📜 Feature The Now Spinning/Recent Purchases Thread

[Rudy]

I liked the Beatles at first during the first couple of years, but after that I didn't listen to much.

It's easier to list Sgt Pepper, The Beatles (aka white album) and Let It Be as the three I have no use for. I like the others in varying degrees but would say that Hard Day's Night, Help, Revolver and Rubber Soul are the four that I will listen to the most, along with the first Past Masters set (which collects non-album tracks).

Although "most" for me, means maybe once a year I'll pull out one of those four albums and play part of one side of it...and I'm set for the year. 😁

Also, when I play their songs on the piano, I find that I like the chords and the arrangements that they created.

It's even more amazing when you consider they all had no formal musical training, and yet what they did with the music and the chords in some places is quite advanced for its time.

 

[Rudy]

Finally picked up a copy of Electric Byrd (by Donald Byrd) right from Third Man Records today. This is called the "eclipse" pressing. Third Man's colors are yellow and black, and the Blue Note label on the record is white and yellow instead of white and blue. And the "O" in "Note" is the Third Man logo. (Can see it under my record weight.)

If I'm not mistaken, the other eclipse pressing may be blue and white (which would be Blue Note colors).

 

[Mark-T]

I find I'm picking up new musical interest from three main sources: my oldest son who loves Prince and all things 80s; songs used during movies and television series we watch (Korean dramas and romcoms have some absolutely gorgeous piano driven "dinner music") and last but not least this forum. Yes, I come here and to this thread in particular. So, thank you all for sharing your musical interests as well as your knowledge. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Just had a first-hand example of music discovery at our house this morning.

I was doing my morning listening while catching up online, another pick up where I left off and go alphabetically day---Brandi Carlile's BY THE WAY, I FORGIVE YOU followed by Stephane Grappelli's CALIFORNIA HERE I COME, and my wife came down. I told her I was listening to Grappelli and she kinda shrugged. I said "when you listen to Django Reinhardt (who she loves), and you hear a violin along with Django's guitar---that's Stephane Grappelli".

I'm sure he'll be in her Apple Music library within the hour.

 

[Rudy]

I just had to renew my Qobuz subscription before I left on the road trip, and converted up to the Duo account (two users), so both of us in the household can use it now. (We technically both could use my single subscription through Roon Player, but that doesn't help if we want to leave the house with music.) Just need to get the app installed on my other half's phones and the upstairs computer so it's all ready to be used.

Finally picked up a copy of Electric Byrd (by Donald Byrd) right from Third Man Records today.

I regret not spending more time at their store today, nor did I have time to peek into their record pressing facility (they have large windows in the store which face one wall of the pressing plant). But I may take my youngest down there one of these days. I only dislike that I have to drive into our awful downtown area to get there, and it was doubly worse since the main avenue was closed down for this morning's Thanksgiving parade, as they were doing a lot of prep work. I had to twist and turn through a couple dozen city blocks to get back to a freeway, all the while silently cursing at myself for not taking the same way out as I did in. 😁

 

[Rudy]

I find I'm picking up new musical interest from three main sources: my oldest son who loves Prince and all things 80s

I don't have that luck--my youngest is more into music that I listened to in the past! 😁 In fact, I was listening to Queen 15+ years ago in the car, and she picked up on that and it is one of her favorites now. She does know of some of the more obscure current bands, though, and to her credit she can't stand anything Top 40...unless, again, it was from the 70s or 80s.

Even better, she hates Journey and Bon Jovi...which were my ex's two favorites. 🤣

I just realized that a lot of my own discovery could be called "credit surfing." Musician or composer credits on albums send me off in all sorts of directions, or even discovering what else is on a smaller record label, especially the lesser known or boutique labels who have limited output.

My handful of Pandora stations have served me well for discovery (largely because it matches musical characteristics), but the more advanced algorithms in some of the other system I use are totally off base.

 

[3Favorites]

So that's how the vinyl is in the record shown above with the yellow shape in the black. You can't really see the grooves in the yellow. Also, what are the blank objects in the center. You must have an advanced turntable with those settings in the arm.

 

[Rudy]

The yellow "eclipse" inside the black is unique with each pressing--it's a random bunch of yellow vinyl pellets inserted into the middle of the black "puck" of vinyl used to make the record. The other side of the LP has a different pattern due to the way the pellets fall into place. The grooves are visible under better light--they show up better on dark colors than on light.

