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Post by Rich on Jun 24, 2015 15:33:45 GMT
This is something that has happened to me many times. I started listening to jazz regularly about eight years ago, but then got even more into it a few years ago when I got more serious about collecting vintage jazz records. Here's a list of albums that didn't really appeal to me at first but after several listens a melody got stuck in my head, causing the album to grow on me: Lee Morgan SextetJohn Coltrane, Blue TrainFreddie Hubbard, Open SesameTina Brooks, True BlueAll Blue Notes, probably due to the fact that the majority of the jazz albums I own are on Blue Note. Usually I persist in trying an album even though it didn't appeal to me right away because I know other people love it, and even though I may not hear its brilliance at first I know it's there somewhere, I just have to find it (I'm not a jazz musician and sometimes the musical ideas escape me upon casual listening). Any albums come to mind for you?
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Post by dottorjazz on Jun 24, 2015 20:07:02 GMT
yes, immediately. when I was young and fell in love with Coltrane, I got in touch with Eric Dolphy, partner in many 1961 recordings. a friend lent me a Candid by Booker Little, totally unknown to me at the time, a recording featuring Eric Dolphy. I listened and didn't like it at all. I won't buy it, I thought. this happened in the early 70's. I gave him back. at the first occasion he presented me with the same record. my "collection" was very small, less than 50 records, all chosen after careful listening. and now, what can I do with this one I don't like? let's give it another try. little by little (!!), I went into it: it took a couple of years to understand. I did want to know WHY I didn't like. and listening after listening I DID like it. the first issue I had in my hands was the Barnaby one. now, and since many years, I've got this. now a question for you: all four cited are great examples of Hard Bop: didn't you like it in general? or what in particular?
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Post by gregorythefish on Jun 24, 2015 20:16:23 GMT
Jazz-wise, there aren't too many. There are several I find myself enjoying less and less as time goes on, but few that I have warmed up to very measurably. A few big exceptions exist, though:
Miles Davis - "Cookin' With the Miles Davis Quintet" Oliver Nelson - "The Blues and the Abstract Truth" Charles Mingus - "Minugs Dynasty" and "The Clown" Almost all Jimmy Smith. I actually really, really like Jimmy Smith's early Blue Notes these days, and they are fairly affordable, even as originals.
Mostly, these were just a matter of me not being far enough into jazz on a personal level to really appreciate what was going on here.
Notably, my enjoyment of several things has decreased, the biggest being Miles' "Kind of Blue" which I might even say I flat out dislike for a variety of reasons, although I am solidly a jazz foot soldier in terms of most of my other favorites. The crazier Sun Ra stuff is less interesting to me these days. I used to really enjoy Ornette Coleman's Prime Time, too, but that has become less appealing for obvious reasons.
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Post by Spencer on Jun 24, 2015 23:12:04 GMT
Out To Lunch was a turn off to me the first time I listened to it. Made no sense and to some degree still doesn't but now it is totally enjoyable for me to kick back with it.
Albums that we gradually draw you in can be the most rewarding...
