Wayne Shorter – The Best of Wayne Shorter (1988, Blue Note)

Wayne Shorter
The Best of Wayne Shorter
BLUE NOTE CDP 7 91141 2
Released 1988

I had a different blog post planned for today, but the world lost one of the great forces in jazz yesterday with the passing of Wayne Shorter.  If you don’t know why you should care about that, you can read one of his obits in the Old Grey Lady, The Atlantic, or the BBC.  It’s the kind of loss that has us checking the internet to see what other giants from that generation still walk among us. And there aren’t too many. Continue reading

Bobbi Humphrey – Blacks and Blues (1974) (24-bit 192 khz)

Bobbi Humphrey
Blacks And Blues
1974 Blue Note BN-LA142-G

Chicago, Damn  6:44
Harlem River Drive  7:24
Just A Love Child  8:21
Blacks And Blues  4:30
Jasper Country Man  5:16
Baby’s Gone  8:47

Recorded at Sound Factory Studios Hollywood, CA
Mastered at The Mastering Lab
Manufactured by United Artists Records, Inc.

Arranged By, Conductor – Larry Mizell
Backing Vocals and vocal arrangements – Fred Perron, Larry Mizell & Fonce Mizell
Clavinet, Trumpet – Fonce Mizell
Composed By – Larry Mizell
Congas – King Errison
Drums – Harvey Mason
Electric Bass  – Chuck Rainey, Ron Brown
Flute, Vocals [Solo] – Bobbi Humphrey
Guitar – David T. Walker, John Rowin
Percussion – Stephanie Spruill
Piano, Electric Piano [Fender Rhodes] – Jerry Peters
Synthesizer [Arp] – Fred Perren

Producer – Chuck Davis, Larry Mizell
Liner Notes – Leonard Brown
Photography By, Art Direction – Bob Cato
Engineer [Recording Assistant] – Chuck Davis, John Arias
Engineer [Recording] – John Mills
Engineer [Remix] – Chuck Davis, John Arias*, John Mills
Design – John Williams
Executive-Producer – George Butler

Notes
Recorded June 7 & 8, 1973 at Sound Factory, Hollywood, California.
Mastered at Mastering Lab, Hollywood, California.
Matrix / Runout (Runout Side 1 etched): 22 BN – LA 142 G – I
Matrix / Runout (Dead Wax Side 1 stamped): TML
Matrix / Runout (Runout Side 2 etched): 22 BN – LA 142 G – 2
Matrix / Runout (Dead Wax Side 2 stamped): TML

RIPPING INFO:
Blue Note BN-LA142-G vinyl; Pro-Ject RM-5SE with Audio Tecnica AT440-MLa cartridge; Speedbox power supply); Creek Audio OBH-15; Audioquest King Cobra cables; M-Audio Audiophile 192 Soundcard ; Adobe Audition at 32-bit float 192khz; clicks and pops removed with Click Repair on light settings, manually auditioning the output; further clicks removed with Adobe Audition 3.0; dithered and resampled using iZotope RX Advanced. Converted to FLAC in either Trader’s Little Helper or dBPoweramp. Tags done with Foobar 2000 and Tag and Rename.

 

This is one of the best records crafted by the production team of the Mizell Brothers for Blue Note, who also did notable albums for Donald Byrd, Freddie Hubbard, Johnny Hammond (for Salvation Records, a Motown subsidiary), and Gary Bartz, among others.  It was the first of three albums they made with Bobbi Humphrey, and although I’m not completely sure whether or not this was her biggest seller, it certainly put her on the map. The soaring, epic funk of tunes like Harlem River Drive sound deceptively effortless. There’s actually a lot going on there. Bobbi  does some singing on this album too in a girlish but charming voice.  The Mizells crafted their own genre in a way, pushing jazz-funk and soul-jazz into a kind of cinematic disco-jazz, as if all your favorite 2-3 minute instrumentals from Blaxploitation soundtracks were given new, deeper treatments and allowed to stretch out into full-fledged compositions.  Actually this a mediocre analogy for this record, because those constant qualities of blaxploitation film music – the tension of danger or menace – are nowhere to be found here.  There’s still a sense of something exciting going on, but it’s a lot more Summer Breeze than Superfly, I guess.  Pretty much all joyful exuberance here – this is another post I meant to do during the summer, but it’s about to be summer soon enough in the southern hemisphere so maybe I’m early rather than late.   The ensembles found on the Mizell Bros albums were always filled with heavyweights and this one does not disappoint, with stalwart Harvey Mason on the drum kit and the regal King Erisson on congas pinning down the lush soundscapes to solid earth.  Fans of the Arp synthesizer (and who isn’t a fan of the Arp?) won’t be disappointed either as it’s put to great use.  Also don’t be put off by the scrappy condition of the album cover – I lucked out and found an almost Near Mint copy of this in a “previously well-loved” jacket. Hope you enjoy it.

