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Joe Henderson: The Complete Joe Henderson Blue Note Studio Sessions
by Scott Gudell
If an artist stamps his jazz passport with any one of these labels--Blue Note, Verve, Milestone--it's pretty much a guarantee that you've arrived in style. Tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson has traveled with all three and more. The 2021 reissue from the prestigious Mosaic Records focuses on Henderson's 1960s tenure with Blue Note offers a new opportunity to experience an abundance of rich and creative jazz from the decade. Big band and bop were duking it out in the ...
read moreHank Mobley: The Complete Hank Mobley Blue Note Sessions 1963-70
by C. Andrew Hovan
The music world has changed considerably since Michael Cuscuna and Charlie Lourie founded their boutique reissue label Mosaic Records back in 1983. From its inception, vinyl was still the preferred format, shortly to be overtaken by the popularity of the compact disc. At the cusp of vinyl's recent resurgence, Mosaic briefly got back into that format only to find themselves on the brink of closing up shop. Fortunately, the powers that be have forged on and recent CD boxed sets ...
read moreLee Morgan: The Sidewinder
by Greg Simmons
Legend tells us that 1964's The Sidewinder was the album, and indeed the song, which saved Blue Note Records at a time when the label was struggling financially. Dashed off to fill some tape, at the end of the recording session, it peaked at number 25 on the Billboard chartsalmost unheard of for a hard-bop recordstabilizing the label's finances as well as providing Lee Morgan with steady royalties for the remainder of his tragically abbreviated life. Although the ...
read moreDavid Lee Jr.: Evolution
by AAJ Italy Staff
Collezionisti, diggers, cercatori di pepite sonore, alfieri delle limited editions, unitevi! La sempre straordinaria etichetta londinese Soul Jazz ripesca dall'oscurità questa gemma realizzata nel 1974 in poche centinaia di copie [etichetta autoprodotta, ovviamente, la Supernal Records] dal batterista David Lee Jr. Originario di New Orleans, ma pienamente calato nell'atmosfera di ricerca black della Grande Mela a cavallo tra gli anni Sessanta e i Settanta [ha suonato con Roy Ayers e Lonnie Liston Smith, solo per citarne due], Lee Jr. fonde ...
read moreGrant Green: Matador
by Matt Marshall
Grant Green Matador Blue Note / Music Matters 2009 (1964)
This may be the reissue of 2009: a resplendent vinyl pressing of guitarist Grant Green's Matador on two 180-gram, 45-rpm records from Music Matters. This May 1964 recording was, like many Blue Note sets, not released until many years later (November 1979 in Japan in this case) and only reached the U.S. on CD in 1990. It has not been remastered since. The record ...
read moreLee Morgan: The Gigolo
by Samuel Chell
Lee Morgan The Gigolo Blue Note Records 2007
As we observe the 35th anniversary (Feb. 19) of the death of the talented trumpeter who would also become the major player in one of American music's more noteworthy Frankie and Johnny stories, the title of this Lee Morgan session and several others (The Tom Cat, The Rajah, The Procrastinator) take on a note of eponymous self-characterization, if not ghoulishly ironic subtext. Regrettable or not, the ...
read moreLee Morgan: The Gigolo
by Chris May
Hard bop's baddest trumpeter, Lee Morgan, may never quite have topped his iconic '63 masterpiece, The Sidewinder, but he came pretty damn close on a couple of occasions. The Gigolo is one of them, and it's been reissued as part of the ongoing Rudy Van Gelder remaster series. The album's menacing, visceral vibe has never sounded more powerful or engaging.
With The Sidewinder ringing cash registers across the US and Europe, there was a temptation for Morgan and Blue Note ...
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