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Post by Rich on Jun 25, 2015 16:27:52 GMT
yes, immediately. when I was young and fell in love with Coltrane, I got in touch with Eric Dolphy, partner in many 1961 recordings. a friend lent me a Candid by Booker Little, totally unknown to me at the time, a recording featuring Eric Dolphy. I listened and didn't like it at all. I won't buy it, I thought. this happened in the early 70's. I gave him back. at the first occasion he presented me with the same record. my "collection" was very small, less than 50 records, all chosen after careful listening. and now, what can I do with this one I don't like? let's give it another try. little by little (!!), I went into it: it took a couple of years to understand. I did want to know WHY I didn't like. and listening after listening I DID like it. the first issue I had in my hands was the Barnaby one. now, and since many years, I've got this. now a question for you: all four cited are great examples of Hard Bop: didn't you like it in general? or what in particular? It makes sense that people are citing examples of what might be called 'post-bop', 'free jazz', 'avant-garde', 'experimental', etc. Little was poised to be a pioneer of this movement in jazz, correct? I've only listened to Out Front a handful of times, and while I've liked what I've heard, it does seem to push at the boundaries. I think I'm capable of getting into stuff on the fringes of 'free' but I don't know if I'll ever be able to appreciate something like Out to Lunch, which is why I haven't included any examples of what might call 'post-bop' or 'free jazz' in my list above. The Morgan sounded kind of 'old-fashioned' to me at first but I eventually grew to appreciate the relaxing mood and steady momentum of the album (which coincidentally began when I stopped listening to the Spotify version and started listening to the Classic Record reissue). I find Blue Train to be relatively intense. I have been listening to pre- Blue Train Coltrane intently of late (prior to September 1957), and at this point it seems pretty clear to me that along with Sonny's Crib, Blue Train is a monument in Coltrane's evolution as a player. To me it seems like this is actually where he took some 'giant steps' as a soloist (pun intended). Trane's solos in particular on this record are astonishing to me, but to a newcomer to jazz like I was when I first heard this album they were intimidating. But I'd say it's near impossible to not fall in love with the intro to the title track immediately, and it kept me coming back. Now that song and Moment's Notice are two of my favorite jazz compositions. I know Alun is in agreement with me when I say that I find Hubbard to be a 'boisterous' player at times, which is part of the reason I had trouble getting into Open Sesame at first. Some of the rhythms also seemed to venture quite a ways from the straight-head standard bop cymbal work, and the melodies of other songs for some reason didn't really grab me at first, though eventually they did. The same thing happened with True Blue. I didn't understand what all the fuss was at first but now the melodies are starting to sink in and hook me. So at this point, the first thing that usually grabs me about a tune is the tempo, the rhythm, and the melody (and the mood I guess but I feel like that's a given). I want to get to a point where I listen more intently to the solos and the ideas contained within them on a more consistent basis but I'm still growing as a listener.
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Post by Rich on Jun 25, 2015 16:33:46 GMT
Jazz-wise, there aren't too many. There are several I find myself enjoying less and less as time goes on, but few that I have warmed up to very measurably. A few big exceptions exist, though: Miles Davis - "Cookin' With the Miles Davis Quintet" Oliver Nelson - "The Blues and the Abstract Truth" Charles Mingus - "Minugs Dynasty" and "The Clown" Almost all Jimmy Smith. I actually really, really like Jimmy Smith's early Blue Notes these days, and they are fairly affordable, even as originals. Mostly, these were just a matter of me not being far enough into jazz on a personal level to really appreciate what was going on here. Notably, my enjoyment of several things has decreased, the biggest being Miles' "Kind of Blue" which I might even say I flat out dislike for a variety of reasons, although I am solidly a jazz foot soldier in terms of most of my other favorites. The crazier Sun Ra stuff is less interesting to me these days. I used to really enjoy Ornette Coleman's Prime Time, too, but that has become less appealing for obvious reasons. I had to warm up to Cookin' as well. But just like with BLP 1541, once I got a vinyl copy I started listening more intently and grew to appreciate the music much more. "My Funny Valentine" is probably the first song people usually get hooked on, but "Tune Up" is one of my favorites now as well. I didn't really appreciate Jimmy Smith until I saw that documentary from the '60s floating around on YouTube. Seeing how cool yet passionate he was about music, how much character and energy he had made me rethink his records. So what are the reasons you have grown to dislike Kind of Blue? The sound of that record is just magical to me, and the mood is just right in so many instances!
