New Blue Note – No Really
Such has been the sheer volume of Blue Note reissues over the past 18 months, weary jazz fans may have missed a truly important new release that came out in July – a never before pressed album by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – “Just Coolin'”. The album, that featured a very short lived version of the JM that featured Hank Mobley on tenor (replaced soon after by Wayne Shorter), Lee Morgan on Trumpet, Blakey on drums, Jymie Merritt on bass and Bobby Timmons on piano, was recorded by Van Gelder in March 1959 but was never released (not even on Mosaic in the 1980s). The story is that Blue Note recorded the group a couple of weeks later at Birdland, playing four of the tunes in this studio set, released as “Meet you at the jazz corner of the world” in two volumes (recently reissued as a Blue Note 80) and the perceived superiority of the live versions made the studio album redundant. So, off the shelf have come these pristine tapes (that haven’t been run through machines 100 times like all the other BN albums), with new cover art and liner notes by Bob Blumenthal (it must have been a singular honour to write the notes for an original 1950s Blue Note!).
So, what’s it like? Firstly – recent BN reissues have had two quality levels – the beautifully pressed, gatefolded Music Matters-like Tone Poets, and the extremely variable quality, 140g (sometimes in sandpaper) Blue Note 80s. This album is a hefty flat 180g, in a plastic lined inner sleeve wrapped in a cheap cardboard cover that was dented in creasemarks when delivered to me in a plastic envelope from Amazon (weird right? Often single records arrive in gargantuan boxes from Amazon). Mastered for vinyl (but not CD or streaming) by Kevin Gray, the sound is exceptional for the era. The songs – 4 by Hank Mobley and 1 by Bobby Timmons (plus one of unknown provenance) are exciting straight ahead hard bop originals that will be familiar to those who enjoyed “Meet Me”. The studio versions are shorter, but easily as enjoyable.
This album is great, and strongly recommended. It will sell by the truckload – but be careful – pressed at Optimal (Germany), there will be a few duds out there (I was not impressed with Optimal’s quality control for the first round of BN 80s – it has definately improved with subsequent releases). Finally, I know Art Blakey would have been 100 this year – but 5 releases with another Tone Poet to go this year? Perhaps Don Was might look around at other BN artists – plus those on allied labels (how about “Modern Art” by Art Pepper – that was reissued at one stage on BN – or any of the Pacific Jazz releases?).
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