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Sound Quality of New Blue Note Jazz LP Reissues

I'm a big Blue Note fan and have lately purchassed a number of the reasonably priced reissues that are available in sealed condition by mail order. These include Bobby Hutcherson't Dialogue, Jackie Mclean's Action, Joe Henderson's Inner Urge, Sonny Clark's Cool Struttin and Hank Mobley's Soul Station. While I'm glad that these can be purchased for about $10.00 new, I find that the sound qulaity of some of them, especially Dialogue, is lacking. In fact, Dialogue sounds alot like the earlier, infamous DMM version which I bought it to replace. Has anyone formulated a judgment about these from the perspective of sound? Do you know who is involved putting out these new reissues? Is it Blue Note itself or a licensee? Thanks
mlkiz
qdrone
1,039 posts
 
I live out on the west coast and more often than not run into alot of Japanese Blue Notes and some King Audio Pressings too.In the nineties at a time when Blue Note was re-issueing there entire catalog on vinyl in Japan I was picking them up from a guy who sold them out of his apartment on Laurel Canyon for $20.00. The sound quality was exceptional,and to be quite honest out of the hundred or so I purchased I only was disappointed with around three and took them back for credit.
I'm sure they are being made by Blue Note because on most of the artists they pay no royalties after 50 years and what they are paying now is cents on the dollar. To give you an example the Japanese blue Notes I was purchasing were shipped in and sold here because Blue Note was pushing the CD medium and refused to allow them to made here on vinyl because they wanted to recoup there investment on cheaper manufactured CD's.
As far as the DMM Blue Notes they sound fine on my system and when Blue Note was pushing CD's I was running around to every Tower records I could find and snatching up the French Cadre Rouge DMM Audiophile vinyl for 4.99 a pop.
You do know about Mosiac Records don't you? They are still making Jazz recordings on vinyl and the 150 gram pressing are lush and sound awesome. But order them fast because they are gone in no time. Thanks for the stroll down Memory lane.
dsockel
45 posts
 
I would agree with Mlkiz's observation.

I don't think it is limited to those BN reissues's either. The Columbia ones I picked up are thin sounding too. The vinyl was flimsy and thin, I think I could see my turntable platter through the spinning record

Sometimes we get what we pay for and at $10 a record and with gas over $3/gallon, we don't get a lot.
qdrone
1,039 posts
 
I haven't bought a blue note album in a while, I believe the last one I bought was Something Else by Cannonball Adderley a 180 gram pressing for 20. I guess if you are buying a 10 dollar record you get half that. Are you saying it's as bad as the RCA records in the 7o's? Thank God they just re-mastered the Jefferson Airplane catalog on Cd. They did a good job on it to.
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