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Post by gregorythefish on Jun 25, 2015 21:08:51 GMT
So what are the reasons you have grown to dislike Kind of Blue? The sound of that record is just magical to me, and the mood is just right in so many instances! believe me, rich: outing myself as not a fan of KOB took some thought. it is so well-loved. I have NM stereo and mono originals, and listen to both from time to time. however, i constantly find myself thinking one of the following things: 1) other than the solos by trane and sometimes cannonball, the whole thing has a chamber feel to it to me, which i strongly dislike. 2) this is related to #1, but there is SO MUCH reverb. more than RVG ever put on anything. more than modern pop even has on the vocals! just so much! 3) the horn playing, even with trane in the mix, feels so light and half-hearted on the themes (heads). as much as i like dynamic control, i can hardly stand to listen to stan getz, for example, who constantly seems to be just not blowing hard enough. i know that's his style, and that's fine, but it feels too whispy and reserved. no soul. and miles really tows that line here, and, i would imagine, encourages his fellow blowers to do the same. i don't really enjoy the result. 4) to my ears, bill evans sticks out like a sore thumb as the inexperienced member of the group. he sounds much less sure of himself than everyone else does, probably because he didn't play with the group as much. i like my piano players to fade into the landscape with their comping, the way mccoy tyner does so well on coltrane's classic recordings. evans reminds me that he is there constantly during the solos of others, which is not my style. 5) shallow, i know, but i hate the cover. it just doesn't look like miles to me. so there you go. i like most of the tunes, and tend to really groove on them when they are performed in different contexts, but this classic album never did it for me. others? most other declared classics are squarely on my list of favorites. but not this one.
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Post by Rich on Jun 27, 2015 1:37:39 GMT
So what are the reasons you have grown to dislike Kind of Blue? The sound of that record is just magical to me, and the mood is just right in so many instances! believe me, rich: outing myself as not a fan of KOB took some thought. it is so well-loved. I have NM stereo and mono originals, and listen to both from time to time. however, i constantly find myself thinking one of the following things: 1) other than the solos by trane and sometimes cannonball, the whole thing has a chamber feel to it to me, which i strongly dislike. 2) this is related to #1, but there is SO MUCH reverb. more than RVG ever put on anything. more than modern pop even has on the vocals! just so much! 3) the horn playing, even with trane in the mix, feels so light and half-hearted on the themes (heads). as much as i like dynamic control, i can hardly stand to listen to stan getz, for example, who constantly seems to be just not blowing hard enough. i know that's his style, and that's fine, but it feels too whispy and reserved. no soul. and miles really tows that line here, and, i would imagine, encourages his fellow blowers to do the same. i don't really enjoy the result. 4) to my ears, bill evans sticks out like a sore thumb as the inexperienced member of the group. he sounds much less sure of himself than everyone else does, probably because he didn't play with the group as much. i like my piano players to fade into the landscape with their comping, the way mccoy tyner does so well on coltrane's classic recordings. evans reminds me that he is there constantly during the solos of others, which is not my style. 5) shallow, i know, but i hate the cover. it just doesn't look like miles to me. so there you go. i like most of the tunes, and tend to really groove on them when they are performed in different contexts, but this classic album never did it for me. others? most other declared classics are squarely on my list of favorites. but not this one. Regarding 2) I agree that it's a healthy dose of 'verb, but from what I've seen of Columbia's 30th Street studio it seems like the reverb on the record is doing a good job of reproducing the ambience of the studio. Plus I can't deny how much I personally love how it sounds. Interesting comments about Bill Evans. I guess I would say I trust Miles' judgment to bring him in under the circumstances by which he did. Coincidentally, Wynton Kelly's solo on "Freddie Freeloader" is the most memorable of all the piano solos on the record for me. What about that tune? Yes, the cover is lame. I find that a lot of great jazz albums have lame cover art. The best labels I find are Blue Note, Prestige/New Jazz (obviously), Impulse, and Bethlehem.
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Evan
Junior Member
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Post by Evan on Jun 27, 2015 2:04:39 GMT
Good thread topic!
I second Blue Train. I bought it first around 15 years ago along with Muddy Waters' Electric Mud, I thought it was a blues album! You can imagine my disappointment at the "garbage" I heard when I put it on... While on Coltrane, I'd also say Giant Steps. I got it when I was just getting into jazz, taking nice gateway drugs like Moanin', Horace & The Jazz Messengers, The Sidewinder, etc., and really didn't like it. Oddly (or maybe not), I loved A Love Supreme right from the first listen, though that was much later.
