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
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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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Charles Earland – Intensity (1972)

Charles Earland
INTENSITY
Released 1972 on Prestige
OJC Release 1999 (OJCCD-1021-2)

Happy ‘Cause I’m Goin’ Home
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow
Cause I Love Her
Morgan
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Lowdown
Speedball

Charles Earland: organ
Lee Morgan, Virgil Jones, Victor Paz, Jon Faddis: trumpet, flugelhorn
Dick Griffin, Clifford Adams: tenor trombone
Jack Jeffers: bass trombone
Billy Harper: tenor sax
William Thorpe: baritone sax
Hubert Laws: flute, piccolo
John Fourie, Greg Miller, Maynard Parker: guitar
Billy Cobham: drums
Sonny Morgan: congas

Recorded February 17, 1972 at Englewood Cliffs, NJ, by Rudy Van Gelder

This is sort of a lazy post – I haven’t posted in a while, and I’m not going to say much about this record because I agree pretty much entirely with Doug Payne’s take on it. I’ll just mention that I kind of like the “needless fuzz guitar”, and that the Goffin/King Shirelle’s hit “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” gets a righteous soul-jazz treatment. Also I’d like to give some applause to Billy Harper on sax, whose own Black Saint albums are essential listening.

By
DOUGLAS PAYNE,
Published: August 1, 1999

For 1972’s Intensity, Charles Earland’s fifth of ten Prestige discs, the Mighty Burner seemed to be aiming toward something a little different than his usual collection of soulful tenor-organ jams. The presence of two songs from the rock group Chicago and a small trumpet-dominated horn section indicate that jazz-rock was the goal. The result, the LP’s four original tracks plus two tracks from the same date originally released as part of Charles III, is one of his very best.

Unfortunately, though, Intensity has the notorious reputation as the last recording trumpeter Lee Morgan participated in (done two days before his girlfriend shot him to death). But Morgan is perhaps the least notable aspect of what makes the record work well. His playing here – and elsewhere at the time – sounds rather indifferent, sometimes sloppy and far less stellar than the glowing commentary he offered up on a string of excellent Blue Note records throughout the 1960s (evident on his own lackluster “Speedball,” also included here).

What does stand out is Earland’s strong performances, especially on two lesser known Chicago tunes (“Happy Cause I Love You” and a “Lowdown” that is not Boz Scaggs’s more famous hit, as the disc’s liners imply). Both are punctuated for effect with a needless fuzz guitar. But it doesn’t detract from the attractive energy the Earland-Laws-Morgan triumvirate achieves.

Earland also contributes two of his own above average originals: the wonderfully melodic medium tempo swinger, “Cause I Love Her,” and the cooking “Morgan” (named after the fact of death, but neither a Morgan feature nor specifically dedicated to him).

One notices, too, the interesting sound spectrum engineer Rudy Van Gelder achieves here. The occasional trumpet punctuation (arranged by Earland and the underrated trumpeter Virgil Jones) shimmers, even though its glory-hallelujah harshness seems a bit overheated. But the combo tracks are superbly captured. Compare the sound here to any one of Laws’s Van Gelder engineered CTI dates. Then listen to any one of Morgan’s Van Gelder engineered Blue Note dates. The difference is remarkable. Unfortunately, though, Billy Cobham’s exceptionally vibrant drumming sounds as muffled and in-the-next-room as too many Van Gelder sessions did during that time.

The Prestige records Earland made between 1969 and 1974 remain his finest work. Intensity certainly ranks among the best, capturing a fine player at the very top of his game and easily recommended to those who seek meaningful organ jazz and of equal appeal to fans of the ever-diverse Hubert Laws.