password: vibes


 

Horace Silver – In Pursuit of the 27th Man (1972)

Horace Silver
In Pursuit Of The 27th Man
 
Original Blue Note release:
     1972 (Germany) BST 84 433 K
     1973 (USA) BN-LA054-F
This pressing, 2012 (Japan) TOCJ-50505


 
1     Liberated Brother     5:22
2     Kathy     4:16
3     Gregory Is Here     6:20
4     Summer In Central Park     4:39
5     Nothin’ Can Stop Me Now     5:14
6     In Pursuit Of The 27th Man     9:43
7     Strange Vibes     5:01

 
    Bass – Bob Cranshaw
    Drums – Mickey Roker
    Piano – Horace Silver    
    Tenor saxophone – Michael Brecker (tracks: 1,3,6)
    Trumpet, flugelhorn – Randy Brecker (tracks: 1,3,6)
    Vibraphone – David Friedman (tracks: 2,5,6,7)
   Producer – George Butler
   Recorded By – Rudy Van Gelder

Critics have often blasted Blue Note Records’ output during the 1970s, and not without reason, for inconsistency and an overeager desire to flirt with a more commercial sound than during their classic  50s and 60s heyday.  Horace Silver’s own wonderfully “far out,” genre-bending, and delightful three-part series of LPs from 1970-72, subtitled “The United States of Mind” , was probably a case in point for purist curmudgeons.  Although he was certainly no stranger to commercial success or soul-jazz crossovers (he did write the song “Doodlin'”, after all), the sprawling eclecticism of the three “phases” of the US of M project must have had some Blue Note fans worried that they’d lost old Horace for good.   So I can’t help hearing 1972’s “In Pursuit of the 27th Man” as a kind of deliberate return to form.  That’s not to imply that it was a reaction to critics:  perhaps Silver just felt like it was time to make a good solid hard bop album again after his recent experimentation.

And that’s what he did here, while retaining a lot of the same players from those other records.  The Latin jazz opener, Liberated Brother (written by Weldon Irvine), is of the same high caliber as anything on his Cape Verdean Blues from 1966.  Recorded during two sessions with slightly different lineups, half the tracks feature the Brecker Brothers on brass and the other half showcase David Friedman on vibes, which is a first for Silver’s bands.  On the titular track, we get both at the same time.  The interplay between Silver’s piano and the vibes on this song is marvelous, fabulous, and stupendous.  The album also features one tune (Kathy) by the great Moacir Santos, then living in the US and who – as Silver mentions in the notes – was just about to make his first Blue Note LP.

This is a very worthwhile offering in the vast discography of one of my favorite jazz pianists and composers, so do give it a listen.

The ambiance of the record as a whole is an adept mixture of taxi fumes and sunlight, as captured by the breezy “Summer in Central Park.”

Hey let’s take a look at Silver’s charming liner notes now.  They include lyrics to one track that are, in fact, not present anywhere on the actual recording.  So read them and memorize them to recite along at the proper moment.

Note: the remastering engineer is not named in the credits, as it oddly the case for many of these TOCJ Blue Note CDs from Japan, but like all the others I have heard, this sounds stellar.

