Bleaden is back at the Chicken Shack!

Ok

It has been a while!

I have been here and listening a plenty.

I have spent the last 2 years going back deep in to my Blue Note collection and rediscovering some of the classics that I had forgotten about courtesy of time spent with an MP3 player which was big enough to give me a random Radio Blue Note ability.

In practice that has meant rediscovering the following

 

The Three Sounds..from the early 60's

These have always had a special place in my collection as their LPs and then subsequently the CDs were hard to find

Talking of hard to find..saw this which was great from the japanese gokudo site

Now I had always been aware of Blue Note 45's. Even had a few in my time such as this beauty which cost me greatly years ago and then I remember giving it away to a new fan as I had got hold of the LP

However I was unaware of these lovely black and white rarities and some of the other European issues which were special covers I have never seen.

Donald Byrd

I can never listen to enough Donald Byrd but prior to Christmas this year I was at an event at Manchester which had music laid on by Manchester contact theatre and the DJ just happened to start playing some DB from the 70's. Well that was me lost for a week on the trail for my older Byrd whether electric or not. I have all his Blue Note material and even laid out for the excellent Mosaic box set of his sides with Pepper Adams that was a rare treat. Which was the same when I saw these

To more great sides of greater diversity by Byrd you will not get.

So yes.

I am back.

I have also found some more blogspots on jazz which I know folliw with keen interest such as the great Buns o Plenty and Van Groove Express.

Thanks to both of these people for a poke in the right direction back to my own collection.

What am I listening to right now on CD?

I would have loved to have been there for these nights as it is a brilliant set and I cherish the CDs. I used to have this and the other volume on a rare Japanese pressing which sounded brilliant but I sold them and bought lots of other Blue Notes including this on a twofer cd. Find it if you can.

My thoughts on the Bobby Hutcherson set from Mosaic Select

 Bobby Hutcherson Inner Glow  UPDATED 2011!

I took my time with this and savoured the delights of a mixture of Bobby Hutcherson’s style over the period of the 70’s covered by this set. I particularly enjoyed hearing Rosewood again from the LP Cirrus which has been missing along time from collection since I sold it back at the end of the 90’s. I also really enjoyed the chance to reacquaint myself with the very rare and hard to find sides from the LP Inner Glow pictured here which was never released save in Japan many years ago on Blue Note (Japan) GXF-3073:

I stumbled luckily enough on a burn from a friend on a cdr a few years ago which was a real collectors find for me as it was one of the Blue Notes that as an LP had eluded me and I was beginning to think that I would never hear it let alone see. I saw the cover once in the gorgeous Blue Note Album Cover Art book from the 90’s and that made the need to hear it even greater with the line up as it was.

The session is a strange one considering the era and those recordings made by Hutcherson either side of it. I am also lucky enough to have some of the live material from this era and earlier which has surfaced from time to time with Harold Land and it’s a record I would advise you buy the box set from Mosaic for alone without even the excellent Cirrus and the understated View from Inside and Waiting.

The playing is strong and I think still ranks slightly behind San Francisco for me in terms of my favourite Bobby Hutcherson record. With good strong support I would vote this the record session of the set with particularly strong playing from Hutcherson.

A final word from a friend of mine who after hearing my version of the LP last year spent the year trying to track down a clean and not too expensive copy on vinyl. His last chance saw a copy priced at a figure that would have bought the Hutcherson Mosaic Select AND the McCoy Tyner AND the Andrew Hill Solo work. Needless to say he plumped for the sets and saved a fortune and hopeful he was that some of the money would get back to the artists at least.

Now there is a positive thought!

FAST FORWARD TO 2011 

I heard this again after a long spell following listening to a couple of rare live dates that were recorded with Harold Land during 1969 and 1970 around Europe.  They were themselves fabulous dates with some really timeless pieces that somebody at least had the sense to record. 

After listening to them I had to root out the Mosaic set again and I have to say I was bowled over by this again. 

Hunt it out if you can ...hope you enjoy it as much as I did again!

By the way I did a bit of searching around and found some more artwork

Andy

Rare Grooves are back!

Some of the better finds in the last few months have come courtesy of Blue Note Records who defying all recent precedents have seemed to listen to the punters and reinstated the Rare Groove series. This was the old series that used to reissue longout of print soul jazz from the Blue Note vaults by Donald Byrd, John Patton Eddie Henderson, Lonnie Smith, Lou Donaldson Richard Groove Holmes and not forgetting Grant Green.

This series was a treasure as years ago when I cleared out my LP collection I bitterly resented getting rid of such rare finds as Richard Groove Holmes’ Comin on Home and Lonnie Smith’s Move Your Hand but the cds more than made up for this and sometimes as with Lonnie Smith brought new finds. Even better still was when the series unearthed unissued new finds by Lou Donaldson, Donald Byrd, Duke Pearson, Lonnie Smith and my personal favourites by John Patton.