The other variation is blue with a white eclipse, blue and white being the official Blue Note Records color. Below, the record label has a yellow border on two sides (with the Third Man Records logo inside the "O" in "NOTE"), where it is normally blue on standard Blue Note pressings.



That arm is standard on the Technics 1210G turntable--the counterweight is for vertical tracking force, and the small dial to the right is for anti-skating.



There is also a collar around the base of the arm, which is marked, for adjusting tonearm height.

 

[JOv2]

The only thing that gets a little old is Masseux on the chekere--he overdoes it a bit here and there.

Actually, this is one of the few Grant Green BN's that I sent down to the dungeon...to my ears (and nerves) that damn checkere friggin' drives me up the wall.

Alligator Bogaloo. A 1967 album by Lou Donaldson. The backing band includes quite a line-up. Idris Muhammad (billed as Leo Morris, his birth name) on drums, George Benson on guitar, and Lonnie Smith on organ. Melvin Lastin appears on cornet. Music for early lunch. 😁 🥗

This one's also historically important: time and again it's regarded as the threshold LP definitively turning us away from '50s R&B/Jazz ("swing feel") and aiming us to '70s R&B/jazz ("straight-time feel").

I'm also one of the few on the planet who feels the Beatles are not the be-all, end-all in music.

Oh, yes, I've read about these kind of folks 😉

 

[Rudy]

Actually, this is one of the few Grant Green BN's that I sent down to the dungeon...to my ears (and nerves) that damn checkere friggin' drives me up the wall.

I've learned to tune it out. 😁 At least in a few places it calms down and we don't have to hear it. (One review I read before buying this record warned about it, so I was prepared for the onslaught.) I like the music on this one too much to set it aside. (And you'd think with all this AI technology around, someone could cancel out the shekere and reissue it without. 😉)

This one's also historically important: time and again it's regarded as the threshold LP definitively turning us away from '50s R&B/Jazz ("swing feel") and aiming us to '70s R&B/jazz ("straight-time feel").

Not surprising given now much music, and especially jazz, was changing around that time.

A sadly funny example of swing clashing with straight-time..."Mambo Inn" on the Count Basie Orch. April in Paris album. The rhythm section tries to keep it straight, but the horns often can't resist. Yet on the flip side, Tito Puente successfully swapped swing rhythms over to Latino without a hitch, including "Silk Stockings."

 

[JOv2]

And you'd think with all this AI technology around, someone could cancel out the shekere

The target frequencies being predictable would seem to suggest that its isolation and removal may be possible.

 

[AM Matt]

This instrumental song by Ronnie Laws "Always There" (from 1975 "Pressure Sensitive") is the song that I heard during a Detroit Tigers commercial break on the AM radio back around the late '70s. Was that song used for any TV shows or specials??

 

[AM Matt]

Also I heard this instrumental by MFSB "K-Jee" (from 1975 "Universal Love" & also from 1977 "Saturday Night Fever" movie soundtrack) (remake of the Nite-Liters 1971 song) also being played during the Detroit Tigers commercial breaks!!

 

[AM Matt]

There was also another instrumental that I wrote down back then on the forum (also played during Detroit Tigers commercial breaks on the AM radio) but I am not sure what instrumental smooth jazz song it was. I heard the song back then on COZY FM 104.3 FM WCZY in Mount Pleasant, Michigan (when it was a smooth jazz & beautiful music station from around 1991 till July of 1994) which reminded me of flutists Herbie Mann, Hubert Laws or Tim Weisburg (which has the bing bing bing sound at the beginning)!!

 

[Rudy]

Changing things up a bit with the Horace Silver listening. In Pursuit of The 27th Man.



Unusual album in terms of instruments--the Brecker brothers (Mike and Randy) appear on half the tracks, and vibist David Friedman appears on the others.

Interesting tracks, too, in that one of them is "Kathy," a tune written by Brazilian composer Moacir Santos. Another is by Weldon Irvine, and one has lyrics by Silver ("Nothin' Can Stop Me Now").

As for the title track...what about the other 26 men? 😁 It is more an oblique reference to numerology. The number 27 alludes to being on the right path in life and/or spirituality, and fortells good fortune, optimism, and success in life. "The 27th man is representative of the improved advanced man of the future that we are all striving to become."

 

[JOv2]

"Carlos, you're such a spud!!" 😁

¡Caramba!

Lee Morgan style, of course. Not Latin at all but still a tasty rekkid.

