MUSIC MATTERS ELVIN JONES 'GENESIS' - Best Music Matters so far!!

Just announced as coming in July, so I'll give my thoughts on the new Music Matters 45 vinyl of Elvin Jones "Genesis", from the test pressing shown in the picture on the left.

In a word - this is AWESOME. Without a doubt, this is the best sounding Music Matters reissue to date, and that is saying a lot in such distinguished company.

First - a note to Hoffmanites. There is ECHO on this record - yes!! Artificial echo!! Like they did in the mid 70's and such! So go crazy obsessive right now and get over it.

There's nothing Music Matters have done that sounds anywhere remotely like this one. Elvin positively thunders all over it. I've never heard him so powerfully rendered on record. The impact of his kick drum is physically tangible, and there has been no unfortunate attempt to take the sizzle off his cymbal work (and Elvin knew cymbals better than anyone). Gene Perla's bass is just so powerful and present, and tight, and full. It has a real bass power like no other Blue Note. And that three horn front line!

When I put on Side 1, opening with Frank Foster's alto flute solo, my 6 year old daughter came down two flights of stairs and stood in front of the speakers, transfixed, without saying a word.

Any record that can pull a six year old so totally under it's spell is a rare achievement.

I can't say enough good things about "Genesis" - you just simply have to get past any false notion that Blue Note in the 70's is in any way lesser than the grandpa stuff from the 50's and early 60's. Compared to the good, but rather staid and straight ahead "Putting It Together", "Genesis" is by light years a superior record.

I totally get the Music Matters model. mix it up with a fair bit of "classic" 50's and early 60's stuff to play to the old white male audience that stopped evolving musically around 1965 (if they ever really evolved at all), and throw in some more advanced material but of a very 'classic' nature, timeless early avant garde Blue Notes such as Point Of Departure, Inner Urge, Out To Lunch, and so on.

That's all to the good. It gets some stuff that the "base" probably wouldn't otherwise go for and expands the horizons, without going to far out. no one else would have the courage to do these titles.

The downside is that, of the artists that conservative base thinks of as being "out", like Sam Rivers, Andrew Hill, Elvin Jones, Larry Young etc., the titles are their most conservative - and not necessarily their best. Fuchsia swing Song is a great record, but Contours is much better. Point of Departure is impossible to argue against, yet Judgement and Smokestack are IMO superior. Unity may be a classic, but Peace On Earth is ultimately more satisfying. And on it goes, even into the 'staple' Blue Note artists - early Turrentine, for example, well mined by Classic, Analogue Productions and Music Matters - is nowhere near later stuff like Common Touch, or his CTI material. Turrentine simply didn't become a fully formed player until after Blue Note. Later Horace Silver is similarly more advanced and satisfying - In Pursuit of the 27th Man, for example, or Serenade To A Soul Sister. Wayne Shorter's best Blue Note is "Schizophrenia", but just the title may hit too close to home for the Hoffman forum types.

There are even some odd choices in the premium reissue business, again, presumably aimed at satisfying the conservative old guy limitations - Art Blakey's all time stone classic "Mosaic" is nowhere to be found, yet the rather weak "Like Someone In Love" is slated for reissue soon.

Yet here we have "Genesis" - and it stands out like a beacon, it is glorious, it transcends any limiting definition, it is essential.

Order it now. It will be the reissue of the year, and it will sell out fast.

Now - Joe and Ron - how about looking into "Polycurrents" and "Coalition" as well? Keep digging into the 70's Blue Note. It's sadly neglected and there are gems there that far exceed anything BN did before. Like "Genesis".

While I'm showing some test pressings of Music Matters material, I hope I'm not breaking any confidence by turning to the Music Matters 45 vinyl of Art Blakey's "Indestructible". Since I mention "Like Someone In Love" already, with a bit of mild disrespect as I consider it an inferior title ( "Mosaic" would have been a hugely better choice) I think it fair that I whet a little Blakey appetite for what may be his finest hour on record ( or 40 minutes or so, anyways) - "Indestructible".

If you want to hear thunder and lightning, look no further than the opener "The Egyptian". Blakey drops bombs, and there is a Curtis Fuller trombone solo that has so much color and tonal edge that it almost pops the left speaker. Hoffman's fear of high end cymbal sizzle is fortunately nowhere to be found here - Blakey's cymbals are sizzling hot, rightly so.

I'll have more on "Indestructible" when it gets nearer to release, but suffice to say at this point that "Indestructible" in many ways marked the end of a certain period for Blue Note, is a high point both for the label and for Blakey himself, was a new starting point for Lee Morgan and a point of departure for Wayne Shorter, and will definitely be a high point for Music Matters.