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.