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Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers – The Freedom Rider (1961)


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Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers
The Freedom Rider
1961 Blue Note (BST 84156)

1         Tell It Like It Is
2         The Freedom Rider
3         El Toro
4        Petty Larceny
5         Blue Lace

    Bass – Jymie Merritt
Drums – Art Blakey
Piano – Bobby Timmons
Tenor saxophone – Wayne Shorter
Trumpet – Lee Morgan

   Cover Design – Reid Miles
Engineer – Rudy Van Gelder
Liner Notes – Nat Hentoff
Photography – Francis Wolff
Producer – Alfred Lion

Recorded at the Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey; February 18 (track B2) and May 27, 1961 (tracks A1-B1, B3).

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Ripping details

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Vinyl ; Pro-Ject RM-5SE turntabl, Sumiko Blue Point 2 cartridge, Speedbox power supply; Creek Audio OBH-15; M-Audio Audiophile 192 Soundcard ; Adobe Audition at 32-bit float 192khz; Click Repair light settings, sometimes turned off; individual clicks and pops taken out with Adobe Audition 3.0 – resampled (and dithered for 16-bit) using iZotope RX Advanced. Tags done with Foobar 2000 and Tag and Rename.

foobar2000 1.2.2 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2013-02-02 14:42:29

——————————————————————————–
Analyzed: Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers / The Freedom Rider
——————————————————————————–

DR         Peak         RMS     Duration Track
——————————————————————————–
DR12      -2.04 dB   -17.13 dB      7:55 01-Tell It Like It Is
DR16      -1.04 dB   -20.89 dB      7:29 02-The Freedom Rider
DR12      -1.05 dB   -15.81 dB      6:21 03-El Toro
DR11      -2.00 dB   -17.64 dB      6:16 04-Petty Larceny
DR12      -1.62 dB   -17.37 dB      6:00 05-Blue Lace
——————————————————————————–

Number of tracks:  5
Official DR value: DR13

Samplerate:        96000 Hz
Channels:          2
Bits per sample:   24
Bitrate:           3117 kbps
Codec:             FLAC
================================================================================

JUST FOR THE SAKE OF COMPARISON – The Japanese Toshiba RVG pressing dynamic range is as follows:
foobar2000 1.2.2 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2013-02-02 14:43:38

——————————————————————————–
Analyzed: Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers / The Freedom Rider
——————————————————————————–

DR         Peak         RMS     Duration Track
——————————————————————————–
DR10      -0.18 dB   -12.31 dB      7:55 01-Tell It Like It Is
DR16      -0.18 dB   -18.15 dB      7:27 02-The Freedom Rider
DR11      -0.18 dB   -14.21 dB      6:21 03-El Toro
DR11      -0.18 dB   -13.58 dB      6:15 04-Petty Larceny
DR10      -0.18 dB   -12.86 dB      5:59 05-Blue Lace
——————————————————————————–

Number of tracks:  5
Official DR value: DR12

Samplerate:        44100 Hz
Channels:          2
Bits per sample:   16
Bitrate:           804 kbps
Codec:             FLAC
================================================================================

Well I had originally planned to post this on Martin Luther King  Day (Jan 21) but like pretty much everything else in my life, I was late with it.  This is actually a vinyl rip that I worked on for months, in spare free moments, so urgency hasn’t exactly been a word I would associate with it.

This is the Jazz Messengers at their most soulful and swinging, with a young Lee Morgan and Wayne Shorter reminding us of why they are now legends.  Aside from the drum solo, which is pretty listenable as far as drum solos go – it’s Blakey, after all – they composed everything here and every tune is top notch.  “Tell It Like It Is” and “Petty Larceny” (great title) are classic, deep soul jazz.  The last tune, Morgan’s “Blue Lace,” is breathtaking.  It makes me want to get up and do a little hard-bop waltz around the room.  The close intervals between Morgan and Shorter give an illusion like there are a lot more horn players in the room.  Bobby Timmons’ dances lightly across the piano on his solo.  The whole thing is a fine example of what Hentoff is talking about in his liner notes regarding Blakey’s spirit of youthfulness, also bolstered by his choice to always surround himself  with younger musicians in the Messengers.   If you suffer from depression or seasonal-affect disorder, I highly recommended listening to “Blue Lace” three times a day or as needed.  Side effects may include euphoria and unexpected goatee cultivation.  