One of the Blue Note Classic Vinyl series. Kevin Gray has been on a tear these past couple of years.

I've been studying up on Lee the past couple of months and thought I'd offer some details at this point in his recording career.

• Caramba! was recorded, 03MAY1968, and sadly, would be his penultimate recording released prior to his untimely death in 1971.
• Lee only held three more LP recoding session dates in his lifetime:
  • 13SEP1968 -- was rejected. Although Michael Cuscuna, who later auditioned the session, agreed, he eventually saw fit to release 3 of the recordings as bonus selections on the 1999 CD release of The Sixth Sense.
  • 12SEP1969 / 10OCT1969 -- was seemingly rejected as well. Cuscuna saw fit to issues much of the second LP date, sometimes referred to as "Uncle Rough", as bonus selections to the 2003 CD release of Sonic Boom.
  • 17-18SEP1971 -- titled The Last Session, was released a few months following his death
• Lee actually continued to participate on other Blue Note artists' LP sessions during 1968-70; for whatever reason, however, his own LP sessions following Caramba! appeared to be met with compromise on some order.
• Blue Note, which by this time was owned by the corporate entity Gulf+Western, did release "new" Lee Morgan LPs during 1968-71, however, these were the infamous "ad-hoc" sessions cut on the side when Al Lion still managed the day-to-day affairs of the label. Once Lion left the label in JUL1967, these ad-hoc sessions ended.

 

[Rudy]

I wonder why those sessions were rejected. I'm not familiar with anything but The Sidewinder (and I have The Rumproller but haven't played it enough to be familiar with it). I see one double LP on Blue Note, self-titled, that was apparently a 1972 release and I'm not really sure where that fits in (the review calls it a "final recording" but, given how record labels package these tracks, it could have been a different release name originally).



I also suspect at some point in the future that Blue Note could cobble together those last few sessions as complete albums, rather than scatter some of the tracks among other CDs as bonus tracks.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Doing some server maintenance tonight. I played my vinyl copy of Claus Ogerman's Gate of Dreams late this afternoon, and don't recall ever playing it. Vinyl looks and sounds good but the SugarCube was working overtime to clean up a lot of ticks. 👍

It looks like it is available on Qobuz and streaming. And also, YouTube Music.

Give it a listen. In a way it reminds me of Bacharach in that it has strings (more so than an A&M Bacharach album), but also has some contemporary instruments, a drum kit, and even David Sanborn on a sax solo (similar to Bacharach's Futures). Apparently these are themes that were written for a ballet. So it goes without saying that anyone who enjoys Burt's instrumental side probably will like this album. Ogerman composed, arranged and conducted this 1977 set, with Tommy LiPuma producing, released on Warner Bros.

George Benson takes a solo on the second track, and Michael Brecker, Joe Sample, and Larry Bunker also augment the all-star cast.

Here's the entire album. Enjoy!

I've only sporadically dropped in on this thread over the years and have missed a lot, so up early this morning and with the day off, I decided to catch up---which is why I'm seven months late with this reply.

GATE OF DREAMS is one of my favorite albums. I got my vinyl copy from my Warner Bros. promotions man in San Francisco. I came down from Ukiah in 1977, we had lunch, went back to the office and he loaded me up with "sure-fire hits" (none of which became such), and one album "that might be good in the production library or something".

I decided to do my listening at home, and put GATE OF DREAMS on as I watched the fog creep over the Mendocino Range. I was hooked forever.

 

[Rudy]

I decided to do my listening at home, and put GATE OF DREAMS on as I watched the fog creep over the Mendocino Range. I was hooked forever.

It's a late-night album for me. Similarly, I find that other albums Claus Ogerman has orchestrated or arranged sound best to me in the late hours of the day. I know most people hate Diana Krall, but aside from the intolerable title track, her The Look of Love album has long been a favorite due to his arrangements.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

It's a late-night album for me. Similarly, I find that other albums Claus Ogerman has orchestrated or arranged sound best to me in the late hours of the day. I know most people hate Diana Krall, but aside from the intolerable title track, her The Look of Love album has long been a favorite due to his arrangements.

I can see the time of day thing with Claus---except for a personal experience. Driving from Reno to Bishop in late 1977, I had GATE OF DREAMS playing on the 8-track. I was just north of Bridgeport on Highway 395, where there's this gorgeous open meadow:



Snow wasn't falling, but it was blowing, not like a blizzard, but gently...and this track played:




I can't hear "A Sketch of Eden" without picturing the snow flurries.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

The Kookie album might be the ginchiest, but the arranger behind the album is one Don Ralke, someone I honestly haven't heard about until now. He apparently was a Hollywood mainstay and scored music for various television series, but only had a few albums under his name.