I'd also second Out to Lunch, as I imagine many would. The first time I heard it I wanted to return it, I thought it was the most pretentious crap I'd ever heard. If it hadn't been for the beautiful cover I might have. (I freely admit to being a complete sucker for album art.) But I was determined to get into it, and it didn't actually take many listens. I'm a big fan of Aphex Twin, so I love a good cerebral mindfuck every now and again, and few jazz albums (that I know) deliver it so well. Scored an original mono of it last month, very happy. (Only allowed to listen to it when my girlfriend is out, though - one of many.) Incidentally, LJC's post on this LP is excellent, one of his best, I think.
A few more off the top of my head: (embarrassing to admit some of these...)
Cannonball Adderley - Somethin' Else. Incredible, I know. Miles Smiles (one of my favourite Miles albums now) Andrew Hill - Judgement! Freddie Hubbard - Ready For Freddie (for the same reason as Rich didn't like the Lee Morgan Sextet date - it just sounded old-fashioned or something...) Jackie McLean - Destination... Out! Lee Morgan - Search For the New Land (Weird, this one, because Lee Morgan was probably my first love in jazz, and I got on with all of his albums from the first listen, except this. It's probably my favourite of his now.) Wayne Shorter - Juju (I still don't really like the title track of this album, despite loving the rest of it. Does anyone feel this way? It's just Wayne Shorter's part I don't get on with, he sounds a bit too like Coltrane - in a derivative sense, I don't dislike it simply for sounding like him. Maybe it's just me... second rate listener?)
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Post by Rich on Jun 27, 2015 3:12:56 GMT
Good thread topic! I second Blue Train. I bought it first around 15 years ago along with Muddy Waters' Electric Mud, I thought it was a blues album! You can imagine my disappointment at the "garbage" I heard when I put it on... While on Coltrane, I'd also say Giant Steps. I got it when I was just getting into jazz, taking nice gateway drugs like Moanin', Horace & The Jazz Messengers, The Sidewinder, etc., and really didn't like it. Oddly (or maybe not), I loved A Love Supreme right from the first listen, though that was much later. I'd also second Out to Lunch, as I imagine many would. The first time I heard it I wanted to return it, I thought it was the most pretentious crap I'd ever heard. If it hadn't been for the beautiful cover I might have. (I freely admit to being a complete sucker for album art.) But I was determined to get into it, and it didn't actually take many listens. I'm a big fan of Aphex Twin, so I love a good cerebral mindfuck every now and again, and few jazz albums (that I know) deliver it so well. Scored an original mono of it last month, very happy. (Only allowed to listen to it when my girlfriend is out, though - one of many.) Incidentally, LJC's post on this LP is excellent, one of his best, I think. A few more off the top of my head: (embarrassing to admit some of these...) Cannonball Adderley - Somethin' Else. Incredible, I know. Miles Smiles (one of my favourite Miles albums now) Andrew Hill - Judgement! Freddie Hubbard - Ready For Freddie (for the same reason as Rich didn't like the Lee Morgan Sextet date - it just sounded old-fashioned or something...) Jackie McLean - Destination... Out! Lee Morgan - Search For the New Land (Weird, this one, because Lee Morgan was probably my first love in jazz, and I got on with all of his albums from the first listen, except this. It's probably my favourite of his now.) Wayne Shorter - Juju (I still don't really like the title track of this album, despite loving the rest of it. Does anyone feel this way? It's just Wayne Shorter's part I don't get on with, he sounds a bit too like Coltrane - in a derivative sense, I don't dislike it simply for sounding like him. Maybe it's just me... second rate listener?) So many interesting points you made, digin! 1. I totally understand regarding Giant Steps, but for some reason I was into that album right away. As for A Love Supreme, it sounded complex and intense to me from the jump but just like you, I was into it from the beginning. ALS is not one of my favorite jazz albums let alone one of my favorite Coltrane albums but I do like it a lot. 2. Congrats on the original mono score on Out to Lunch! I'd love to hear that record...start a blog and post a needle drop. You guys are making me want to revisit this album. 