 is so difficult.
 

I’ve got a friend who prefers big bands so which BN big band albums rate highly? Part of Morgan’s Delightfulee ain’t bad, but what else? 

Re: Big Band choices -- Thad Jones/Mel Lewis, "Consummation" (1970) is essential.

There was a 2-LP compilation issued in the mid '70 called Thad Jones/Mel Lewis with the multi-colored cover that was great -- it grabbed tracks from all the early LPs on Solid State which by then was part of the same family as Blue Note. I don't know if technically those records came out on Blue Note on CD or if there were still on Solid State or if it was both. Except for the record with Joe Williams -- I think the CD of that is in fact on Blue Note.

It's probably cheating, but there's some Basie Roulette material that appeared on CD under the Blue Note umbrella. 

The two Duke Pearson Big Band Records, Introducing and How Hear This, would definitely count, though I always felt like the whole was less than the sum of the parts, especially the first one. Haven't revisited them in a long time, though. 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Mark Stryker

[JSngry]

You know, if I wanted to encourage and/or develop an appetite and/or curiosity in a new listener who was wanting to immerse, I would just advise them to go to Panora and set up a Lee Morgan Radio and just let it play. Listen, take notes (mental or otherwise) and then get back to me over a sanwhich. Or coffee. Or whatever.

Maybe you can do this in Pandora as well, but in Spotify, you can definitely get a variety of "Blue Note" playlists. Same thing there, turn them loose on the vast expanse and tell them to let you know if they need you and/or want you. Not unlike an acid trip. #psychedlicsally

As for Big Bands...Turrnetine/Nelson Joyride, and Duke Pearson's second....Now Hear This was it? and of course, Thad/Mel, but those are not technically BN, except for that one, which is, relatively speaking my least favorite of the bunch.

But streaming for newbies? Yeah, I think that's the way to go. They can hear in a few hours what people like me spent decades pursuing in hard copy form. 

[Mark Stryker]

4 minutes ago, JSngry said:

You know, if I wanted to encourage and/or develop an appetite and/or curiosity in a new listener who was wanting to immerse, I would just advise them to go to Panora and set up a Lee Morgan Radio and just let it play. Listen, take notes (mental or otherwise) and then get back to me over a sanwhich. Or coffee. Or whatever.

Maybe you can do this in Pandora as well, but in Spotify, you can definitely get a variety of "Blue Note" playlists. Same thing there, turn them loose on the vast expanse and tell them to let you know if they need you and/or want you. Not unlike an acid trip. #psychedlicsally

As for Big Bands...Turrnetine/Nelson Joyride, and Duke Pearson's second....Now Hear This was it? and of course, Thad/Mel, but those are not technically BN, except for that one, which is, relatively speaking my least favorite of the bunch.

But streaming for newbies? Yeah, I think that's the way to go. They can hear in a few hours what people like me spent decades pursuing in hard copy form. 

The Lee Morgan idea is a good one. 

[JSngry]

I can tell you from experience, that if you set up damn near any jazz artist station in Pandora and don't give any likes and then fall asleep for a few hours, you're going to wake up to Blue Note/Prestige/Riverside going and on and on. And on.

And on.

I am not exaggerating.

Part of the reason why I switched to Spotify (with ads!!!! Just like radio!!!) I wanted to deep dive into New testament (and beyond) Basie, and they got pretty much all of it there (except for Have A Nice Day, but I got LP on that and don't recall caring for it at all, but who knows now...).

Point just being, the kids today, they don't want to accrue a big bunch of shit if they don't have to. So, like this old fucker who doesn't wnat to do it either just to discover some stuff I don't know about, streaming is a great way to go. Effective and efficient.

I still want some stuff, but now I can get it knowing in advance that I wnat it.

[GA Russell]

My top three would be the '40s recordings of...

Monk

Navarro with Dameron

and Bud Powell.

Next would be one of Wayne Shorter's 1964 recordings, probably Night Dreamer.

Probably #5 would be Somethin' Else.

[Steve Reynolds]

2 hours ago, Mark Stryker said:

The Lee Morgan idea is a good one. 

