Another BN compilation - Blue Spirits - Out Sept 20

[ejp626]

Just stumbled across this while looking up something else: https://shop.bluenote.com/products/blue-spirits-85-years-of-blue-note-records-2cd

Looks like it is out Sept 20, though it may already be available for pre-order.

 

It's a little more adventurous than a typical compilation, particularly Disc 2 (though this does contain one Norah Jones track...).  I would have liked to see if they could have squeezed Andrew Hill and/or Bobby Hutcherson onto Disc 1 (and 'Ghetto Lights' from Dialogue might have been just the ticket)...

I'm relatively unlikely to pick this up, but I will follow up on some of the music on CD2 that I am not as familiar with.

[jazzbo]

This has already been out in Japan; I received a copy at the end of August.

[felser]

I've always felt that the original company and the Don Was current company have nothing in common except a name and some catalog rights (there was a period when the label rebooted in the 80's that at least some of the artist names were the same, but the spirit and quality weren't).  So a compilation like this claiming a continuity strikes me as just wrong.  YMMV.

Edited September 8 by felser

[Rooster_Ties]

This link seems to have the entire track listing for both discs…

https://shop.decca.com/products/blue-spirits-85-years-of-blue-note-records-2cd

I feel about the same as felser, I’m afraid. There seems to be little continuity between the Don Was era of Blue Note, and what all preceded it (even immediately preceded it). They seem like entirely different labels.

[JSngry]

I think that Don Was is doing good work overall.

Times have changed and so has the music with it.

[mjazzg]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

I think that Don Was is doing good work overall.

Times have changed and so has the music with it.

Yes to that

[Rooster_Ties]

Why isn’t an artist like Jason Moran still recording for the label?

Why wasn’t a band like The Cookers recruited onto the label?

And, related, why hasn’t Billy Harper ever been on the label? That ship has sorta sailed now, but a dozen years ago it certainly hadn’t.

Also related, Eddie Henderson? — who even has some history with the label, and is still vibrant and certainly has been the last dozen years.

I could come up with a dozen other good and quite logical examples — and no not all of them necessarily coulda/woulda/shouda happened — but my point is, NONE of them did.

Sincerely, I don’t think Don Was is doing a “bad” job — but there are definitely some things that could have happened to really continue the lineage of the label, in ways that could have picked up on developments since (after) the 60’s, and even dovetailed with a bit of the label’s post-1970 history.

(And I’ll try to come up with some more ideas to flesh out that supposed list of “a dozen” of opportunities that I claim have been missed — so that’s not me just claiming that in some hyperbolic way, without backing it up.)

[jazzbo]

Oh boy. So much negativity. One reason I don't feel the same about this forum any longer.

I'd say that Joel Ross and Immanuel Wilkins among others are excellent artists that will lead the label forward with the standard held high. 

It's an interesting two cd set in really good sound, showcasing the excellent work that Kevin Gray has been doing for the Japanese reissue cd market, and the US LP series.

Edited September 8 by jazzbo

[mjazzg]

Folk like a museum piece

[JSngry]

A lot of great people never recorded for the original Blue Note (don't be confused by latter-day reissues).

That chapter has been written, closed. 

[Rabshakeh]

A decent idea to do it half and half, so that legacy BN is on CD one and the modern entity is on CD two. I don’t think that the modern Blue Note is particularly exciting, although its output is alright, but clearly there’s enough quality to fill a CD. If you are going to treat Blue Note as continuous, it is the right was to do it.

What I find interesting about the CD is something else: it is a retrospective across the label’s 85 year history, but the track listing ignores the early years of Blue Note completely. Blue Note was founded during the classic jazz revival and the early label was mostly classic jazz recordings. It wasn’t just juvenalia either: early Blue Note records include some of the most substantial classics of the revival. At least one Bechet tune should be in any 2CD retrospective. But there is nothing there. Instead it starts with Monk, almost a decade into Blue Note’s existence. That is a third of the way into the original label’s history!
 

I am not surprised by this. The reason there can’t be any Bechet on there is obvious. Blue Note the brand is a label that recorded cool monochrome young men in suits smoking and wearing sun glasses indoors, perfect for coffee table books and corporate tie ins. It therefore cannot have recorded old guys in braces and chequered shirts, least of all old men who played anything as dodgy as revivalist hot jazz.

And let’s face it. Norah Jones belongs on the thing, she paid for it.

7 hours ago, Rooster_Ties said:

I feel about the same as felser, I’m afraid. There seems to be little continuity between the Don Was era of Blue Note, and what all preceded it (even immediately preceded it). They seem like entirely different labels.

Do you hear such a difference between the Lundvall and Was eras?
 

Personally, I would take latter day Blue Note over latter day Verve. Both have put out some decent and occasionally some good records, but if neither existed past 1980 I don’t think I would mourn. I don’t really think that they add very much.

Edited September 8 by Rabshakeh

[JSngry]

Not sure that small group swing was revivalist?

But yeah, this is not a serious historical product, and that's nothing new:

[jazzbo]

Well, this is really a sampler (disc 1 entirely at least) of the "85th Anniversary" series of reissues, mainly in Japan, and in a sense the Tone Poet series.

The UHQCD series from Japan. . . has nothing of the first decade of the label. I don't know why. I love that stuff, and each time a decade goes by and they reissue one of them the sound is so much better--right now they could really present this music very well. But yeah, that has never been a focus of the label or many of the fans this century, and the 85th series and this compilation reflect that, accurately, right or wrong (wrong imo).

[GA Russell]

As I recall, in 1969 Blue Note issued six double albums to celebrate their thirty years of existence.  This was just a couple of years after the company was sold.  There were two double albums for each decade.

I picked up the first double album of the '60s.  I wish I had picked up all the others.

[jazzbo]

I have a few of those. On my system to my ears they sound awful!

[gvopedz]

59 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

And let’s face it. Norah Jones belongs on the thing, she paid for it.

Norah J. is the only Blue Note performer I have seen perform inside a CD store, with me standing about 4-5 feet from her keyboard and her mother standing about 2 feet to my left.