3. I 1,000% agree with you on being a sucker for album art. I've discovered a lot of my favorite jazz albums simply because an album's cover art appealed to me. Just like groove wear, I feel like this is another taboo topic in jazz record collecting. I have a theory that great album art can drive the value of a particular record way up. Take, for example, Horace Parlan, Us Three. Awesome, awesome album art, but are people really paying $2,000 for the music? I'm not super familiar with that album but I personally find other Parlan dates more interesting. 4. Somethin' Else -- yes!! I forgot that one! It actually took a while for "Autumn Leaves" to grow on me. Next was "Love for Sale", then "Somethin' Else". 5. Ready for Freddie: The atmosphere/ambience on this album blows my mind...Van Gelder was on that day. It's a gorgeous, spacious sound. "Aretis" is a huge favorite of mine, another favorite is "Crisis". 6. Search for the New Land: I fell in love with "Melancholee" right away, it's easily in my top five favorite jazz compositions ever. The rest of the album has a fun, bouncy feel to me, I always liked it!
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Post by gregorythefish on Jun 27, 2015 20:39:17 GMT
i loved both out to lunch and giant steps the first time i heard them. especially out to lunch. exactly what i was looking for at the moment.
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Post by alunsevern on Jun 27, 2015 21:16:52 GMT
I struggle to remember records that I. Have disliked but grown to like eventually. There must be some, but my focus seems to be more on _types_ of music rather than necessarily individual LPs. And in any case, if a record really doesn't grab me - and certainly if I actively dislike. It - then I tend to get rid of it. It rarely matters all that much - it's almost invariably a cheap reissue. Pruning my record collection - and my library - are things I have a somewhat fundamentalist streak about. Life's too short and space at too great a premium to hoard mediocre records or unreadable books. The only exception I make to this are in the case of 'classics' (however defined) when I feel reasonably sure that my failure to like or understand the work in question is my shortcoming rather than that of the work in question. I hang on to these assuming that I will 'learn' to like it at some point in the future when I have developed enough smarts....
So, on the question of _types_ of music, an area that I have become quite intolerant of is straight ahead hard bop. As the years pass I find that what interests me more and more is music I can't predict - music that challenges the boundaries of its form, whatever that form might be. The Blue Note records I tend to return to most frequently and have the highest regard for are those that conform least to the BN 'school'.
But just picking up Greg's voluntary outing of himself as a KOB 'anti-fan' for a moment, I think it should also be acknowledged that for a huge variety of reasons we also also fall out of love with things. We tire of them; familiarity breeds contempt; we think we know them too well; we think - sometimes rightly - that we have moved on and left them behind. In these cases, I think the views of others - received wisdom, crowd thinking, call it what you will - are getting in the way. Put the record aside. Give it - and yourself - chance to breathe. Take a break from each other. Rest assured: while many records and artists are over-hyped and deserve a little dismissiveness now and then, KOB does not fall into this category. Even if it is chamber jazz - and I suppose it is, Miles may even have inadvertently done much to invent the form (if such a form can indeed be said to exist - I think the closest definition we came to here was that chamber jazz doesn't swing) - it a record to treasure. It is to jazz what, say, the Beethoven late string quartets are to classical chamber music: its place is proven; it's a cornerstone of the jazz canon.
Anyway, the point of this isn't to mount a defence of KOB - it can do that for itself and has been doing so for approaching sixty years - rather, it's to muse on the subject of why some things grab us and some don't, and why we fall out of love with things, as if denying ourselves the very thing we adore, and why our response to music (and to books and poems and paintings and just about everything else you can think of) is so richly complex and sometimes paradoxical... And I suppose I should also admit that it is to give me something to do with my fingers as i listen to a most beautiful John Taylor CD that I picked up unexpectedly in an Oxfam shop today - his solo recording, SONGS AND VARIATIONS from 2005 on CamJazz. Utterly lovely contemplative piano improvisation.
