Comments on: From JRC: Lee Morgan, Hank Mobley, Sonny Rollins

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:31:02 +0000

RAF —

Thanks for the views on Mr. DuNann. Agree with your opinion — he’s really talented and you don’t hear much about his contribution. You seem a very knowledgeable collector and I enjoy reading your posts and many of the opinions and views of the other posters on this site.

Kind regards from NYC

Brian

By: Rudolf A. Flinterman

Rudolf A. Flinterman — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:26:47 +0000

CR’s Engineer Roy DuNann has been taken for granted. He was the RvG of the West Coast. Rollins’ “Way Out West” is a standing monument to Roy’s artistic and technical prowess.
Brian: congratulations on winning “Earthy”, a great record.
New Jazz was a great idea that, alas, lasted only a couple of years. Esmond Edwards of NJ launched Eric Dolphy. They did some other very interesting things, as you stated, with the same good old RvG, and the same tools.

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:51:11 +0000

Guys

I prefer many of the Prestiges as well. Prestiges and Blue Notes were recorded at the same Van Gelder studio, using the same mics, tape deck and engineer (RVG) and both sound great (although for me, the Contemporary label is the engineering/sound quality leader). And sometimes there is something to be said for the spontaneity of jazz masters coming in with limited or no rehearsal; a certain magic sometimes gets captured on tape. I bought the “Earthy” in the recent sweedeedee auction and am happy to have it. Also love the New Jazz original issue stuff — especially stuff like Looking Ahead (Ken McIntyre/Eric Dolphy).

Kind regards —

Brian

By: Rudolf A. Flinterman

Rudolf A. Flinterman — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 15:39:37 +0000

We are in unisono! Thanks. Thank you also for mentioning “Triple Exposure”, a very fine album in the same league as “The Jon Eardley Seven”, later “Down East” on PRLP 7033. The fact that you mentioned Hal was a reason to play his album and enjoy it.
It is true, Mobley’s Message # 1 and # 2 are often overlooked. Although on paper # 2 looks stronger (the presence of K.D.), I have always, for no obvious reason, preferred # 1.
Do you know “Coolin'” by Teddy Charles, I. Suleiman, John Jenkins, Mal Waldron, very valuable music in the same vein as “OLIO”. A confrontation of ideas and styles. Prestige/New Jazz 8216, recorded 14/4/57. Also very much overlooked. And what about “The Cats”, NJ 8217 ??
I’ll stop here.

By: Michel

Michel — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 11:39:44 +0000

And i still agree with you Rudolf : because of the extra tudio time (and i confirm Cuscuna is the source for this), too many people have come to the conclusion that Prestige album were made of bowing sessions. The albums you quote are very well prepared ones. We can also think about the two Mobley sessions, (7061 et 7082) which are very fine nd often forgotten even in (bad) books about MObley), or Triple exposure by HalMcKusick, for instance. And yes, the variety of artists and styles is wider at Prestige in the years 1958-1959 than at Blue Note. After that, Blue Note seems to be more innovative.

By: Rudolf A. Flinterman

Rudolf A. Flinterman — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 08:11:40 +0000

Hi Dave,

I heard this story about extra studio time at Blue Note over and over again. It was launched by Cuscuna I think and it keeps coming up. It may even have been true on occasions.
Anyway, such Prestige sessions as, e.g. Saxophone Colossus, Rollins + 4, Mal/1,2,3 and 4, Gil Evans 7120, The Prestige Jazz Quartet (with or without Teo Macero), MJQ 7005, OLIO, For Lady, Coltrane 7105, all the Mellé sessions, Mating Call, Lacy plays Monk, etc. etc, have in no way suffered from a lack of preparation.
Buy as many Prestige albums as you can, now that they are still relatively cheap.
To answer your question, in the heydays of post bop (which is the consolidated music as exemplified by the classic Miles Davis qnt, the Clifford Brown/Max Roach qnt, before the New Thing and before the Soul business)- so the period 1955 to 1958- one cannot say that Prestige trails Blue Note or vice versa. Both made very valuable contributions in recording old and new talent.
My initial remark was that Blue Note is very uniform in its repertoire opposed to Prestige, which offers more variety (see the ones I mentioned hereinabove).

By: DaveS

DaveS — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 02:51:25 +0000

I agree. There’s only so much Shirley Scott (or Jimmy Smith) a man can handle.

Do you believe that the quality of the Prestige music trailed BN? I have read that at BN the musicians got some studio time to work things out in advance, while Prestige favored more of the show up and blow sessions.

I still buy as many Prestige records as I can. It just seems that release for release on average, the BN’s are better. Again. Maybe this is the post-1959 shift you are referring to.

By: Rudolf A. Flinterman

Rudolf A. Flinterman — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:15:57 +0000

Michel, I agree: Prestige went downhill after 1958/9 when they had discovered the organ/tenor market, which became a cash cow. Their affiliate New Jazz took over for a while with innovative and valuable productions (Dolphy, O. Nelson, Benny Golson, Jaki Byard, K.D.) before becoming a re-issue label. And then Prestige/New Jazz was over, finished, Blue Note indeed becoming the leader label. Looking forward to Al’s comments on diversity in the crucial 1956/8 period and the explanation of the prevailing Blue Note-mania.

By: Michel

Michel — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:06:18 +0000

I think that Prestige in the 50’s is equivalent in quality to Blue Note : fines covers (many from Reid Miles), fine artists, and yes, sometimes, more surprise on the music. This not true however for the 63-65 period, when Blue Note recorded many talented “post bop” innovators like the “second”McLean, Hill, Moncur, Tony Williams or Dolphy’s Out to lunch. IMO in the beginning of the sixties Blue Note was (esthtically speaking) the leader label.

By: Rudolf A. Flinterman

Rudolf A. Flinterman — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:59:50 +0000

Swedish seller “sweedeedee” has put on sale some interesting middle period Prestige albums: Gil Mellé, Earthy and many more.
I cannot conceal (at the risk of going against the fashionable trend of Blue Note-mania) that I have always favoured Prestige’s output, in the years 1955 to roughly 1958, to Blue Note’s. Prestige being very open to diversity: Raney/Burrell, Phil Woods/Jackie McLean, Phil/Quill, composer/pianist Mal Waldron in various groups, Miles, Coltrane/Rollins/Zoot/Cohn/Mobley, Teo Macero, Interplay (Trane/Jaspar), Flanagan/Wallington etc., whereas Blue Note’s output in the same period was single-lined, without diversity.
I think the current Blue Note-mania was created by very intelligent marketing of the Mosaic people, who created the myth or was it Japanese idolatry??