I kid you not.



I apparently haven't heard Gershwin with Bongos, but since Qobuz strangely has this title (and another bongo album of his), I'm going to have a few laughs over lunch. I don't like Gershwin much, but this should be...interesting to say the least.

He also had this album:



The rear cover does something I've never seen other labels do--it lists other titles I may enjoy on other labels, by unrelated artists.



(I have the Schory LP.)

I'm more than a year late on this one, and no, I've never seen any other label do that, either.

At first, I thought this might be from the first release of Warner Bros. albums in 1958 (the history hysterically told by Stan Cornyn in his book Exploding, but this is actually two years in---after top ten albums from The Everly Brothers and Bob Newhart---so I have no idea what they were thinking.

 

[JOv2]

I wonder why those sessions were rejected. I'm not familiar with anything but The Sidewinder (and I have The Rumproller but haven't played it enough to be familiar with it). I see one double LP on Blue Note, self-titled, that was apparently a 1972 release and I'm not really sure where that fits in (the review calls it a "final recording" but, given how record labels package these tracks, it could have been a different release name originally).



I also suspect at some point in the future that Blue Note could cobble together those last few sessions as complete albums, rather than scatter some of the tracks among other CDs as bonus tracks.

The Last Session is a double LP; so that's a ligit release (the one you're showing in the above graphic).

I conjecture the reason "Uncle Rough" was rejected was because it swings (for the most part). I recall reading from a late '60s liner, that when asked why he wasn't playing more "straight-time..." Lee simply responded by stating that he likes to swing... Therefore, it would seem that unlike Donald Byrd, Freddie Hubbard and Blue Mitchell -- all former mid-60s Blue Note recording artists -- Lee was not embracing the 1968/69 changing musical scene. Since swing was definitely out by late '69, I believe Blue Note management (who were a nameless lot by that time) listened to the session briefly and rejected it outright as being out-of-step with current trends. On the other hand, I read that the late '68 session was rejected because it was an "off-day" for the band. Cuscuna agreed with the rejection status when he auditioned the session years later -- but eventually released 3 of the selections. I think the 3 selections are fine -- so I can only imagine how "off" the balance of the session must have been!

To show you how over-recorded Lee was (all those "ad-hoc" sessions...), here are the 1960s LPs sessions from The Sidewinder onward (OCT 68 is absent as it was only partially issued...). Only The Sidewinder, The Rumproller, Delightfullee and !Caramba! were released when recorded. All other dates were either delayed or technically unreleased (i.e., were probably recorded with no actionable release plan in sight...but that's another story), or as in the two cases noted above, rejected. I count 18 LP dates between 1964 and 1969. Clearly, no record company would issue but a fraction of the tally. (Even one each year still leaves 12 in the can.) I have them all and with the exception of Delighfulee they are solid (with those in blue boldface font being particularly engaging).

 

[Michael Hagerty]

It's a late-night album for me. Similarly, I find that other albums Claus Ogerman has orchestrated or arranged sound best to me in the late hours of the day.

PS: I totally agree about the late-night thing when it comes to the followup with Michael Brecker----CITYSCAPE:

 

[Rudy]

On the other hand, I read that the late '68 session was rejected because it was an "off-day" for the band. Cuscuna agreed with the rejection status when he auditioned the session years later -- but eventually released 3 of the selections. I think the 3 selections are fine -- so I can only imagine how "off" the balance of the session must have been!

That sort of reminds me of how the Miles Davis/Gil Evans Quiet Nights CD was hyped up as some great reissue in 1997, only to read in the booklet notes inside how the album was a disappointment. Not being a fan of Gil Evans, I gave it one listen and never touched it since.

 

[JOv2]

That sort of reminds me of how the Miles Davis/Gil Evans Quiet Nights CD was hyped up as some great reissue in 1997, only to read in the booklet notes inside how the album was a disappointment. Not being a fan of Gil Evans, I gave it one listen and never touched it since.

I like Gil's influence (scoring from the bottom up -- with all that moving low brass and reeds) more than his actual recordings. Sketches Of Spain (1960) is, nevertheless, quite distinctive and my fave of his collaborations with Miles.