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Tone Poet Blue Notes

The Dexter is good, but that is never a surprise. A superb sounding record. I’m really interested to see if they squeeze anything more out of One Flight Up now, that one is possibly my favourite Blue Note.
 
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Graham H said:
Interesting that your favourite BN isn’t a Van Gelder recording. Shock horror!
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I’d never even noticed that! I like it as it has much more room to stretch out than the usual three fairly short tracks a side. There are very few Blue Notes that do this to my knowledge. Full side-length tracks are far from uncommon in jazz, but I’m struggling to think of another on Blue Note until you get out to Donald Byrd’s Ethiopian Knights a lot later.
 
Tony L said:
I’m holding fire on the Lloyd for now, £50 is somewhat out of my comfort zone! Hopefully it will dip down a bit in time.
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I feel the same way. A few months ago I was stressing over spending £32 on a record but that feels almost normal now. I'm not sure I want £50 to become normal - that way madness and divorce lies.

Mind you this almost took me straight the "buy now" button.


And Lloyd looks super cool for an 80 year old
 
kjb said:
I feel the same way. A few months ago I was stressing over spending £32 on a record but that feels almost normal now. I'm not sure I want £50 to become normal - that way madness and divorce lies.

Mind you this almost took me straight the "buy now" button.


And Lloyd looks super cool for an 80 year old
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Look at it logically. It’s a double LP, so you’re saving money compared to a standard one LP Tone Poet. That’s around £14 to spend on something else.
 
Tony L said:
I’d never even noticed that! I like it as it has much more room to stretch out than the usual three fairly short tracks a side. There are very few Blue Notes that do this to my knowledge. Full side-length tracks are far from uncommon in jazz, but I’m struggling to think of another on Blue Note until you get out to Donald Byrd’s Ethiopian Knights a lot later.
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Cecil Taylor’s Conquistador (1966) has two pieces, one each side.
 
The title track from Lee Morgan's Search for the New Land ( also 1966) is a whole side.
Gordon's record was 1964 but Una Mas was 1963 so that must be the first example.
 
I clearly need that one too! I’ve got Unit Structures on CD but that’s it for Taylor on Blue Note.
 
Tony L said:
I clearly need that one too! I’ve got Unit Structures on CD but that’s it for Taylor on Blue Note.
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It would be nice to see either - or both - of the Taylor titles in the Tone Poet series. To my ears they are both very fresh sounding recordings in many ways. It’s also interesting that Blue Note, often criticised for being conservative by the mid 60s, managed to get Taylor on board when the new music compass at the time would have been pointing at ESP or even self release.

I also think they both sound great digitally (excepting the awful VG CDs). I’ve been listening to each recently 24-bit on Qobuz, even though I have 70s vinyl. And the Reid Miles artwork on both are two of my favourites. There is an obvious nod to Andy Warhol with Unit Stuctures, and interestingly Reid Miles and Warhol had collaborated on several projects. I wonder how that relationship worked out?
 
Graham H said:
It would be nice to see either - or both - of the Taylor titles in the Tone Poet series. To my ears they are both very fresh sounding recordings in many ways. It’s also interesting that Blue Note, often criticised for being conservative by the mid 60s, managed to get Taylor on board when the new music compass at the time would have been pointing at ESP or even self release.
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The one that never ceases to amaze me is Gill Evan’s follow-up to Out Of The Cool, Into The Hot, which a) doesn’t appear to feature Gill Evans beyond the front cover picture, and b) features a heck of a lot of Cecil Taylor! I’d love to know what was going on at Impulse that day!
 
Tony L said:
The one that never ceases to amaze me is Gill Evan’s follow-up to Out Of The Cool, Into The Hot, which a) doesn’t appear to feature Gill Evans beyond the front cover picture, and b) features a heck of a lot of Cecil Taylor! I’d love to know what was going on at Impulse that day!
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Well, Evans and Taylor fell out, but I don’t know anymore than that. I’m waiting for Cecil Taylor’s Mixed To Unit Structures Revisited CD on Ezz-thetics to arrive that contain the three Into The Hot pieces, I love those three pieces. I’m sure the story will be told in the liner notes. I’ll let you know.
 
RickyC6 said:
I have Unit Structures on original US mono. One of the craziest things I’ve ever heard. In a good way.
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I like mono, but after listening to Unit Structures in 24-bit and really appreciating the spatial aspects of the music and recording, I can’t imagine how it would work in mono. But I bet it’s dynamic.

Just to keep on Tone Poet track, there is speculation Unit Structures might be a Tone Poet to test the waters for more avant titles. But I repeat, it’s speculation. It would be nice to have the cover reproduced so well, and to see session photos of Cecil and co. Fingers crossed.
 
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Got I Can See Your House From Here playing now. Jeez..it’s off the scale isn’t it? More of this sort of thing please.
 
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