Emily Remler

[JSngry]

4 minutes ago, bertrand said:

Remler's two quartet dates on Concord with D'Earth, Moses and Gomez are hardly MOR. They are quite experimental, IMHO.

Yes, the label tends to run on the conservative side but I would not pigeonhole it as such.

It's not always the content that bugged me, it was something about the sound itself. Maybe it's the mixing or the mastering or the RQ... It's something that takes the flavor out of the final product. 

17 minutes ago, soulpope said:

That's simply a weak whataboutism .... but nothing more to be expected from you obviously .... 

So now we understand each other and can get back to...whatever it is we do.

16 minutes ago, Peter Friedman said:

Yes, I agree that for the most part, Concord was a musically conservative label. The same thing can be said for Arbors and Pablo among others. Don't know why that's a bad thing.

It all depends upon the listeners taste and preferences. Players that recorded many albums for Concord such as Dave McKenna, Scott Hamilton, Ray Brown and Ruby Braff are all favorites of mine, and they have, IMHO some wonderful albums on that label. 

But Pablo's records always had bite. Even when the sound was quite frequently drier than the Sahara, there was a 3D bite to the sound. Too often for me, Concord records were like a hologram. There, but you could walk right through it without touching anything.

[HutchFan]

4 minutes ago, JSngry said:

It's not always the content that bugged me, it was something about the sound itself. Maybe it's the mixing or the mastering or the RQ... It's something that takes the flavor out of the final product. 

It seems like your Concord beef is more with their "house production" approach, rather than any given musicians.

For example, do you like the Frank Foster & Frank Wess record, Two for the Blues, on Pablo???  

 

[bertrand]

I do agree that the sound is somewhat watered down, but it does not ruin the records for me.

Some people hate RVG and think the piano is out of tune. And then there are the Don Schlitten productions...

[JSngry]

6 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

It seems like your Concord beef is more with their "house production" approach, rather than any given musicians.

For example, do you like the Frank Foster & Frank Wess record, Two for the Blues, on Pablo???  

 

Quite! To both points!

I was not interested in many of their stock players, but the ones that I was, that damn Flavor Remover was always there. That example is a good one, as is Al Cohn. Lew Tabakin is another, as is Art Blakey to a certain extent. 

1 minute ago, bertrand said:

I do agree that the sound is somewhat watered down, but it does not ruin the records for me.

Some people hate RVG and think the piano is out of tune. And then there are the Don Schlitten productions...

Carl Jefferson was a very succesful car dealer, so I get the notion of non-confrontation. 

I appreciate that when selling cars, but in jazz and jazz records...not so much.

[Niko]

23 hours ago, felser said:

Same here.  I've long marveled at the difference in how much more Pablo albums grab me than early Concord albums from the same era with the same caliber of musicians.  A 70's Pablo album at a cheap price is usually an automatic buy for me, where I have learned to usually skip over Concord albums from then (and later), and generally regret it when I make an exception.

to me, this sums it up pretty well... of course, there'll be some gems in the huge catalogue, but by and large Concord albums almost always underwhelm me compared to albums on Pablo, Discovery, Xanadu and many other labels from that era... no idea where they went wrong but it's not the musicians or the style of music, it must be something in the production... by now, I am fairly consequent and skip them even if it's something that should be right up my alley otherwise... 

Now, clearly this has nothing to do with the new Emily Remler release... 

[T.D.]

30 minutes ago, bertrand said:

I do agree that the sound is somewhat watered down, but it does not ruin the records for me.

Some people hate RVG and think the piano is out of tune. And then there are the Don Schlitten productions...

Piano tends to be out of tune with RVG, also some reverb issues, but I mostly enjoy the recordings. Don Schlitten is another matter...I don't think it's him personally, but his frequently used engineer Richard Alderson, who was the king of out-of-tune pianos (I'm talking Dolphy / Five Spot level or worse 🤣). Schlitten's other stuff is fine.

Count me in the "avoid Concord" / "bland" camp. Just a matter of taste, and I own a boatload of the Maybeck solo piano recordings (which venue has a very bright-sounding piano, not watered down at all). But not too much else. I'm sure I'm missing a few good ones, but have also bought some lemons.

Edited Thursday at 07:16 PM by T.D.

[HutchFan]

25 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Quite! To both points!

I was not interested in many of their stock players, but the ones that I was, that damn Flavor Remover was always there. That example is a good one, as is Al Cohn. Lew Tabakin is another, as is Art Blakey to a certain extent. 

Fair enough.

I think I understand what you're talking about.

But, like @bertrand said, it doesn't ruin all of them for me.  I could easily name a bunch of Concord records that I really enjoy; one of them is Frankly Speaking.

 

[Dan Gould]

17 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

 I could easily name a bunch of Concord records that I really enjoy; one of them is Frankly Speaking.

 

For me, it's every Ray Brown Trio recording with Gene Harris, every Gene Harris recording (except maybe the gospel CD and his last one) and just about every Scott Hamilton recording though its been years since I listened to the very earliest ones of his that I had on vinyl.

[JSngry]

21 minutes ago, HutchFan said:

Fair enough.

I think I understand what you're talking about.

But, like @bertrand said, it doesn't ruin all of them for me.  I could easily name a bunch of Concord records that I really enjoy; one of them is Frankly Speaking.

 

"Ruined" is not what it is as much as...viscerally unengaging.

Plus, there were always better options for many of the players involved.

This is all subjective, of course. That should go without saying.

[HutchFan]

2 minutes ago, JSngry said:

This is all subjective, of course. That should go without saying.

Of course.  And that's precisely what makes it so enjoyable to discuss.