thanks doug, this album is a winner

RM is one big Mynabirds thread tonight, guys.

A nice cast of Rudy Van Gelder's Blue Note All Stars playing on it, too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bass_on_Top
Personnel
Paul Chambers - bass
Hank Jones - piano
Kenny Burrell - guitar
Art Taylor - drums

Just look at this guy's recording credits. Madness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Chambers#Discography

Anytime Tuolumne comes back around it just reminds us that we're ultimately all on the same side.

I'm feeling more good connections than anything else.

That's what I said.

true story: i've considered inaugurating a vinyl collection for no reason other than that it would allow me to accumulate Blue Note's mid-century offerings

If you come across said offerings easily, yard sailor, please let me know.

quick story about this disc...I was just really getting into jazz when I owned a record store in the mid 90s..I had all the albums everyone was supposed to have, blue train, kind of blue, etc....One day a japanese man walks into my store and asked if I would buy any of his stuff...I still remember the feeling I had when I opened them...All japanese import blue notes on disc and vinyl..probably 300 titles in all...I wrote that guy a check for about $3000..most of that collection is with me today...That Paul Chambers is the first one I played when he left the store

Both Blue Note and Prestige did a great job reissuing their stuff on CD--solid remastering jobs (even the original CD transfers sound halfway decent to my ears), reprints of the original liner notes plus updated ones (both almost always by Ira Gitler), and usually reasonably priced. I think most of it is still in print, too. It's an enormous body of work--there are probably some guys that were literally making 20-30 albums per year, between records as leaders and records as sidemen. There was arguably no more incestuous community of musicians in history than the Blue Note posse of the late 1950's.

Unless we're talking about actual incest, that is, in which case I'm sure some gang of banjo-pluckin' cousin-marryers in ol' Kentuck probably have them licked.

indeed. once the RVG's starting coming out I bought them as well..I have doubles of just about everything..Do you have any of the Mosaic boxes?

This is a great story--I'd love to come across a lot like that, minus the part about having to pay $3000 for it.

I've always debated "Blue Train"'s place in the canon of essential jazz records. I mean, it's thoroughly enjoyable, and significant for being what to my knowledge is the first program of (primarily) all original Coltrane music, but I can probably name 20 Coltrane albums I like better. My theory is that, it being the only Coltrane album in Blue Note's library, they keep it perpetually in print and up-to-date with whatever remastering technique is currently in vogue, so over the years it's become one of the first Coltrane records that any new fan sees, and by sheer economy there are probably more copies of it floating around than all but the most famous Impulse! albums. Oddly enough, my favorite tune on it is "I'm Old Fashioned," the only one he didn't write...

No, I don't, unfortunately.

oh, I agree, give me coltrane on impulse next to eric dolphy any day

This is exactly why I used to think Kevin Davis was old.

My brother and I were in Bloomington, IN a couple weeks back for a Richard Thompson concert and found a *great* campus record store. It looked like some guy had just dumped his entire Coltrane collection on them, because the shelves were spilling over with the stuff, even the offbeat ones you don't see very often. Funds were low but I did snag a copy of "Expression," which to my knowledge was the last record released during his lifetime and also the only record that features Coltrane on flute. It was a good buy.

If you ever feel compelled you should check out Ben Ratliff's book on Coltrane--I keep meaning to get it, I've checked it out from the library about three times and read it twice for each borrow. Just superb, superb writing--a kind of bio by way of criticism, with both the technical astuteness of some of the more dense jazz writing and the fluid prose of a more accessible music writer.

Hey, jazz is making a comeback, sonny boy.

the story of sound...i've read it..superb. the jazz ear is a great read as well

That's going next on my reading list.

its a great read..one more quick story..my old neighbor in NYC who is still with us age 96 is still working as an arranger in music..he has played with all the greats in music that you can think of..anyway I used to hang out with him a lot. One of his best friends who I had gotten to know over the years is Ron Carter..we would sit in his living room and listen to stories nonstop..I had already had the Ratliff book on Coltrane and he told me about the Jazz Ear and I picked up the next day..