Announced on the Hoffman vanity board - ORG - Original Recordings Group - engage the Hoffman/Gray team to do a new series of vinyl reissues based on the Atlantic Jazz catalog and the Black Lion jazz catalog.
Sad. ORG has been distinguished till now for using the best remastering talent in the business - Bernie Grundman. Those ORG 45's by Grundman - the Coltrane/Impulse, the Getz Au Go Go, the Weather Report, Nirvana, and so many others have a transparency and tonality - and an honesty - that Hoffman can't go near. Remember how disastrously Hoffman screwed up "Coltrane" on a $50 AP reissue?
It's well known that Hoffman doesn't know or understand jazz. He fattens up the bass, scoops out the mids, and turns down the top end - he's scared shitless of sizzling cymbals, and he wants to make jazz sound like a groovy mellow so-cal country rock shit. The Music Matters series sounded much better than the AP Blue Notes because Ron Rambach and Joe Harley were in the room producing, making sure Hoffman didn't mess up. And the Music Matters reached a whole new level over the past couple of years when Hoffman got booted out and Gray started doing them without the Huff.
So why would Jeff Bowers engage this douche to remaster a new series? Huffy sure does need the work. Universal, Capitol/EMI, so many others have banned Hoffman from working on their titles. Seems Warners is pretty much all that is left. But Grundman sure does know the music better, and has not only a better studio, has better judgement in remastering. He's honest. He doesn't play to the gallery.
The answer can only be - Jeff Bowers is falling into the Hoffman forum bullshit. He's going for what he wrongly thinks is a social media audience that he wants to tap into. He's SOLD OUT.
Proof? Look at the post that the duplicitous Hoffman hits his lemmings with. "Forum friend Jeff Bowers" is how the Huffy describes him - a short time ago, Hoffman let his rabid followers shit all over Bowers and ORG in a terribly destructive way, as well as continually taking thinly veiled barbs at Grundman, purely out of jealousy. Now Hoffman gets a gig from Bowers - and they are forum buds.
I guess Bowers is the latest Stockholm Syndrome victim. That's how Hoffman operates - try to destroy if you aren't hiring him, best of pals and open doors to the Hoffman forum kingdom if you do. Kind of how the mob operates, when you think about it.
It's all pretty sick, and very sad. I feel sad for Bowers and ORG that he feels this is necessary, and that his standards have fallen so low. I have been a huge fan of ORG since day 1. I think I won't be alone in getting off the bus now that Bowers has joined this sick club.
Not that the music gives me much incentive. Black Lion is hardly a candidate for expensive audiophile treatment. For the most part, it's catalog is made up of American ex-pats recording in the UK or Europe during the mid to late 60's with local pickup players of distinctly average to low calibre. If you want to hear late Ben Webster blowing hot air into his mouthpiece backed by some local hacks, go for it. If you want to hear Dexter blowing hard and backed by a four-square rhythm section, be my guest. There is so much better material by any artist on Black Lion - and much better recorded - to be mined. Most, of course, not accessible to Hoffman. Black Lion did have an avant garde imprint, Freedom, that was picked up by Arista - red hot stuff by Marion Brown, Archie Shepp, Charles Tolliver, Randy Weston, many others - all in their 1970's true prime. This stuff would all be very worthwhile, totally not commercially viable as audiophile reissues, and in any event, outside enough that Hoffman would totally screw them up.
Black Lion is very, very minor stuff for extreme completists only. The jewels in European jazz, aside from ECM, are Steeplechase and MPS. Now...if Bowers did some Steeplechase...we would seriously be talking.
Atlantic jazz is just as chequered - there are some obviously gigantic recordings by Coltrane, Coleman, MJQ, Charles Lloyd, Rahssaan - and some of the later stuff by Eddie Harris, Les McCann, Herbie Mann and others are very good. Problem with Atlantic was Joel Dorn, who didn't met a recording session he didn't want to fuck up with strings, horn sections, and other crap - he ruined most of Yusef Lateef's 1970's output, as well as a lot of Harris, Laws, and so many others. Most Atlantic were not all that well recorded, and the truth is - most Atlantic master tapes were lost in the infamous warehouse fire decades ago. So one has to wonder what Hoffman will be remastering from, anyways.
There really isn't that much Atlantic 60's stuff that hasn't been reissued to death, and in the 70's the crown jewel of American jazz is without a doubt the Milestone catalog. Why not REALLY break the mold and do a Milestone reissue series?
All in all, I think Hoffman sums this situation up well when he claims:
"I asked OrgMusic why they wanted these to be mastered by us (usually they would use Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman in Hollywood). I was told that "Hoffman/Gray are dialed in to what audiophiles want to hear- and we want our stuff to stand apart. Steve and Kevin mastered our best sounding record ever- Rickie Lee Jones- Pop Pop- people still talk about it- and we pressed it at Pallas. We broke the mold- now I want to do that again". "
Bullshit, Steve. You didn't ask Bowers why they wanted you. You asked them for a promo blurb to post on your forum. ORG already stood out - Grundman, exciting, often off beat titles, wide range of genres, and great pressings. There is nothing in Black Lion or that hasn't been done with Atlantic that remotely breaks any mold. And another sly little insinuation there that Chris Bellman isn't as "dialed in" as the great Herr Huffmein is. Cheap shit. Bellman doesn't do much ORG anyways, Stevie, Grundman does. But you really wouldn't know, would you?
Now ORG have dumbed down and don't stand out at all.
If ORG does any Atlantic Ray Charles, just make sure Hoffman doesn't cut up the master tape, ok?