Or Hank Mobley

[John L]

7 hours ago, Steve Reynolds said:

I’d have to pick 5 from the late 50’s to very early 60’s which is the sweet spot pre-modal/pseudo free / then 5 more. This is the first jazz outside of Miles, Mingus & Monk that I fell for in the early 1990’s. 

Cool Struttin’

Soul Station

Moanin’

New Soil

Whistle Stop

then from the next era

Out to Lunch

Point of Departure

Oblique

Inner Urge

Adam’s Apple

of course there are 30-40 others that fit right in or around these core records 

 

Nice list.  Whistle Stop would also be on mine.  There is something magical about that album.  I come back to it all the time.  

 

 

[Rooster_Ties]

I’d be too tempted to include dates like Larry Young’s Mothership, Andrew Hill’s Passing Ships, Wayne Shorter’s Etcetra, Hank Mobley’s Slice of the Top, and Lee Morgan’s Infinity — each one only released roughly a decade(!!) after they were recorded as part of the LT series (or several decades later, in the case of Passing Ships).

But in each case, those really are (arguably) my all time favorite sessions by each of those artists.

[Rabshakeh]

3 minutes ago, Rooster_Ties said:

I’d be too tempted to include dates like Larry Young’s Mothership, Andrew Hill’s Passing Ships, Wayne Shorter’s Etcetra, Hank Mobley’s Slice of the Top, and Lee Morgan’s Infinity — each one only released roughly a decade(!!) after they were recorded as part of the LT series (or several decades later, in the case of Passing Ships).

But in each case, those really are (arguably) my all time favorite sessions by each of those artists.

It would be a struggle to pick 5 favourites from the vault releases alone (although Etcetera is obviously going to be in there).

[Gheorghe]

10 hours ago, Peter Friedman said:

Ok, I will pick 5 of my favorites. Maybe tomorow, I would have a different selection? 

Jackie McLean - Jackie's Bag

Sonny Clark - Cool Struttin"

Horace Silver - Finger Poppin'

John Coltrane - Blue Train

Art Blakey - At Cafe Bohemia

Same here with Cool Struttin´ , but how could I forget about Blue Train when I mentioned my choice of 5 albums ? It was my entry in the BN-Mythos when I was still a boy. I mean, the first BN I heard. And Bud with Fats and Rollins , Monk, and Ornette Golden Circle I think were the first five I had. 

And that was a bitter time for the label. Many good albums were OOP, I had convinced my record dealer to order some directly from the States and after some months they arrived and I didn´t leave my house for a week because I was busy diggin that fine stuff....

The time for BN was so bad, I noticed it because my record dealer had all his LPs not in the alphabetical order of Artists, but of Record Labels, one for Prestige, one for Impulse, one for CBS, and a very small one for BN. But when I browsed through the BN´s hoping to find all them great artists, Rollins, Griffin, Mobley, Morgan, Hubbart, Herbie , Wayne etc, I was shocked when I only saw stuff from musicians I hadn´t heard about. Who was this Meredith Monk, I was interested only in Thelonious Monk, and who was Freddie Roach, I was interested only in Max Roach....., etc......

[Rooster_Ties]

My first BN album was Mode for Joe — and it’s certainly one of my top-10 BN titles.

I’m struggling to remember my second BN acquisition, but it may have been Sidewinder (but not because of the title-track, but because Joe Henderson was in the lineup).  Either that, or one of Herbie’s 1963 or ‘64 dates.

[Dub Modal]

15 hours ago, Mark Stryker said:

Re: Big Band choices -- Thad Jones/Mel Lewis, "Consummation" (1970) is essential.

There was a 2-LP compilation issued in the mid '70 called Thad Jones/Mel Lewis with the multi-colored cover that was great -- it grabbed tracks from all the early LPs on Solid State which by then was part of the same family as Blue Note. I don't know if technically those records came out on Blue Note on CD or if there were still on Solid State or if it was both. Except for the record with Joe Williams -- I think the CD of that is in fact on Blue Note.

