Bleaden is back at the Chicken Shack!

Ok

It has been a while!

I have been here and listening a plenty.

I have spent the last 2 years going back deep in to my Blue Note collection and rediscovering some of the classics that I had forgotten about courtesy of time spent with an MP3 player which was big enough to give me a random Radio Blue Note ability.

In practice that has meant rediscovering the following

 

The Three Sounds..from the early 60's

These have always had a special place in my collection as their LPs and then subsequently the CDs were hard to find

Talking of hard to find..saw this which was great from the japanese gokudo site

Now I had always been aware of Blue Note 45's. Even had a few in my time such as this beauty which cost me greatly years ago and then I remember giving it away to a new fan as I had got hold of the LP

However I was unaware of these lovely black and white rarities and some of the other European issues which were special covers I have never seen.

Donald Byrd

I can never listen to enough Donald Byrd but prior to Christmas this year I was at an event at Manchester which had music laid on by Manchester contact theatre and the DJ just happened to start playing some DB from the 70's. Well that was me lost for a week on the trail for my older Byrd whether electric or not. I have all his Blue Note material and even laid out for the excellent Mosaic box set of his sides with Pepper Adams that was a rare treat. Which was the same when I saw these

To more great sides of greater diversity by Byrd you will not get.

So yes.

I am back.

I have also found some more blogspots on jazz which I know folliw with keen interest such as the great Buns o Plenty and Van Groove Express.

Thanks to both of these people for a poke in the right direction back to my own collection.

What am I listening to right now on CD?

I would have loved to have been there for these nights as it is a brilliant set and I cherish the CDs. I used to have this and the other volume on a rare Japanese pressing which sounded brilliant but I sold them and bought lots of other Blue Notes including this on a twofer cd. Find it if you can.

My thoughts on the Bobby Hutcherson set from Mosaic Select

 Bobby Hutcherson Inner Glow  UPDATED 2011!

I took my time with this and savoured the delights of a mixture of Bobby Hutcherson’s style over the period of the 70’s covered by this set. I particularly enjoyed hearing Rosewood again from the LP Cirrus which has been missing along time from collection since I sold it back at the end of the 90’s. I also really enjoyed the chance to reacquaint myself with the very rare and hard to find sides from the LP Inner Glow pictured here which was never released save in Japan many years ago on Blue Note (Japan) GXF-3073:

I stumbled luckily enough on a burn from a friend on a cdr a few years ago which was a real collectors find for me as it was one of the Blue Notes that as an LP had eluded me and I was beginning to think that I would never hear it let alone see. I saw the cover once in the gorgeous Blue Note Album Cover Art book from the 90’s and that made the need to hear it even greater with the line up as it was.

The session is a strange one considering the era and those recordings made by Hutcherson either side of it. I am also lucky enough to have some of the live material from this era and earlier which has surfaced from time to time with Harold Land and it’s a record I would advise you buy the box set from Mosaic for alone without even the excellent Cirrus and the understated View from Inside and Waiting.

The playing is strong and I think still ranks slightly behind San Francisco for me in terms of my favourite Bobby Hutcherson record. With good strong support I would vote this the record session of the set with particularly strong playing from Hutcherson.

A final word from a friend of mine who after hearing my version of the LP last year spent the year trying to track down a clean and not too expensive copy on vinyl. His last chance saw a copy priced at a figure that would have bought the Hutcherson Mosaic Select AND the McCoy Tyner AND the Andrew Hill Solo work. Needless to say he plumped for the sets and saved a fortune and hopeful he was that some of the money would get back to the artists at least.

Now there is a positive thought!

FAST FORWARD TO 2011 

I heard this again after a long spell following listening to a couple of rare live dates that were recorded with Harold Land during 1969 and 1970 around Europe.  They were themselves fabulous dates with some really timeless pieces that somebody at least had the sense to record. 

After listening to them I had to root out the Mosaic set again and I have to say I was bowled over by this again. 

Hunt it out if you can ...hope you enjoy it as much as I did again!

By the way I did a bit of searching around and found some more artwork

Andy