Blue Note 80th Anniversary.

[Vicov]

I couldn’t let this milestone (excuse the pun) year pass without a mention. Indeed, I spent the last wet weekend foraging the depths of Qobuz exploring the Blue Note catalogue and there is a real treasure trove of music there. A perfect source to fill the gaps in your collection.
As my guide & inspiration, I used the “Cover Art of Blue Note Records” book which is bursting with album artwork. Every Jazz lover should own a copy.

 

[astrotoy]

I just spent the weekend spinning tapes at the California Audio Show. Among the tapes we played for the attendees were mix tapes from the Tape Project catalogue, put together by Paul Stubblebine of the Tape Project. We heard excerpts from several great jazz albums including three from the Blue Note catalogue: Jimmy Smith - The Sermon, Lee Morgan The Sidewinder, and Kurt Elling - Flirting with Twilight. The excerpts were dubbed from the original master tapes! to one-inch running masters and then to the 1/2" mix tape (all at 15ips 2track). We also heard excerpts from Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Collossus, Nat King Cole and George Shearing, Kenny Burrell and John Coltrane, and Bill Evans Trio - Waltz for Debby on other labels, also from the original master tapes to one-inch to 1/2 inch. We used an Ampex ATR-102 playing through the Doshi 3.0 preamp. You can see the setup on another thread one called "Tape Spinning at the California Audio Show..." Blue Note sure had the artists and the engineers.

Larry