It’s not news because everyone with an interest in jazz or design already knows: the Blue Note record label was in its prime one of the most perfectly made marriages of form and content, packaging and product ever devised, in any industry. Record collectors also know how tricky it can be to source the best vinyl versions of often rare back catalogue releases whose point of origin might have been France or Japan, the U.S. or U.K, or various points in between.
Now a solution of sorts has been arrived at with the creation of the Tone Poet Society, which is dedicated to producing extremely high quality reissues displaying impeccable attention to detail all the way along the line. Mastered from the original tapes, unlike almost all back catalogue titles in the current vinyl revival which routinely derive from a digital file (at worst just a straight bog-standard copy of an out of copyright source, with poor facsimile of the original cover), Tone Poet releases come with impressive provenance. Chosen by the titular ‘Tone Poet’ Joe Harley and mastered from the original tapes by Kevin Gray of Cohearant Audio, its releases are pressed onto 180 gram vinyl platters (complete with the classic original Blue Note labels) and housed in protective inner sleeves and stiff cardboard covers , in proper commodity-fetishism style. There’s even a Tone Poet Society subscription service (only available in the US at present) whereby members can receive special shipments of titles throughout the year, plus extras, for around thirty-odd dollars a disc, depending on the plan.
These two new Tone Poet titles (another two arrive later this month) are well up to the mark, displaying their superior manufacturing to considerable effect. One is also of real historical interest, while the other exemplifies Blue Note’s habitual virtues (unlike other small jazz companies, Blue Note normally paid for a day’s rehearsal as well as recording) in transforming what would for most other labels have been a workaday run of the mill release into a work of art. In the former camp is the classic ‘Blues in Trinity’ by the Jamaican-born trumpet star Dizzy Reece. This was recorded in 1958 not in the usual location of Rudy Van Gelder’s Hackensack, New Jersey studio, but the north London studios of Decca Records. The original session was produced by the esteemed Tony Hall, of Decca’s Tempo label and much else, a vitally important figure in English jazz, pop and R&B, who died in 2019 aged 91, with the London recording then licensed to Blue Note, re-engineered by Van Gelder, and released in 1959.
Alphonso Son ‘Dizzy’ Reece, who is still alive aged 94 in New York, was a graduate of Kingston’s Alpha School like fellow Jamaican jazzmen Joe Harriott and Wilton Gaynair, and he arrived in London on the Empire Windrush in 1948. A total hotshot trumpeter with an up to the minute hard-bop style much admired by Miles Davis, Reese had recorded already for Tony Hall at Tempo Records. The ‘Blues in Trinity’ session paired him once again with another UK jazz star, saxophonist Edward ’Tubby’ Hayes, and featured a guest appearance by fellow trumpeter (and Blue Note regular) Donald Byrd. The rhythm section, with English pianist Terry Shannon joined by Canadian bassist Lloyd Thompson and US drummer Art Taylor, does not on the face of it quite have the snappy, soulful style we might expect from a US recording of the period – or maybe it just lacks the original Van Gelder touch – but both separately and together Reece and Hayes sound absolutely world-class. It’s also the case that this Tone Poet vinyl remastering makes the rhythm section sound, to my ears, much snappier than the digital equivalent I’ve played on Spotify, so my initial prejudice might be just that. Reece composes all but two of the six tracks (the CD version of the album – if you can find one – includes another two Reece compositions as bonus tracks), and he carries the weight of the session with some knockout solos and shared choruses with Hayes, who also solos superbly, excelling on a version of ‘Round About Midnight’ on which Reece does not play. Shortly after the album, Reece relocated to New York City where he continued to record for Blue Note for another three solo albums, plus sessions for others and for other labels, where he also experimented with free jazz and with writing for percussion. A sleeve-note insert by Syd Schwartz tells the story of Reece and ‘Blues in Trinity’, including details of how Tony Hall evaded Musicians Union restrictions by the subterfuge of pretending the London recording was actually done in Paris. It’s both a landmark in British – or English and Caribbean – jazz, and a terrific listen, fairly crackling with energy.
‘Up & Down’ by pianist Horace Parlan was recorded in 1961 at Van Gelder’s famous studio in Englewood Cliffs with a top band of Booker Ervin on tenor sax, Grant Green on guitar, with George Tucker on bass and Al Harewood on drums. Not released until 1963, it represents a sea change in modern jazz whereby the previous decade’s dominance of hard bop was being superceded by both modal and soul-jazz styles, with Blue Note becoming a market leader of the latter trend and beginning to favour piano trios or organ combos and tough tenor sax-led small groups in an often funkier, more populist black-music and Latin boogaloo vein. The album’s opener, ’The Book’s Beat’, written by Ervin, exemplifies this trend, and the participation of Grant Green lends absolute mastery to the whole session, with astonishingly bold repetitions on several of his solos where he seems to be testing exactly how many times he can repeat the same phrase. Throughout the recording Parlan – who later made two fantastic duo recordings for SteepleChase with Archie Shepp, a regular partner – proves himself a perfect team player, keeping close to the bass and drums team with deep, in the pocket, improvisations around the chord changes, sounding continually inventive within a very restricted frame. This may also relate to the restrictions enforced on his piano style by the consequences of contracting polio as a child, and the loss of fingers on his right hand. Whatever the cause, Parlan – who also played with Charles Mingus for a while, no easy gig – sounds great and the album is a continual pleasure. It looks good, too, with a heavy-duty gatefold sleeve. All hail the Tone Poet
