Duke Ellington Blanton-Webster band recordings re-issued

[miles65]

Fremeaux just issued a 4 CD set with the Blanton-Webster recordings: Duke at his very best. The Jimmy Blanton, Billy Strayhorn, Ben Webster Sessions.

On CD 1 & 2 are the masterpieces. On CD 3 the pieces deemed not to be master pieces and the Ellington-Blanton duet session.

CD 4 contains the small group sessions.

The booklet is in French and English.

The Ellington piano solo’s are missing just as the alternate takes. The transfers are done by Alain Pailler mostly from 78’s.

Pro this set is that it makes this music available again and Fremeaux is a serious company so the sound quality will be good.

There is only a 31 second sample.

Against it is the sequencing.  

Duke at his Very Best - The Jimmy Blanton, Billy Strayhorn, Ben Webster Sessions (fremeaux.com)

[John L]

I will be interested to hear reviews on the sound.   This is one group of recordings where the sound quality on previously releases has never been what might be hoped for.   

[Stompin at the Savoy]

The 2003 Never No Lament: The Blanton-Webster Band,  which utilized the 1999 remastering from the big RCA box was a very significant improvement over the 1986 Blanton Webster Band.  Curious to see how the sound is on this release.  Also unclear is whether RCA has remastered this material for volumes in the Ellington in Order series, which are supposed to be coming out soon...

[jlhoots]

2 hours ago, Stompin at the Savoy said:

The 2003 Never No Lament: The Blanton-Webster Band,  which utilized the 1999 remastering from the big RCA box was a very significant improvement over the 1986 Blanton Webster Band.  Curious to see how the sound is on this release.  Also unclear is whether RCA has remastered this material for volumes in the Ellington in Order series, which are supposed to be coming out soon...

I have the 2003 set. Works for me.

[felser]

34 minutes ago, jlhoots said:

I have the 2003 set. Works for me.

Same here.  How good is sound quality on 1940-1942 recordings going to get?

[Stompin at the Savoy]

I had the 86 set, found it unlistenable, and got the 2003 set when it came out.  The 2003 set was remastered in 1999, a quarter century ago.  I imagine the technology has improved quite a bit since then so it seems possible to find some improvements.  I would expect an RCA remaster to be better than Fremeaux because they have access to better sources, probably.

[Teasing the Korean]

24 minutes ago, Stompin at the Savoy said:

I had the 86 set, found it unlistenable, and got the 2003 set when it came out.  The 2003 set was remastered in 1999, a quarter century ago.  I imagine the technology has improved quite a bit since then so it seems possible to find some improvements.  I would expect an RCA remaster to be better than Fremeaux because they have access to better sources, probably.

I also have both the 1986 and 2003, and to my ears, both have issues sonically.  I will be interested to hear if the new version sounds better, given advances in technology, but I'm not sure that I'll buy it a third time. 

[medjuck]

You can go a little crazy searching for the best possible sound for the recordings. I have the RCA Box but because I hear some distortion on Jack the Bear and Koko, I've gried to find other transfers.  I now discover that I have four other sets that have much of the best sides from this era.  My favorite is from France, the  Dreyfus cd entitled "Koko". Dreyfus did an additional cd called "Take the A Train" which has 21 cuts from 1938 to 1950.

I also have a 2cd set from Avid,  "Highlights of the Great 1940-1942 Band".   They claim to use "Advanced Transfer Technology" but add a riders saying the quality of the sound depends on which studio (Chicago is best, LA worst) was used and you need to compare it to other reissues to understand why they advertise "remarkable sound". 

Another Avid cd "Jack the Bear"  containing recordings from '27-'45 claims to be in "3 Dimensional Sound" which produces a stereo effect". 

Finally there's Robert Parker's "Jazz Classics in Surround Sound. Duke Ellington the Great Bands of the  1940s".  

I haven't listened to these in years but I hope to do some comparisons this week and will report back .  (I'm not really an audiophile and have 81 year old ears. ) 

[mr jazz]

Dreyfus release-KoKo- was over de-noised but still sounds good so worth having. I don't have the second release.

[ghost of miles]

I'm content with the big red 1999 RCA box and the 2003 Never No Lament set, but always happy to see this music getting any kind of fresh circulation.

[Dub Modal]

I have the '86 set so maybe in the market for this one. Thanks for posting the news. 

[Mark Stryker]

On 3/24/2024 at 7:31 AM, miles65 said:

Fremeaux just issued a 4 CD set with the Blanton-Webster recordings: Duke at his very best. The Jimmy Blanton, Billy Strayhorn, Ben Webster Sessions.

On CD 1 & 2 are the masterpieces. On CD 3 the pieces deemed not to be master pieces and the Ellington-Blanton duet session.

CD 4 contains the small group sessions.

The booklet is in French and English.

The Ellington piano solo’s are missing just as the alternate takes. The transfers are done by Alain Pailler mostly from 78’s.

Pro this set is that it makes this music available again and Fremeaux is a serious company so the sound quality will be good.

There is only a 31 second sample.

Against it is the sequencing.  

Duke at his Very Best - The Jimmy Blanton, Billy Strayhorn, Ben Webster Sessions (fremeaux.com)

What's the problem with the sequencing? Personally, I'm sick of the strict chronological presentation model. 

