Last year I wrote about the Heavenly Sweetness vinyl label out of France, where the real jazz is still happening. Their first batch of Blue Note titles was adventurous and generally very well done, but let down by the shitty inner sleeves they used that caused a lot of damage to the otherwise high quality pressings.
I got some of the latest 2011 batch recently, and that is all fixed - they now come in a high quality polylined inner, quite thick - better, actually, than the poly lined inners I regularly get from American manufacturers. So here we have a very high quality product in every respect - so on to the music.
This latest batch is still quite adventurous, the Blue Mitchell "Bring It Home To Me" is a great middle Blue Note date with the great Junior Cook on tenor, Harold Mabern at the piano, and Gene Taylor & Billy Higgins bringing up the rear. Th sound is uniformly excellent - vibrant, detailed, deep - clear, with a solid bottom and a good midrange presentation - more extended than an original Blue Note, a bit less warm and fuzzy, all around a great example of modern analog vinyl mastering. Mitchell has long been under-rated (some of his later Mainstream label are even better than his more conservative BN's), Cook is, well...a cooker. He's hot here. Mabern is funkily punchy, and Higgins is an always reliable groover. Highly recommended.
Out of another planet is Sam Rivers great "Contours", probably his finest Blue Note recording. Although Fuschia Swing Song is regarded more highly by many in the more conservative BN crowd, Contours is much more representative of Rivers' vision, and has a better supporting cast - Hancock, Carter and Chambers. This record is at once free, swinging, deeply exploratory, and solidly in the mainstream of the mid-60's avant-garde that follows records like Crescent, Out To Lunch and the like. It's great, great record and essential to any good collection.
Heavenly Sweetness has given Contours all the love it deserves, the original NY BN I have here is very good, but lacks on the bottom end - no doubt that is what the tapes give. Here, Carter is somewhat more forward, but not so much so that one would think an artificial bass boost has been given. Rivers' great tone - on tenor, he used at this point a 1950's SML tenor that had a bigger bore and consequently a darker tone than the typical Selmer MkVI most tenors used, and that shows here well as it should.
Both highly recommended, particularly the Rivers. Look for Duke Pearson's The Phantom to come soon. Although overall the sound of these can't quite match the exemplary Music Matters 45 rpm BN series, it comes very close to the Analogue Productions BN's - and bests that series by many light years in choice of titles.