Sadly the label dried this source up as the issues seemed to focus more on the products of the mid 70’s Blue Note era and less on hard to find soul jazz with obvious huge exclusions such as Grant Green’s Shades of Green. Or Reuben Wilson’s On Broadway.

The series was much missed and discussed on sites such as Organissimo but no new appearances came and news of EMI’s take over and rumour of no more Blue Note seemed to nail the coffin shut. Yet this year out came some rare surprises albeit from the mid 70’s but still all the same were welcome and long lost friends for those of us that used to have the LP.

First up came Lou Donaldson’s Cosmos with the oft sampled killer track Caterpillar which I kind of missed on LP…. used to be a hard to find LP at the best of times, the rest of the LP was not the best of his work in my opinion but I have moved on and interests grown as well.

Much nicer to see was the issue of Reuben Wilson’s Set Us Free which featured not only Mr Big Stuff but Tom Thumb and We’re in Love. I had such a beat up old copy on LP that I had to trade it in and get another …slightly less beat up copy for what seemed a huge amount at the time….finally despite the odd track on a Japanese Blue sampler I got to listen to a hiss, warp and crackle free version. Magic

Blue Note also stuck out the other Eddie Henderson Blue Note: Heritage to partner Sunburst which had been issued earlier on this series. I had both LPs and was lucky enough to get the CDs when they had come out in Japan (Heritage) and the US (Sunburst). Both a really good lps with killer cuts on them. More so Heritage which I enjoy most.

Fans of the Three Sounds and Gene Harris were pleasantly surprised to see not one but two LPs: Elegant Soul and Soul Symphony. Elegant Soul is an example of a record that has grown on me. One of the first LPs I sold as I never liked it, I reluctantly gave it another go, only to have it repeating through the house at full volume and lovin’ it.

Soul Symphony I had never tracked down and written off as probably avoidable but again this was a real find and very very welcome. I have the other Gene Harris from this era and it never fails to impress. One note is that I would love to see Vibrations put out from the earlier period as I have all the other earlier stuff on Japanese cds but this never appeared and I have to make do with ( very gratefully received matey J ) with an LP burn. The same also goes with The Three Sounds /Gene Harris Blue Note 4378 with the great Your l

ove is too much (also not to be confused with Gene Harris of the Three Sounds Blue Note 4423!) Perhaps more on Gene Harris on Blue Note in a later article.

A strange appearance was Howlin for Judy which mixed part of 2 Jeremy Steig LPs Legwork and Wayfaring Stranger onto one LP based on the name of his better known track. I do like his materi

al but in very small doses.

The last of the set was Fancy Dancer from Bobbi Humphrey which again refilled a hole left in my collection when I cleared out the LPs.

So a groovy collection of rarities, rediscoveries and new finds for me in this batch. Thank you Blue Note….more please in the future of the same if possible.

Here is a list of some/most of the other collection of Rare Groove series from Blue Note (stolen it has to said from the Allaboutjazz forums). I have all of them bar the Gary Bartz

Blue Note Rare Grooves so far...

Blue Mitchell-Down With It
Bobbi Humphrey-Satin Doll
Bobby Hutcherson-San Francisco
Brother Jack Mcduff-Down Home Style
Candido-Beautiful
Donald Byrd-Caricatures
Donald Byrd-Electric Byrd
Donald Byrd-Fancy Free
Donald Byrd-Kofi
Donald Byrd-Places And Spaces
Donald Byrd-Street Lady
Duke Pearson-I Don't Care Who Knows It
Duke Pearson-Sweet Honey Bee
Duke Pearson-The Right Touch
Eddie Henderson-Sunburst
Gary Bartz-Music Is My Sanctuary
Gene Harris And The Three Sounds-Live At The "It" Club
Grant Green-Alive
Grant Green-Carryin' On
Grant Green-Green Is Beautiful
Jack Mcduff-Moon Rappin'
Jimmy Mcgriff-Electric Funk
Jimmy Mcgriff-The Worm
John Patton-Accent On The Blues
John Patton-Boogaloo
John Patton-Got A Good Thing Goin' On
John Patton-Let 'Em Roll
John Patton-Memphis To New York Spirit
John Patton-Understanding
Lonnie Smith-Drives
Lonnie Smith-Live At The Club Mozambique
Lonnie Smith-Move Your Hand
Lou Donaldson-Everything I Play Is Funky
Lou Donaldson-Good Gracious
Lou Donaldson-Mr.Shing-A-Ling
Lou Donaldson-Pretty Things
Lou Donaldson-The Scorpion - Live At The Cadillac Club
Reuben Wilson-Blue Mode
Reuben Wilson-Love Bug
Richard Groove Holmes-Comin' On Home
Ronnie Foster-Two Headed Freap
Stanley Turrentine-Common Touch
Stanley Turrentine-Easy Walker
Various Artists-Blue Note Rare Grooves

Try and find them as soon as you can as they have a tendency to run out