It's been awhile since I checked in on Music Matters and their Blue Note 45 rpm vinyl series. Two of hottest have been on my table a lot lately - Wayne Shorter's first BN "Night Dreamer" with Tyner, Elvin, Morgan, and Workman. A great early session, it really needs no introduction. Morgan is perhaps the best trumpet foil for Shorter. The Coltrane rhythm section gives a nice Crescent-era vibe to things. Shorter's tunes are great. Although this is perhaps Shorter's most conservative, straight BN record, it is very worthy of the Music Matters treatment, and here (unlike Juju IMO) the team gets the sound nearly perfect - Shorter's dry tone is well reproduced, as is Morgan's hot sound, the cymbal work of Elvin is prominent and well integrated, the piano sound is natural. Without a doubt the best this record has ever sounded, and a sure sell out if it hasn't happened already. So get it.
And while you're at it, lobby Music Matters for Shorter's greatest Blue Note record - "Schizophrenia" which contrary to the cover and title, is a harmonically and compositionally advanced session that is still highly accessible, swings like a mf, and is the one I keep coming back to most often.
How about it, Ron and Joe? Schizophrenia. Bring it back.
On to Grachan Moncur's "Evolution", again with Lee Morgan, and with Jackie McLean's alto, Bobby Hutcherson, Tony Williams and the always reliable Bob Cranshaw. It's clearly a seminal avant-garde date. McLean's tart tone is well reproduced, but I had a slight - very slight - sense that the sound here fell into Hoffman's unfortunate tendency to make things too polite, and also perhaps his unfamiliarity with avant garde black classical music. It ain't the opera here, and it sure as hell isn't going to work as background to an elegant suburban dinner party either. It's hard, tough, warm, vibrant, uncompromising music that DEMANDS the listener's complete absorption. As opposed to, say, a Three Sounds record, or a BN Grant Green, it's an out of body listen, rather than an experience in the body. It's out. It's fantastic. It'll take you places you'll never find again.
Most remarkable about this record is Bobby Hutcherson's vibes. They have a unique combination sonically of a metallic, percussive warmth that no other version of Evolution can get close to.
But then again...the sound of those vibes on Music Matters "Destination Out" by Jackie McLean eclipses even what is on Evolution, but that's a story for another day (soon).
If you haven't got Night Dreamer yet, get it now. If you have the spirit to go to an even more out of the way place, get Evolution too.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar