Quite bluntly, it seems to me that, despite the angst of a minority online who have chastised Music Matters for issuing titles that have previously been available on the Analogue Productions 45 rpm series (and the odd duck that Music Matters themselves issued at 45 rpm), Music Matters have done a real service to lovers of this incredible music by this select 33 rpm series. The sound is simply mind boggling.
Idle Moments was done at the AP 45 rpm series and screwed up by Hoffman. It sounds dull, muted, the timing is all off. Tempo Di Hoochie Koo, for whatever weird reason, Hoffman cut the top end, sucked out the upper mids, and completely messed up the inner timing. Music Matters get it right - more than right.
Just like the new MM Blue Train, this record just roars out of the speakers. It is immediately propulsive and powerful. The bass is strong and deep, but more importantly, has a sense of organic inner timing, of inner rhythm. Bobby Hutcherson is completely different than on the Hoffman incarnation - metallic, percussive, rich with overtones. Swinging, completely in the pocket. Joe Henderson's tone is deep, full of wood and spit. Green himself is just amazing - subtle, swinging, in a groove. This is hypnotic, dark, beautiful music that for once - maybe the first time since the original RVG (which it exceeds by a wide margin, by the way) this great music is presented as exactly what it was in the studio - a masterpiece of dark, understated, yet subversive 3 am soul.
Forget 45rpm, the Music Matters 33 rpm gets it right. My copy is a perfect pressing and worth every penny, it knocks the socks right off the Analogue Productions 45 rpm and costs $15 bucks less.
On to Tina Brooks - True Blue. If there ever was a national anthem of Blue Note, True Blue is it. The story of how Music Matters recreated the incredibly complex variations of the color blue on the front cover would be a book on it's own - the attention to detail in recreating this brilliant record, and the abandonment of any notion of cost efficiency in getting there, shows just how deep a love and commitment to Blue Note these fanatics have. This would be worth the $35 just for the cover, but on to the music.
Here, we have Music Matters own 45 rpm version to compare to. The first thing that hits me is the bass - the 45 sounds hollowed out, but on the new 33, it sound full, tuneful, and driving. Where on the 45, which in its own way sounds quite good, Tina's tone sounds like a weak Hank Mobley, here is sounds like it should - coming out of Bird, rich, urgent, insistent, swinging - and Freddie Hubbard no less so. While on the earlier MM Freddie, in comparison, was much less brash and brassy, here he is opened up and sounds huge, bright, right out front. As with the other Music Matters 33's, the soundstaging and complete disappearance of the room is astonishing - this just leaps right out in front, a massive three dimensional sound, so very alive that you can just reach out to the sound in front of you. You can literally see the ceiling on this record, and hear Freddie's wide open, big sound bouncing off.
Alfred Lion messed Tina Brooks around and never really gave him his due. He recorded Tina, and held stuff back to effectively starve him out and keep him out of the limelight. He was a problematic guy for sure, but so were half the artists on Blue Note, and Tina should have and could have been bigger than Hank Mobley.
Music Matters finally give Tina Brooks the tribute he is long overdue. This music has the street in it, and a joy that the previous Music Matters only hinted at. This is 'the' True Blue.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar