Duke Ellington Blanton-Webster band recordings re-issued

[mikeweil]

11 minutes ago, AllenLowe said:

 - 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.

https://www.fremeaux.com/en/473-duke-ellington-quintessence-vol-1-3700368458600-fa204.html

[bubbersmear]

Did A-B-C Ko-Ko comparisons with…

99 Centennial Collection (with the fix Chuck noted)

95/96 Jazz Greats (done by John R.T. Davies)

And then Ko-Ko + two whole discs with the Fremeaux box.

If you have an obsession with this material, and the resources, this may be the one. It sounds excellent. Blue Goose is also a great track to compare with imo. The sequencing is, of course, subjective. I like their choices.

Mark will have to tell us how it stacks up to vinyl.

 

[Stompin at the Savoy]

Here's the booklet for the set: https://www.fremeaux.com/img/cms/Livret 32P Duke at his very Best FA5869.pdf

(scroll down for English)

Quote

For the present set I have used, where possible, multiple copies of the 78 rpm discs. I have applied a minimum of filtering and digital processing to the transfers, at the modest expense of a little surface noise and slight occasional distortion. The priority has been to convey the dynamic range and musicality of the Ellington orchestra. Some 82 of the 94 tracks in the present set are direct transfers from 78 rpm masters, while 12 others are taken from secondary analogue sources. Tony BALDWIN
© FRÉMEAUX & ASSOCIÉS 2024

 

Edited April 18 by Stompin at the Savoy

[hopkins]

I also compared a few tracks of that latest Fremeaux release, which is now also available on streaming services (I use Qobuz) and it does sound very nice. 

[mr jazz]

Hmmm..20 euros for the digital version but is it lossless? Do not want mp3s! EDIT: sent an email for info.

Edited April 18 by mr jazz

[gmonahan]

On 4/5/2024 at 12:30 PM, Chuck Nessa said:

IIRC, those were "cleaned up" for this package

Got this one on Chuck's recommendation, and, as usual, he's absolutely right. The sound is very good. Like the video stuff too. Thanks Chuck!

 

[mr jazz]

23 hours ago, mr jazz said:

Hmmm..20 euros for the digital version but is it lossless? Do not want mp3s! EDIT: sent an email for info.

email reply said FLAC and mp3 both were available.

[Hoppy T. Frog]

do you get the notes with the downloads?

 

NM shipping free or 5 euros per order???? mais oui!!!

[Stompin at the Savoy]

On 4/19/2024 at 7:29 AM, mr jazz said:

email reply said FLAC and mp3 both were available.

I ordered the download just now and the choices were WAV and mp3.  WAV is a 1.9 gigabyte zip file.

I ended up converting the wav files with foobar2000 to m4a.  Bit easier to get it into iTunes. The sound really is pretty good.  Have not yet compared to the 2003 release.

edit: well, scratch the conversion with foobar2000.  For some reason it cut down the file size enormously.  Will figure out another approach!

further edit: I guess wav files are just really large and when converted to other formats turn out smaller.

Question for somebody who has the disks: when you look at the files, are they small, like 9 or 10 megs for Koko?

booklet for the set: https://www.fremeaux.com/img/cms/Livret 32P Duke at his very Best FA5869.pdf

 

--As of now I would not recommend getting the download.  They appear to have gotten the formats all messed up and some are wav, some are flac ....wtf!

Edited June 11 by Stompin at the Savoy

[mr jazz]

10 hours ago, Stompin at the Savoy said:

 

--As of now I would not recommend getting the download.  They appear to have gotten the formats all messed up and some are wav, some are flac ....wtf!

Ok, but easy to convert both types to either format using Traders Little Helper I would think.

Edited June 11 by mr jazz

[Stompin at the Savoy]

57 minutes ago, mr jazz said:

Ok, but easy to convert both types to either format using Traders Little Helper I would think.

Yeah I suppose I have got it straightened out now.  That WAV format and the way they handled the metadata are sort of a pain.  Apparently these are roughly 200 megabyte disks.

Now that I have listened to the first disk and compared with the 2003 RCA release, I like this one and find it listenable but it is not head and shoulders above the 2003 release.  Some tunes sound better, some are just different.  I think they have done an excellent job with a rather old technology approach.

[hbbfam]

On 4/17/2024 at 11:43 PM, hopkins said:

I also compared a few tracks of that latest Fremeaux release, which is now also available on streaming services (I use Qobuz) and it does sound very nice. 

In looking at the release on Qobuz, it says2018?  Is there a link for the newest release?

[hopkins]

1 hour ago, hbbfam said:

In looking at the release on Qobuz, it says2018?  Is there a link for the newest release?

 

This is the release I was referring to:

 

Listen to the release Duke At His Very Best - The Jimmy Blanton, Billy Strayhorn, Ben Webster Sessions - Legendary Works, 1940-1942 by Duke Ellington on Qobuz

https://open.qobuz.com/album/c3c47ggxpx2wa

[hbbfam]

1 hour ago, hopkins said:

 

This is the release I was referring to:

 

Listen to the release Duke At His Very Best - The Jimmy Blanton, Billy Strayhorn, Ben Webster Sessions - Legendary Works, 1940-1942 by Duke Ellington on Qobuz

https://open.qobuz.com/album/c3c47ggxpx2wa

I cannot seem to find the download.  When I click on this link, I get the Qobuz home page.  If I search via that name, nothing.

[hopkins]

10 minutes ago, hbbfam said:

I cannot seem to find the download.  When I click on this link, I get the Qobuz home page.  If I search via that name, nothing.

Strange. Could it be a question of subscription "region" (I am in France) ? It is on the top of the list of "Releases" when I search for "Duke at his very best".

Edit: I have a subscription to the streaming service so I am not looking in their "store". Perhaps it is not available for download.

 

 

Edited June 11 by hopkins

[mr jazz]

I purchased the files and downloaded the wav version first in firefox and then chrome. Both versions won't play on my Oppo 205-only white noise. Anyone else had this issue?