The Blue Note Lounge

Agree on that. Blue Note is for me a religious devotion. The sonic qualities of the records are one aspect; however the music contained in those hundreds of albums in the catalogue are just treasure trove.

For instance I recently stumbled on something that astounded me while listening to Paul Chambers Quintet BN1564; it turns out that the signature bass riff on "So What" the famous first track off Kind of Blue can be traced all the way back to the album BN1564 that Chambers recorded months earlier before the Kind Of Blue sessions. If anyone has this Chambers record I seriously encourage them to listen to Minor Run-Down, the opening track and then listen to So What. 

Why is this knowledge so astonishing to me? 

Because over the years there have been some debates over who is responsible for what on Kind of Blue. It is certainly a Davis' album but the most famous notes played on the album are the creation of P.C. from an earlier obscure BN title 

Your analysis is absolutely genius.

It fits with what we know about Miles and how he operated. Davis' strongest talent was always synthesizing nuggets idea from everyone he heard and blending them into a cohesive workable idea. Even the modal stuff he was working with around this period is simply his way of trying to take George Russell's musical theories into mainstream.

His other great talent as you point out is his great ear. Davis might have been a technically limited as a trumpeter but he had perfect hearing where music was concerned. So he could have heard that Chambers record or he simply heard him toy with those lines and made a mental note of that until the time was right.

To think of it Blue Note was really kind to Davis weren't they:

A year before he recorded Kind of Blue Davis and Cannoball recorded Something' Else BN 1595 for BN. This record is for most the rehearsal run for Kind of Blue. On the opening track for Something' Else, Autumn Leaves Davis and Cannonball proved that they paid attention to what BN artist were up to. They lifted the opening bass riff from Kenny Dorham's Round About Midnight At The Cafe Bohemia BN 1524 almost note for note. This time they were sampling the intro that Dorham and his unit played at the Bohemia for the song Monaco. Bear in mind Dorham recorded 1524 live in 1956 but BN did not issue it till 1958. Even the liner notes on Something' Else BN 1595 by Leonard Feather treats those riff that Davis and Addereley sampled from Dorham as "an unidentifiable G Minor melody". Play both records and hear for yourself. The proof is in the pudding as they say.

As further proof how good BN was to Miles over the years, 4/5 of his second great quintet are all BN stars: Williams, Hancock, Carter and Shorter. These four cats were responsible for shaping Davis move toward fusion because they brought with them some truly adventurous mindset that Davis could resist.

Yet another irresistible reason why Blue Note is leagues above other jazz labels

Blue Note deserves all the beatification that is now bestowed on it. Lion and Wolff who in my opinion are Patron Saints of American Music did not get their dues while they were alive.

Not too long ago a friend rattled off a number for me that was shocking. That number was the little money that Liberty paid to acquire BN. Shocking as in pennies.

Spencer, where'd you hear that 1524 wasn't released until 1958? Cohen's book indicates a release month of October 1956, which comes by way of an old record store catalog in the possession of Michael Cuscuna. According to the guide, there were only a handful of 1500-series LPs that would have been withheld from release for an extended period of time: 1556 The Sounds of Jimmy Smith (from a three-album 1957 Manhattan Towers session), 1574 Peckin' Time (withheld for over 1.5 years), 1583 Curtis Fuller Vol. 3 (withheld for 3 years), and 1597 Blue Lights Vol. 2.

No, not me personally. I've always found Roach and Blakey to be very straight ahead on the ride. Jones' and Williams' ride playing to me sound very similar; they both take liberties with their patterns. However, the only drummer I know from that time period who could play as fast as Roach was Williams.

As dgmono noted, Elvin Jones' timekeeping dramatically changed in the early sixties, from what I described as "straight" to a polythythmic unique way to push the soloist.
if you compare his accompaniment of Trane with the same tracks were he's substituted by another great drummer, Roy Haynes, you'll be surprised.
my personal opinion is that Elvin Jones was NOT substitutable at all.
I never liked Haynes' work with Trane, it didn't fit at all, but Elvin was not there...
Tony Williams is another story: he came on board with Davis, very young, maybe not completely mature but his new and different drumming was liked by Davis. listen to Live in Europe: Davis has never been propelled that way, and it sounds fresh and unusual.