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Evan
Junior Member
Posts: 99
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Post by Evan on Jun 28, 2015 6:14:18 GMT
Good thread topic! I second Blue Train. I bought it first around 15 years ago along with Muddy Waters' Electric Mud, I thought it was a blues album! You can imagine my disappointment at the "garbage" I heard when I put it on... While on Coltrane, I'd also say Giant Steps. I got it when I was just getting into jazz, taking nice gateway drugs like Moanin', Horace & The Jazz Messengers, The Sidewinder, etc., and really didn't like it. Oddly (or maybe not), I loved A Love Supreme right from the first listen, though that was much later. I'd also second Out to Lunch, as I imagine many would. The first time I heard it I wanted to return it, I thought it was the most pretentious crap I'd ever heard. If it hadn't been for the beautiful cover I might have. (I freely admit to being a complete sucker for album art.) But I was determined to get into it, and it didn't actually take many listens. I'm a big fan of Aphex Twin, so I love a good cerebral mindfuck every now and again, and few jazz albums (that I know) deliver it so well. Scored an original mono of it last month, very happy. (Only allowed to listen to it when my girlfriend is out, though - one of many.) Incidentally, LJC's post on this LP is excellent, one of his best, I think. A few more off the top of my head: (embarrassing to admit some of these...) Cannonball Adderley - Somethin' Else. Incredible, I know. Miles Smiles (one of my favourite Miles albums now) Andrew Hill - Judgement! Freddie Hubbard - Ready For Freddie (for the same reason as Rich didn't like the Lee Morgan Sextet date - it just sounded old-fashioned or something...) Jackie McLean - Destination... Out! Lee Morgan - Search For the New Land (Weird, this one, because Lee Morgan was probably my first love in jazz, and I got on with all of his albums from the first listen, except this. It's probably my favourite of his now.) Wayne Shorter - Juju (I still don't really like the title track of this album, despite loving the rest of it. Does anyone feel this way? It's just Wayne Shorter's part I don't get on with, he sounds a bit too like Coltrane - in a derivative sense, I don't dislike it simply for sounding like him. Maybe it's just me... second rate listener?) So many interesting points you made, digin! 1. I totally understand regarding Giant Steps, but for some reason I was into that album right away. As for A Love Supreme, it sounded complex and intense to me from the jump but just like you, I was into it from the beginning. ALS is not one of my favorite jazz albums let alone one of my favorite Coltrane albums but I do like it a lot. 2. Congrats on the original mono score on Out to Lunch! I'd love to hear that record...start a blog and post a needle drop. You guys are making me want to revisit this album. 3. I 1,000% agree with you on being a sucker for album art. I've discovered a lot of my favorite jazz albums simply because an album's cover art appealed to me. Just like groove wear, I feel like this is another taboo topic in jazz record collecting. I have a theory that great album art can drive the value of a particular record way up. Take, for example, Horace Parlan, Us Three. Awesome, awesome album art, but are people really paying $2,000 for the music? I'm not super familiar with that album but I personally find other Parlan dates more interesting. 4. Somethin' Else -- yes!! I forgot that one! It actually took a while for "Autumn Leaves" to grow on me. Next was "Love for Sale", then "Somethin' Else". 5. Ready for Freddie: The atmosphere/ambience on this album blows my mind...Van Gelder was on that day. It's a gorgeous, spacious sound. "Aretis" is a huge favorite of mine, another favorite is "Crisis". 