[wallstreet]

Thanks for the posts. I'm going to try to get into jazz some as I'm a complete newbie to the genre. What albums are good for starters?
And what Coltrane's best cd or album, I keep hearing his name a lot. Thanks.

 

[FCJ]

If you want to try John Coltrane, I would start with "Giant Steps," or anything that he did on Atlantic. You can also try anything from his early Impulse period; his best is "A Love Supreme." I would stay away from his later Impulse stuff unless you are into Free Jazz. It's not the most accessible music, but it has a majesty all its own.

You should really start with "Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis. Not only is it the most famous Jazz album of all time, but one of the all time greats of any genre.

 

[wallstreet]

Thanks for the tip FCJ. I think I will start with Kind of Blue to test the *waters* of Jazz.

 

[Milestones]

wallstreet:

John Coltrane's "Blue Train" also makes a nice starting point for someone new to jazz and in IMO is the logical place to start with Coltrane's music before moving on to his Atlantic and Impulse material.

 

[FCJ]

Agreed--"Blue Train" is an accessible (and excellent) Coltrane starting point. It includes Lee Morgan on trumpet, another fine player who made a ton of great records on Blue Note, the most famous one being The "Sidewinder."

 

[BenG]

http://www.fantasyjazz.com/html/faq.html

Rest of the series(scroll down to "20-BIT REMASTERED CDs"):
http://www.fantasyjazz.com/html/new.html

 

[BenG]

I picked up the Eric Dolphy - 'Outward Bound' K2 . It amazes me that this album was recorded in 1960, outstanding sound on the transfer, too.

If you like Monk and Mingus, i highly recommend you check out this disc.

It's not as structurally free as Dolphy's well known 'Out to Lunch', but some great transitional, quirky, sarcastic bebop, which I Like better.

 

[SEK]

I always thought that the original 16-bit Prestige and OJC CDs, including "Outward Bound" (To me, Dolphy can sound beautiful, playful, serious, adventurous, vocal, soulful, intellectual, sweet, artistic, masterful, passionate, natural, connected, deep, vibrant, ..., but never particularly sarcastic), "Thelonious Monk In Action", "Misterioso", "Saxophone Colossus", Harold Land's "The Fox", ..., even the Dolphy-Little quintet Five Spot recordings, sounded quite fine (in audiophile terms). Musically, their transcendence would be evident even through a "boom box". The K2 editions are indeed very appealing, but, with signs and rumors of increasing production, SACDs may become the ascendent truly-"hi-rez" standard format pretty soon (or maybe not). I almost (but not quite) wish that I didn't already have such a large collection of OJC and Prestige CDs, so that I could better justify the investment in a bunch of OJC K2s, but the originals usually don't sound bad at all.

I do not hesitate to purchase the latest Legacy remasterings which generally yield much more significant sonic improvements over previous Columbia editions of Miles (sorry), Monk, Mingus, etc., and usually include extra tracks.

I find the Blue Note RVG remasterings to be more of a mixed bag when you control for volume (loudness). They're inexpensive, and Rudy Van Gelder really pinned the meters for these (and, all things being equal, louder sounds "better"). Many RVGs do indeed sound better (clearer, more nuanced, more "live", less distorted) than previous editions, but some don't sound "right" (tonally unbalanced, reduced stereo effect, and/or increased distortion). Recent RVGs that offer superb sonics along with great music are Ornette Coleman's "Live At The Golden Circle" Vol.1 and Vol.2 (I prefer Vol. 1). Other RVGs that I've sprung for and enjoy include Wayne Shorter's "Speak No Evil", Grant Green's "Idle Moments", and, recently, Bobby Hutcherson's "Dialogue".

I've been playing a new CD reissue of a record that came out around 20 years ago, Sam Rivers's "Waves". It's an invigorating, varied and creative program of music - Sam Rivers on saxophones, flute, or piano; Dave Holland is central with his magnificent bass playing; Joe Daley plays some of the hippest and most flexible tuba ever; and Thurman Barker makes his usual fascinating and sensitive contributions with drums and marimba. Getting "Waves" fortunately inspired me to finally purchase the excellent Mosaic Sam Rivers Blue Note box set (and just in time); it arrived at my house last Wednesday, which was the day that Mosaic ran out of it

Finally, I've noticed that most of the new jazz releases that I've purchased on CD over the last 3 to 5 years have generally improved sound, compared to CDs I purchased before. Even some pop records are being released with excellent sound...

 

[FCJ]

I second your recommenation of "Waves." I picked it up a couple of weeks ago and it's top-drawer Sam Rivers. Sounds good, too. I have the Mosaic box and it's amazing. You're lucky that you picked it up just in time.

 

[BenG]

The K2 CDs are more of a recommendation to people who don't already have the OJC CD versions or that don't care much for box sets. If you are deciding between the regular OJC & K2s(only a handfull available) versions, the K2s are a better value at only a few dollars more for the better sound. I didn't have many of the OJC CD versions to begin with so it was a no-brainer. It wasn't untill the mid 90s that I even generally payed attention to CD versions.
And It will likely be a while before any of these will be on a newer format at a comparative price for those that may only recently be interested in these albums. But these K2s (same mastering converter as used for XRCDs) make a good case for CD versions as a worthy purchase, even in the face of newer formats.

 

[Milestones]

I agree that the original incarnation of the OJC series from the late 1980s is very good - and certainly is far superior to most other re-masterings from that era. However, the K2 reissues are still much better sounding to my ears and I have up-graded my favorite OJC discs to the K2 re-masters for this reason.

I also agree that the Blue Note RVG series has been hit and miss -with some absolutely amazing sounding and others merely mediocre. However, almost all of the RVGs are far superior sounding to their late 1980s counterparts.

The original Blue Note cd series (which was remastered and released from about 1987 to 1989 and can be indentified by their reflective silver cd labels) was an absolutely horrible remastering job. I don't blame the engineer involved - Ron McMaster, because he has shown on subsequent reissues that he can do a wonderful job when given the time and resources to do so. Apparently Blue Note just wanted to rush a large quantity of their back jazz catalogue to the cd market without giving a lot of attention to the re-mastering process. I think that kind of attitude was fairly typical of the time when it was assumed that the cd (digital) was an inherently better sounding format than vinyl (analog). Of course since then we have discovered that the re-mastering process is essential to reaching the full potential of the cd format and the sound quality of cds has improved dramatically as a result.

Because the sound quality of the late 1980s McMaster Blue Note cds is so dreadful - I have upgraded all of these that I owned which have became available in the RVG series. Even the mediocre RVGs are a big improvement over the late 80s Blue Notes IMO.