🎷 AotW: CTI Various Artists: AUDIO MASTER PLUS SERIES SAMPLER: VOL 2 (SP-9-3021)

All the CTI releases

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Captain Bacardi

Well-Known Member
Various Artists
AUDIO MASTER PLUS SERIES SAMPLER: VOL. 2

A&M SP-6-3021

sp3021.jpg

Released 1984

Format: Vinyl/Cassette/CD

Produced by Creed Taylor
* Produced by Herb Alpert

Songs & Musicians:
  • 1. George Benson - I Got A Woman - 4:55
    2. Wes Montgomery - Road Song - 3:50
    3. Gato Barbieri - Europa (Earth's Cry Heaven's Smile) - 4:14*
    4. Paul Desmond - Circles - 3:40
    5. Milton Nascimento - Tres Pontas - 2:40
    6. George Benson - I Want You (She's So Heavy) - 6:20
    7. Quincy Jones - Walkin' - 7:55
    8. Antonio Carlos Jobim - Tema Jazz - 4:35
    9. Herbie Mann - Love Is Stronger Far Than We - 3:07

Series Re-issue Coordinated by David Steffen and Jeffrey Gold

Art Direction: Chuck Beeson
Album Design: Mike Fink
Cover Photography: Pete Turner/The Image Bank

Following both radio and the public's enthusiastic response to our initial release, A&M now makes available a further nine classic jazz recordings from the 1960's and 70's, accompanied by this sampler as the second installment of the Audio Master Plus Series.

For more than twenty years A&M has been firmly committed to documenting this vital American art form. Though perhaps not generally perceived by the record-consuming public as a "jazz label", through creative, artist-oriented subsidiaries such as Creed Taylor's CTI and Horizon Records, A&M has recorded many of the most respected improvising artists of the past three decades. In addition to the leaders found here, these nine releases include such prominent sidemen as Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, Hubert Laws, Ray Brown, Bob James, Milt Jackson, Hank Jones, Joe Farrell, Ron Carter and Ray Barretto.

Each Audio Master Plus Series disc has been remastered at half-speed, pressed using audiophile quality Dye Compound Vinyl, encased in a high density polyurethane inner sleeve and issued in its original jacket.




Capt. Bacardi
 
Where'd THIS come from? I was all dressed up for Paul Desmond's 'Summertime' (SP-3015) and now I've got no place to go.
 
We're moving forward in sequential order, as I understand it. So SP 3021 follows Sp 3020 - George Benson TELL IT LIKE IT IS - and precedes SP 3022 - Walter Wanderley's MOONDREAMS.
JB
Telling it like it is, online
 
snapcrotch said:
Where'd THIS come from? I was all dressed up for Paul Desmond's 'Summertime' (SP-3015) and now I've got no place to go.

Well, in three more weeks, we'll be doing From The Hot Afternoon, one of my favorites. (We may need to get your tux pressed in the meantime. :wink: ) We did Summertime a few weeks ago and, in fact, I just made a post in that thread a few days ago (since I just raided my Mom's LP collection and "borrowed" it). Feel free to post there if you'd like--I'm all for having more Paul Desmond discussion! :D

Back on this week's AOTW, though, I'm tempted to put this sampler and the Vol. 1 onto one CD, as it makes a nice overview of the A&M/CTi catalog. I've listened to both of these samplers quite a bit, and they've led to many purchases of other CTi albums. The only disappointing album was Jobim's Tide which sounds at times unfinished, while at others it sounds like a retread of Wave ("Tide" is so much like "Wave"...even the chord changes are exactly the same).

-= N =-
 
Like the first volume, Volume 2 serves a fairly decent though scatter-shot set of songs...

Funny how Gato Barbieri's contribution to this is the only later non-A&M/CTi-A&M track, and produced by Herb Alpert, as opposed to Creed Taylor...

Like the first volume, George Benson kicks off the first track, "I Got A Woman", from the album of the same title, which had previously been shelved...

Adding to this aural confection is Montgomery's "Road Song", the polar-opposite of "Wind Song", which appeared on the first sampler as well as the A&M Music Box sampler, so you're getting something different...

Paul Desmond's "Circles" is one of the good tracks from his Brasilian music-inspired From The Hot Afternoon, which also had equally worthy tracks such as "Outubro (October)" and "From The Hot Afternoon", but luckily we're spared "Crystal Illusions", though to me that might'a worked...

Another Benson track, this one from the all-Beatles covers LP, The Other Side Of Abbey Road gives this the middle-weight number, "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", while it's back to the Rio tropics of Brasil with Nascimento's "Tres Pontas" and Jobim's "Tema Jazz"... Quincy Jones' "Walkin'" adds a good gallop to the proceedings, though I've always preferred his Walkin' In Space, over his Gula Matari (where this is from) album...

The album ends with the lilting, lightweight reminder from Herbie Mann that "Love Is Stronger Far Than We", which fits the over-all mood of this album...

And quite a mood, then this is, though with the somewhat slouch number of selections, the original albums are what you're still left with the desire for...



Dave

--Who added K. & J.J.'s "Israel" and comments about it to the previous Jazz AOTW, the ...Volume 1 set...! :neutral:inkshield:
 
I thought this was a better compilation than the first AM+ comp, even though the Gato Barbieri entry seemed a bit out of place. But I'm sure that was to promote the Barbieri compilation that had been released. Both of the George Benson tunes are strong, as is Quincy Jones version of "Walkin'". The only song I wasn't too crazy about is Paul Desmond's "Circles". Other than that this is a nice little set. 4 stars.




Capt. Bacardi
 
So...with iTunes removing the expense of carrying inventory and producing physical product...

What's to stop them from releasing material from Tamba 4's 3rd album, Kai Winding and JJ Johnson's elusive "Stonebone"...unreleased tracks recorded for many other albums in the CTI set?

I notice that once the other CTI sets are released by Verve on iTunes, the material remains available. Is it rights issues? Laziness? Not enough interest? (They could package this stuff as "unreleased treasures...")
 
Is it rights issues? Laziness? Not enough interest?

I don't know about "laziness", but the other two are most likely true. I'm sure Verve could obtain the rights to the recordings, but the question would be is it economically feasible to do so? I seriously doubt that there's all that much interest in some of these recordings - only the Wes Montgomery and Quincy Jones stuff actually sold well on first release, and the Montgomery recordings were pretty much panned as too commercial by the critics, and frankly the CTi albums weren't his best artistic effort. Most people don't know of Tamba 4 and there's questions as to whether Stonebones actually ever existed. If it was to be released I certainly would be first in line to buy it, but then again trombone recordings simply don't sell.

I like the idea of an "unreleased treasures" theme and I would have no problem if they were issued on iTunes only. Maybe someday this will happen, but I'm not gonna hold my breath on it.



Capt. Bacardi
 
The inclusion of "Europa" has always baffled me. A great song but it just doesn't fit with the rest of these tunes. It would've been nice if there was a third volume with some of the 70's jazz series.
 
That's true...I like the song but it was not really in the CTi series. Although they really didn't come out and say it was only for CTi albums.
 
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