Tag Archives: Vinyl

Vinyl Spotlight: Blue Mitchell, The Thing to Do (Blue Note 4178) Original Mono Pressing

  • Original 1965 mono pressing
  • “NEW YORK USA” on both labels
  • Plastylite “P” etched and “VAN GELDER” stamped in dead wax
  • “43 West 61st St., New York 23” address on jacket

Personnel:

  • Blue Mitchell, trumpet
  • Junior Cook, tenor sax
  • Chick Corea, piano
  • Gene Taylor, bass
  • Al Foster, drums

Recorded July 30, 1964 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Originally released May 1965

Selection: “Step Lightly” (Henderson)

For Collectors

If you’ve read my first “Perspective” article here on Deep Groove Mono, you already know the story of how I acquired this record, which is special to me because it was the first vintage Blue Note album I ever heard that truly embodied the legendary “Blue Note sound”. And how about that cover? The symmetry, the cool blue on the dead black background, and the detailed shot of Blue’s hands on his trumpet make for a winning combination in my book.

For Music Lovers

I’m a huge Horace Silver fan, and I have always enjoyed the work of Blue Mitchell and tenor saxophonist Junior Cook as members of the Horace Silver Quintet. Mitchell had been working with Silver for four solid years the first time he entered the studio as a leader for Blue Note in August 1963 for a session including Joe Henderson and Herbie Hancock (for some reason, the recordings were shelved for nearly two decades). Two months later in the fall of ’63 though, Blue, Junior, and Quintet bassist Gene Taylor would have their last hurrah recording with Silver on a date producing two takes which would eventually find their way to Song for My Father. I haven’t read anything regarding the musicians’ parting of ways, but one can only guess it was peaceful, especially in light of the fact that Blue had jammed with Henderson, Cook’s replacement, before Silver.

Nine months later in the summer of 1964, Blue, 34 at the time, got Cook and Taylor together with a couple bright and budding musicians who would go on later to obtain global exposure with Miles Davis. 23-year-old Chick Corea had only recorded a handful of times when he arrived at Englewood Cliffs that day, and the 21-year-old Al Foster had yet to even set foot in a recording studio. But the pair rose to the challenge of this big-league outing with grace and poise, and their youthful energy ultimately steal the show on The Thing to Do.

If you think the head of the album opener, “Fungii Mama”, sounds zany or perhaps even corny, don’t let it deter you so quickly. Cook leads off with an inspiring solo, and Blue provides a fun improvisation of his own songwriting work. Corea eventually delivers a solo that is both fun and ambitious, and Foster follows with a challenging juxtaposition of the downbeat that causes the head to make a startling and exciting return. It’s a real treat to hear the young drummer’s rock-solid, driving latin rhythm throughout, and the tension created by each return to the bridge is a most welcome harmonic excursion.

My personal pick though is “Step Lightly”. The song was first recorded on the aforementioned 1963 date with Henderson and Hancock, but the overall vibe remains the same here. This track never really stood out to me until I recently heard it on a cloudy weekday afternoon off from work. The lazy tempo and bluesy melody complemented the mood so perfectly I instantly felt like I understood Henderson’s intentions as the song’s composer.

Sonically, this album is an example of Rudy Van Gelder at his best. The recording giant got a very nice piano sound here, and the natural reverberation of the Englewood Cliffs studio sounds heavenly, especially during Foster’s solo on “Fungii”. For those who don’t know, I’m a drum guy, and as such I recommend paying close attention to how tight and well-tuned Foster’s tom-toms sound here. (That’s one thing I love about classic jazz: the drum kits were made with care, the drummers took their craft seriously enough to tune their kits regularly, and you can hear the difference!)

Overall, I think the songwriting on this album is solid (Jimmy Heath’s title track included), and it gives us a rare glimpse of the vigorous, hungry duo of Corea and Foster on a straight-ahead bop date preceding their respective moves into free jazz and fusion. I personally need to be in the right mood to enjoy a record like The Thing to Do with its don’t-take-yourself-too-seriously-type attitude. But when I’m in that mood, these sides are as good as any.

Vinyl Spotlight: Sonny Rollins, A Night at the Village Vanguard (Blue Note 1581) Liberty Mono Pressing

Collection Favorites >
  • Liberty pressing ca. 1966-70 (mono)
  • “RVG” stamped in dead wax

Personnel:

All but “A Night in Tunisia”:

  • Sonny Rollins, tenor saxophone
  • Wilbur Ware, bass
  • Elvin Jones, drums

“A Night in Tunisia” only:

  • Sonny Rollins, tenor saxophone
  • Donald Bailey, bass
  • Pete La Roca, drums

Recorded live at The Village Vanguard, New York City, November 3, 1957
Originally released December 1957

1 Old Devil Moon
2 Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise
3 Striver’s Row
4 Sonnymoon for Two
5 A Night in Tunisia
6 I Can’t Get Started

Selection:

“Sonnymoon for Two” (Rollins)

Thelonious Monk once said that he thought of his studio albums as advertisements for his live performances. John Coltrane expressed a similar sentiment during a radio interview in Japan when he said, “Some of (my best music) hasn’t been recorded. Recordings always make you, just a little bit, tighten up.” Though we all know that the recording sessions responsible for our favorite classic jazz albums captured phenomenal studio performances, it makes sense to me that a live performance might — according to the artist — guarantee a slightly greater degree of authenticity.

Perhaps Monk and Trane are offering some insight into why an album like A Night at the Village Vanguard sounds so real and so raw. Rollins was a music rebel: I like to think of him as the most “punk rock” of all the bop greats (he even sported a mohawk over a decade before the inception of punk). He was also an insatiable innovator, so much that he went on a three-year hiatus from public and studio appearances because he was dissatisfied with his own progress as an artist. By 1957, it was apparent that Rollins felt confined to the underlying harmonic structure naturally imposed on him by piano accompaniment. His solution as a leader? Get rid of the piano player. Rollins recorded his first entire LP without keys in March of that year (Way Out West, Contemporary 3530), and on this November Vanguard date he decided to expand on the idea with two different rhythm duos during the afternoon and evening sets, respectively.

“Softly As in a Morning Sunrise” is a standout tune not only for the refreshingly humble solos from all three members of the evening trio (Rollins, Wilbur Ware, and Elvin Jones), but also for its sonic brilliance. I love how immediate and direct Rollins’ horn sounds (partly due to the lack of piano), and things are quiet enough during the bass and drum solos (audience included) for us to hear each and every nuance. I’ve always had a thing for drums, and Jones’ kit is astonishingly tight, tuned, and clear here — especially the bass drum. The only shortcoming is that the overhead miking of the drums tends to overload from time to time, resulting in the occasional distorted cymbal crash.

The complete survived takes from this session were first issued in 1999 on double-CD. Numbering triple the amount of songs here, this can be a daunting listen. I was first exposed to A Night at the Village Vanguard through the reissue, and as a record collector who has always approached music with a “less is more” mentality, I just focused on the original track listing anyway — which in all likelihood was carefully curated by Blue Note founder Alfred Lion. Someday I will probably get to a point where I feel familiar enough with this LP to move on to the rest of the reissue. But until then, I like that the record’s concise program naturally encourages me to focus more on the details of a smaller amount of material.