It's probably cheating, but there's some Basie Roulette material that appeared on CD under the Blue Note umbrella. 

The two Duke Pearson Big Band Records, Introducing and How Hear This, would definitely count, though I always felt like the whole was less than the sum of the parts, especially the first one. Haven't revisited them in a long time, though. 

 

15 hours ago, JSngry said:

You know, if I wanted to encourage and/or develop an appetite and/or curiosity in a new listener who was wanting to immerse, I would just advise them to go to Panora and set up a Lee Morgan Radio and just let it play. Listen, take notes (mental or otherwise) and then get back to me over a sanwhich. Or coffee. Or whatever.

Maybe you can do this in Pandora as well, but in Spotify, you can definitely get a variety of "Blue Note" playlists. Same thing there, turn them loose on the vast expanse and tell them to let you know if they need you and/or want you. Not unlike an acid trip. #psychedlicsally

As for Big Bands...Turrnetine/Nelson Joyride, and Duke Pearson's second....Now Hear This was it? and of course, Thad/Mel, but those are not technically BN, except for that one, which is, relatively speaking my least favorite of the bunch.

But streaming for newbies? Yeah, I think that's the way to go. They can hear in a few hours what people like me spent decades pursuing in hard copy form. 

Thanks for the tips on BN-ish big band records.

And that’s what we do anyway. Take screenshots of what we’re streaming and share them back and forth (easier than sharing through the app in my experience) Except when it’s not streaming, and then we share YT links if at all possible. 
 

Jazz has a lot that isn’t streaming, even some BNs, at least “officially”…like that Harold Land Take Aim that’s on a weird streaming-only comp. I’m sure there’s others but the bread and butter releases are all there across every one of them. 

[medjuck]

I suspect it's out of print but how about Port of Harlem Jazzmen?  

[nighthawk68]

An impossible task. Here's what comes to mind for favorites, and this would probably change week to week.

-John Coltrane - Blue Train (One of my earliest Blue Notes so maybe a nostalgic pick. Listened to this for the first time in ages recently and still floors me.)

-Baby Face Willette - Face to Face (Wish he had recorded more.)

-Lee Morgan - Search for the New Land (I go back to this one often)

-Wayne Shorter- JuJu (Same as above comment, a masterpiece.)

-Sam Rivers - Fuchisa Swing Song (No a bad debut and of course his other Blue Notes are not to shabby.)

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by nighthawk68

[jazzbo]

1 hour ago, medjuck said:

I suspect it's out of print but how about Port of Harlem Jazzmen?  

Yes, out of print but a great one. The first fifteen years of Blue Note is unfairly overlooked--great music.

[Peter Friedman]

9 hours ago, Rooster_Ties said:

My first BN album was Mode for Joe — and it’s certainly one of my top-10 BN titles.

I’m struggling to remember my second BN acquisition, but it may have been Sidewinder (but not because of the title-track, but because Joe Henderson was in the lineup).  Either that, or one of Herbie’s 1963 or ‘64 dates.

My first Blue Note acquisition was Art Blakey - At Cafe Bohemia -when it was first released on LP.

It was my first exposure to Hank Mobley, Kenny Dorham, Horace Silver and Blakey. It was the key that opened the door for me to be a serious fan of those wonderful jazz musicians from that point on to today. 

 

[Bluesnik]

1 hour ago, jazzbo said:

The first fifteen years of Blue Note is unfairly overlooked--great music.

Yes, very overlooked and I am the first to regret that.

[jlhoots]

The first Blue Note I owned was Duke Jordan: Flight To Jordan. Think I'll play it today.

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by jlhoots

[felser]

Here were mine, the first two jazz albums I ever bought.  Got both at the same time at Franklin Music in Plymouth Meeting, late 1972:

[trane123]

An almost impossible task, but here’s my five favorites (in no particular order).  Oddly enough, the first three weren’t even released until years after they were recorded:

 

Grant Green – Solid

 

Lee Morgan – The Procrastinator

 

Tina Brooks – Minor Move

 

Art Blakey – Free For All

 

John Coltrane – Blue Train

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by trane123