6. Search for the New Land: I fell in love with "Melancholee" right away, it's easily in my top five favorite jazz compositions ever. The rest of the album has a fun, bouncy feel to me, I always liked it! I admit to not having, and not knowing, any Horace Parlan records (I don't think I've ever even seen one here). I can also safely say that, barring Weimar Republic-era rates of inflation hitting your dollar, I will never, ever spend $2,000 on a record. But just for the sake of conversation, if I were to get a $2,000 eBay voucher that I had to spend on just one jazz record, it would not be a piano trio date. I love piano trios as much as the next jazz fan, but for that kind of money I'd be looking for a lot more bang for my bucks. I'd want at least two horns, if not three. I'd probably go for A Blowin' Session (now that is bang for buck), The Magnificent Thad Jones (what an incredible record), Peckin' Time, Sonny's Crib, Cool Struttin', or any one of Lee Morgan's City Lights, Vol. 2, Vol. 3 or Candy (of Morgan's premium Blue Notes, Indeed doesn't do it for me the way the others do). Obvious choices all, I know. I have decent pressings of all of them already, which, ironically, makes me crave an original even more, fantasising as I do about just how good they would sound if the reissues are this good. Anyway, all of that is way off the point you were making about covers. Looking at how dealers price valuable jazz records, I've always been baffled by how big a drop in price one grade lower for the sleeve causes. Here's an example, albeit an extreme one, perhaps, from a dealer on Discgos who is selling two copies of Freddie Redd's The Connection: Media: VG+; sleeve: VG; price: £175 Media: VG+; sleeve: VG+; price: £275 In both cases, the record is simply described "Disc is clean". (The seller has almost 1,000 feedbacks, all positive bar one, so I'm assuming his grading is fairly spot on.) Now, call me weird, but there's no way in hell I'd fork out an extra hundred pounds (POUNDS!) for a slightly better cover. In fact, I'd happily buy the records on their own for a hugely reduced price and stick them in South Park covers. LJC's story about scoring an original copy of The Opener on the cheap because some arsehole made off with the cover is the stuff of dreams (despite the unfortunate loss for the seller). I love the album art, I love the quality of the original Blue Note covers, but when I fork out for an original, I'm doing it for an explosive-sounding record, not its cover, however beautiful. Am I alone in not ( really) caring about sleeve condition, once the record is good? Regarding Ready For Freddie, yes, I know now how wrong I was. When in doubt, blame the pressing - in this case, an ill-fit-for-purpose MP3. I got to like even that, though, and scored a Liberty copy with all desirable trimmings not too long ago. Van Gelder really, really was on that day (listening as I type); it's a stereo copy but the presentation is superb. It'd be a 5-star album even as a quintet, but Bernard McKinney's presence nudges it into the stratosphere for me. I love a third horn on any date, especially if it's one from outside the ruling triumvirate of trumpet, alto and tenor. It's so often the dealbreaker when deciding whether to buy a record I don't know. That's quite the shout for Melancholee! Care to share a few more of your favourites? My personal favourite on that date is the title track for its sheer originality. Melancholee second. It's cued up now to go on after Ready. Nice one!
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Post by gregorythefish on Jun 28, 2015 14:08:44 GMT
But just picking up Greg's voluntary outing of himself as a KOB 'anti-fan' for a moment, I think it should also be acknowledged that for a huge variety of reasons we also also fall out of love with things. Ah, Alun but I have NEVER liked KOB! it's place as a classic is indisputable, but i still say it sounds mostly like chamber schlock to me. also, i believe it was Rich who asked how I feel about wynton kelly's KOB contribution. while i can say that i still don't like the track for the reasons i have already outlined about the whole album, it is quite clear to me that wynton kelly had a comfort level with that group, especially miles, bordering on psychic. and that counts for such an album.
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Post by alunsevern on Jun 28, 2015 15:59:57 GMT
Fair enough, Greg - actually I was thinking after I had written that post that you had perhaps always disliked KOB. Not that that invalidates my main arguments, though, I don't think. I am not much given to predictions but I will make this one: you will eventually come to love KOB and will find that an internal argument about whether it constitutes "chamber schlock" to be irrelevant. OK, I won't put money on it, but you know what I mean - I'm reasonably certain.
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