As far as the sound, I'm intrigued as to whether this set will offer improvements in the digital space. The 1986 set was unlistenable. The 1999/2003 version is a vast improvement but not ideal. It's overly bright, unbalanced in places and distorted in places. The Chronological Classics are ok; the best versions on CD to my ears are the French RCA versions based on the Black & White LP twofers. When I want to hear this music on CD, I reach for the French RCA. 

This is some of my favorite music in the universe, so I've gone out of my way to get as many LP versions of this material as I can on LP, almost all of which are preferable to any of the CDs. The French RCA twofers are excellent sonically, but the pressing quality can be a little inconsistent, so it's taken me a minute to find clean and quiet ones. The 1950s and '60s RCAs are also excellent -- Duke Ellington at his Very Best, The Duke and his Men, In a Mellotone,  Jumpin' Punkins. Caveat: Get the early versions of these if you can (black or purple labels, which are better than the later orange label versions). The 1961 RCA set Indispensable Duke Ellington for mysterious reasons sounds awful, like fake stereo before fake stereo existed. Then there are the Smithsonian issues c. 1980 -- still wrapping my arms around the sound on these but the booklet notes from Larry Gushee and others are fantastic. 

Edited March 25 by Mark Stryker

[Jim Duckworth]

I was thrilled to get the RCA box but disappointed that there was distortion marring two of my favorite tracks.  I am going to look into The Fremeaux set...

[miles65]

4 hours ago, Mark Stryker said:

What's the problem with the sequencing? Personally, I'm sick of the strict chronological presentation model. 

The discs are still chronological. What I don't like is that the 'lesser' pieces (disc 3) are separated from the masterpieces (disc 1 & 2).

Just my opinion.

One can always use the shuffle mode on one's CD player.

[jazzbo]

LP version, LP 3

[hopkins]

On 3/25/2024 at 12:59 AM, medjuck said:

My favorite is from France, the  Dreyfus cd entitled "Koko". Dreyfus did an additional cd called "Take the A Train" which has 21 cuts from 1938 to 1950.

For some reason, they came out with another "remastered" version of these two CDs with different covers (see here:http://www.disquesdreyfus.com/catalogue/538422392-ko-ko.html) , and the sound is weird. From what I remember, the originals were indeed good. 

Here is a track from the "remastered" version (but with the original cover), that I found on YouTube:

 

On 3/25/2024 at 5:51 PM, Mark Stryker said:

Then there are the Smithsonian issues c. 1980 -- still wrapping my arms around the sound on these but the booklet notes from Larry Gushee and others are fantastic

The albums are on the Internet Archive, with the liner notes, and some sound excerpts:

https://archive.org/details/lp_duke-ellington-1940_duke-ellington

The sound seems to be quite good (samples are vinyl rips).

And here is another Smithsonian version packaged as a box set: https://archive.org/details/lp_an-explosion-of-genius-1938-1940_duke-ellington

Edited April 5 by hopkins

[jazzbo]

I have that box set! A good one. Also have the 1938 and 1939 double LPs and maybe the 1940, and a Jump for Joy from Smithsonian.

[medjuck]

I had that box set and gave it to my son who, unlike me still had a turntable. Good liner notes as I remember.

On 3/25/2024 at 3:21 PM, Jim Duckworth said:

I was thrilled to get the RCA box but disappointed that there was distortion marring two of my favorite tracks.  I am going to look into The Fremeaux set...

Koko and Jack the Bear? 

[Jim Duckworth]

3 hours ago, medjuck said:

 

Koko and Jack the Bear? 

Exactly.  I am not an audiophile but distortion is clearly evident on those.

 

[Chuck Nessa]

5 hours ago, medjuck said:

I had that box set and gave it to my son who, unlike me still had a turntable. Good liner notes as I remember.

Koko and Jack the Bear? 

IIRC, those were "cleaned up" for this package

[Jim Duckworth]

19 hours ago, Chuck Nessa said:

IIRC, those were "cleaned up" for this package

Thank you.

[hopkins]

After reading the above comments I checked some of my CD versions of "Jack the Bear". 

This is from the 1999 RCA Victor "Centennial Edition" box set - https://www.discogs.com/release/3838895-Duke-Ellington-The-Duke-Ellington-Centennial-Edition-The-Complete-RCA-Victor-Recordings-1927-1973

https://storage.googleapis.com/cloudplayer/samples/02 Jack The Bear.flac

There is indeed a lot of distortion.

This version is from the 13 CD "Anniversary" box set - https://www.discogs.com/release/7759958-Duke-Ellington-Anniversary-13-Volumes-Box-Set

https://storage.googleapis.com/cloudplayer/samples/183 Jack the Bear.flac

This second version sounds very similar to some of the previous Fremeaux versions I have heard (on streaming services) - I obviously have not heard the latest Fremeaux set mentioned at the start of this thread. It sounds good. Blanton's bass is not bloated as in the RCA Victor set, and everything sounds cleaner and more "natural". The engineer on that 13 CD set is Christophe Hénault.

Edited April 10 by hopkins

[Mark Stryker]

My copy arrived today and the music sounds AWESOME. These are easily the best digital copies I've heard and, on first listen (and without actually doing an A-B comparisons) serious competition for the best of my many LP versions. 

Edited April 17 by Mark Stryker

[Jim Duckworth]

That works for me. Mine is ordered.

thanks.

 

 

[AllenLowe]

you have talked me into it - now I hope they will do Duke's 1920s stuff; or maybe they have. The 1920s remains my favorite, the band is especially deep and loose.