Some days and nights have passed.

Some days and weeks have passed and there’s was no writing at all on this page.
That does not mean, that I have not received any records since the launch of this page.
This just meant that I was dumb enough to loose my password, so I couldn’t enter the page.
But right now, anything is good again and I can post some news.

In the meantime I’ve received several LP’s and I’ve chosen some of them to be introduced.


Art Blakey - The African Beat
January 24, 1962
One of the first was “Art Blakey and the Afro-Drum Ensemble – The African Beat (BN 4097)”.
This Session was released in 1962 and was something like a concept-album, ‘cause it brought together different musicians that were all associated with traditional African music or the new modern Afro-Jazz. Blakey himself liked the opportunity of bringing together African drummers and American Jazzmen like Yusef Lateef or Curtis Fuller.
This session is not really an oddity in the Blue Note Catalog, because they’ve already released “Palo Congo”, a session of Sabu Martinez in the 1950’s and another mixture of African music and Jazz by Kenny Dorham (Afro-Cuban Jazz). The future will also bring a record by African drummer Solomon Ilori who also took part in this session.
Like a real ensemble you have lots of different drums and other rhythm-instruments like tympani, gongs, chekeres, congas or maracas, but even Lateef contributes some blowing on tenor sax, flute and oboe to give the rhythms a jazz-feeling, even if it’s in an african vein.
Like Solomon Ilori was quoted in the liner notes, the listener can feel, that Blakey had the ideas of this fusion in his inner self, so there’s nothing fake within this music. It’s not an imitation of what is supposed to be African music. You can feel that this is true hearted and I guess that’s the key to this album. But I must admit, that I really get a kick out of the way, Blakey plays his drums. There’s a lot of shifting rhythms on the six tracks, but Blakey connects them all with his heavy bass-drum and the crashes or hitting the snares. But always the spiritual feel of the chanting voices and instruments stays obtained.
I guess, everyone is open to – like – world music should give this record a listen. The music is infecting.

Now the hard facts: The record itself is an original first pressing in excellent shape. Both sides do have the Plastylite-P, or the “Ear” how it is called and “Van Gelder” in the dead wax, as well as the “New York USA”-adress on both labels. The vinyl has nice lustre and very,very few background noise in quieter passages, no clicks or pops at all. It was packaged in it’s original inner-bag. The sleeve is in very good shape with only minor writing on the front and back-cover. No seam-splits and only minor dinged corners and the “43 West 61st”-adress.
Beautiful issue (with the smell of a washing-machine though).



Grachan Moncur III - Some other stuff
July 6, 1964
The next record that has arrived on my doorstep was Grachan Moncur III’s second effort for Blue Note: “Some other stuff (BST 84177)”.
Unfortunately, Moncur has only released two albums for Blue Note who all were not really successful at their time, but became quite scarce and expensive nowadays.
Moncur, who played trombone for Ray Charles, Art Farmer or Benny Golson is considered of being a modern jazz-musician in the jazz-avantgarde of the 1960’s. In the last days, I’ve read an interview, where Moncur claimed, that he was not aware of being an avantgardist – he just played the way he wanted to, without thinking about, that the sound should be avantgarde. He just wanted his sound to be evolving from the mainstream of other musicians. Without the honour he should have got in my opinion, he stayed pretty unknown and even if his two most known LP’s (the other one is “Evolution”) have been released by Blue Note, he didn’t really liked the situation there, even if it was one of the most satisfying situations in the retrospective.
If you’re interested in these rumors and the situation itself, you could read the fireside-chat with Moncur on http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=45.

Back to the music. In comparison to other Blue Note albums, “Some other stuff” of course is a “new thing”-record. As the liner notes by Don Heckman tell, “the compositions (…) run the gamut from traditional to the most unusual free improvisation.” I don’t think, that there could be written very much, because the music is thrilling and exciting and somehow it feels like spiritual playing. One oddity is, that “Nomadic” is almost an entire drum-solo (aside from some background-whistling and sporadic piano-interludes) by Tony Williams and maybe DJ Shadow could have get some breaks out of there.
The other musicians of this quintet are Wayne Shorter (tenor sax), Herbie Hancock (piano) and Cecil McBee (bass) – so I guess, this makes an avantgardish band though!