I have yet to find a copy of this that includes a lyric sheet for the title track, unfortunately.

So, I am not going to make claims about anything  sounding “better” than anything else, but for those of us unhappy with Rudy Van Gelder’s remastering of his own work, this vinyl rip is a viable alternative to the (Japan-only) reissue.  I have not heard the original Blue Note CD pressing, presumably if it is a Michael Cuscuna job than it must be a lot more satisfying than the recent RVG.  

I’m no jazz scholar, so this is all you’ll get from me in terms of a write-up.  Nat Hentoff’s original notes are good, as always, so go read those.

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Happy B-Day Parabens / Hank Mobley – A Caddy for Daddy (1966)

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Today, July 7, Flabbergasted Vibes is officially two years old! I write “officially” because it was actually migrated from a blog I had started on MySpace (who reads blogs on MySpace anyway?), and also I did not really put much thought into the posts for the first few months. It was just a way to share some enthusiasm about music for some of my friends who I often don’t get to see, which in a more broad sense it still is. So, a toast to one more year of sonic explorations and fickle musings at Flabbergasted Vibes!! Also, the age is associated with the English phrase of “the Terrible Twos”, a reference to the time when toddlers start to throw fits and scream a lot. So, when I consulted both the I-Ching and one of my Tarot decks about this, I received the divination that I will either be posting more cranky commentary, or crankier music, this year. Be forewarned.
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Normally a birthday would entail a day off for me, at least metaphorically in the sense of not working too much and-or slacking off more than usual. But since today is also Hank Mobley’s birthday, I decided to actually do a post anyway. (It is also Joe Zawinul´s birthday – two Miles Davis sidemen born on July 7! – but I happen to have this Mobley record sitting on the hard drive at the convenient moment). So why not give yourself a Cadillac on Flabbergasted Vibes’ birthday with this vintage Blue Note album featuring a ridiculous by wonderful album cover and silly title!

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Hank Mobley
A Caddy for Daddy
Released 1966 on Blue Note (BT-ST84230)
[Mono version released in 1965..]
This reissue – 2009 Analog Productions, SACD format

1 A Caddy For Daddy 9:15

2 The Morning After 9:35

3 Venus Di Mildew 7:05

4 Ace Deuce Trey 7:10

5 3rd Time Around 6:10

All compositions by Hank Mobley except Track 3 by Wayne Shorter.

Bass – Bob Cranshaw
Drums – Billy Higgins
Piano – McCoy Tyner
Saxophone [Tenor] – Hank Mobley
Trombone – Curtis Fuller
Trumpet – Lee Morgan

Hank Mobley, like a lot of Blue Note`s roster, was cranking out albums at an incredible pace in the mid-60s. This is not actually one of my favorites — I don´t think it is anywhere near as good as “The Turnaround” also from 1965.

The first track, A Caddy for Daddy, is a half-hearted attempt at soul jazz which leaves me cold. The band sounds tired and so do the arrangements. I am no jazz scholar, but I would not be surprised if this cut was an attempt to recreat Lee Morgan’s success with The Sidewinder, one of the early soul-jazz “hits”. As you can see above, Morgan is on this session as are Higgins and Cranshaw who also played on that classic tune. The album improves quickly with “The Morning After” (what is it with the oddball titles on this disc?) which is easily my favorite piece of music here. A nice surprise on this session is the expansion of Mobley’s band to a sextet, featuring the incomparable Curtis Fuller on the trombone, always a good thing. McCoy Tyner does not get a chance to shine on record the way I would have liked.

Sorry for not writing more but it should really be the blog’s day off anyway, so this is all you get from me today. Oh, and this Analog Productions reissue sounds way better than any of the RVG remasters of Mobley’s stuff, although it does use the stereo master tapes rather than the mono.

Hank Mobley – A Caddy for Daddy (1966) in 320kbs em pee tree

Hank Mobley – A Caddy for Daddy (1966) in FLAC LOSSLESS format