The record itself – and I need to say this again – is scarce in any condition and as any issue, so I'm really glad to have found this one.
It is a Liberty-pressing with “A Division of Liberty Inc.” on the blue/white-label. There is no other engraving in the dead-wax, than “BST-81477”. In comparison to other Liberty-blue/white-labels, that all have “Van Gelder”-engravings, the ink of the labels is darker, so maybe it’s not an USA-pressing. But the record is in NM shape with excellent sound, and that counts! The jacket is also in excellent condition with no adress on the lower back, but the Liberty-logo on top left.


Duke Pearson - Profile
October 29, 1959
Third one: “Duke Pearson – Profile (BN 4022)”.
Pearson became A&R of Blue Note Records, after Ike Quebec passed away and this trio-session was his 1959 debut for this record company. Alongside Pearson on the piano, there are Gene Taylor (Horace Silvers’ classic bassist) and Lex Humphries on the drums, who give accurate and sensitive support.
The music itself is not really outstanding, but Pearson shows, that he is a very nice, swinging but blues-rooted pianist with perfect fitting accompanists. Like Ira Gitler was writing in the liner notes and has been quoted on the cover (unique in the history of the Blue Note-Reid Miles-cover), Pearson is a “lyrical pianist with a fine sense of time and dynamics”. Tracks like “Gate city blues” are beautiful medium-tempo ballads and other pieces like the following “Two mile run” are uptempo-swingers that really do groove. In Gitler’s words, throughout the record you’ll find “ideas of clarity and brightness” as well as a “flowing, effortless swing”.
In my personal ranking of jazz-pianists, Duke Pearson is somewhere equal to McCoy Tyner, because both have a fine sense of playing the piano, even as accompanists and to not sound corny. Like Tyner on Turrentine’s “Walk on by” (one of the best examples in my opinion), Pearson always knows how to play the right tones on every single record, whether he combines Joe Henderson and Turrentine, or he is the pianist for Donald Byrd.
So this makes this trio-set highly enjoyable as well. Pearson is not boring but shows a fine sense and is laying a perfect cornerstone for future records.

The LP-issue is a good mixture of almost everything, Blue Note has to offer.
The excellent jacket is an original laminated one, but with the “43 West 61st” cognizable as a second, but original issue. The NM-record has the 47 West 63rd”-adress on both labels, but no “Ear” in the dead-wax, as well as “RVG” on one side and “Van Gelder” on the other one. So I guess, that this makes a Liberty-pressing with the original labels, although they have the Registred Trademark-symbol, too. And to make the confusion perfect, the record stuck in a “27 years Blue Note”-inner bag from 1966 (that needed to be taped).
This is pretty messed up, but as long as the record is fine, everything is good. ;)

Art Blakey - Moanin'

October 30, 1958
The next record is a classic one, maybe the best effort, Blue Note made in the last 1950’s and early 60’s: “Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – Moanin’ (BN 4003)”.
To be exact, the LP is called “Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers”, but Moanin’ became almost a hit, so that the record was called after this track. You can find later pressings, especially Dutch-issues, that have slight different cover artwork and they are called “Moanin’” on the cover.
This session features the first classic band (to speak in a Miles Davis tradition) with Morgan, Golson, Timmons and Merritt and Bobby Timmons wrote one of the most favourite Jazz-standards of all time: “Moanin’”! The other tunes are typical HardBop as well (I guess Blakey created the HardBop with this record) and one other interesting piece is “The Drum thunder suite”, which functions as a miniature suite, consisting of three different themes.

I already had a reissue of this record, but I had an opportunity to get hand on this original – but not first – pressing for like $5. The laminated heavy cover, with “43 West 61st”-adress is in good shape, with corner-dinges and some paper scuffs on the yellowed back. Although in good shape, as stated. The LP has “New York USA” and a Deep Groove on both labels, as well as the “Ear” and “RVG” in the dead-wax. The vinyl itself is hard to be described. It’s in fair shape with background noise throughout the whole record and minor clicks and pops.
To put it in a nutshell, my other copy will be the play-copy, but this was a low priced opportunity to get an original pressing just to get the feeling (and I knew, that it would be in bad shape). I once bought another small-priced record from the same seller, which was advertised as bad and turned out to be a flawless copy in my eyes, so that’s why I tried to be lucky once more.
And if I remember my copy of Lou Donaldson’s “Sunny Side up” – which was advertised as very good and was indeed one of the poorest records, I’ve ever seen – this one is still pretty good!
…but it’s sad, how records are treated sometimes over the years.

More to come tomorrow, as well as some pics, I hope. I just have to figure out, if I should post just straight pictures of the records and the jackets, but right now I guess I prefer some "artistic" angles. If you want to check out the covers of all Blue Note releases, go check www.gokudo.co.jp. Great page!