Blue Note, Blue Note on the wall, which is the fairest one of all?

There's really no argument that Blue Note produced some of the finest jazz recordings and records of the 1950s-1960s. Put together management that had a genuine love for the music and respected their artists, an artist roster that was second to none and could afford the opportunity to take chances on some lesser known artists, the star recording engineer Rudy van Gelder, cover art that set the standard for coolness and sophistication for all genres of music, and arguably the finest recorded jazz sound at the time, and that pretty much sums up this record label. Original pressings of Blue Note recordings are the Rolls Royces of the jazz collector, much like the UK Columbia SAX records that we've discussed on this blog, though on average I'd have to say that the Blue Notes sell for a lot more ... even when condition is compromised.  They are that collectible.  I still remember in the early 2000s when I saw a beat up copy of Tina Brooks' True Blue with a library check-out slip holder pasted to the front cover, sell for more than $1000 on the flea-bay.  A great deal has been written about the Blue Note labelography and quality of pressings, and I will not attempt to repeat this.  For starters, there is Blue Note Records: A Guide for Identifying Original Pressings by Frederick Cohen that is available for purchase.  I don't own a copy, though I've heard this is well worth owning if you are serious about collecting.  I've found the site londonjazzcollector.com a great online resource.

I first became interested in Blue Notes when I was in my last year of college.  I took a course on jazz theory, and one of our assignments was to write up a report on five different jazz recordings of our choice.  While I had a limited CD collection at the time, I took advantage of the music library at Northwestern University, which had a dedicated listening room with an extensive jazz LP library.  I remember the day I browed through the shelves ... dozens of what to me at the time looked like original Blue Note records, all available to be sampled on headphones.  The whole label was new to me at the time, but I recall being very impressed with the cover art.  There was something about those covers ... the modern design, the hip photos of the lead artist, the album titles ... it was hard to put them down.  I picked up a handful: Donald Byrd's Royal Flush, Horace Silver's Blowing the Blues Away, Hank Mobley's Roll Call (yes, there was an original copy of that rarity) ... listening to them on headphones on that afternoon at the music library was a revelation.  I had never heard jazz sound so good, and to believe that these recordings were 40+ years old astounded me even more.  This was my first exposure to fine vinyl and motivated me to start collecting.

Of course, I had no idea at the time how collectible these records had become.  Ebay had a small presence at the time, and the internet was not what it is now, so resources were scarce.  The best source of info at the time for me was the Jazz Record Mart in downtown Chicago.  I had heard about the store on many occasions but had never gotten myself to go.  This was a perfect excuse.  However, it was also a rude awakening.  I discovered that not only were these records rare, they were expensive.  Being totally green, I was unaware of different pressings and their quality.  I just wanted the covers and the music.  I remember slapping down $50-75 for The Stylings of Silver with the Horace Silver Quintet and about the same or more for a copy of Six Pieces of Silver, also from the Horace Silver Quintet.  That was a lot of money for a college student at the time.  I brought them back to my apartment and played them on one of my roommates' DJ turntables.  The music was phenomenal, but somehow, the presentation of the music didn't have the same punch and kick as it did at the music library.  The covers also weren't made of the same thick laminated cardboard as I'd seen in the library.  I managed to pick up a few more LPs before I realized that many of them weren't worth it (I later realized that these were all the troubled 1980s DMM pressings).  Anemic sound sucked the life out of these legendary recordings.  The RVG 24-bit remastered CDs kicked their butt in every way except that they didn't come in attractive 12 inch covers.  My Blue Note LP collecting days were over.  I brought the dozen or so I had to another local Evanston record shop and sold them for a whopping loss of $20 for the entire set.  A harsh realization of how uneducated I had been about the whole process of collecting.

CDs dominated my listening for the next two years, until I moved to Washington, DC in the middle of medical school for a research year at the NIH.  It was here that the love for vinyl had a resurgence.  More time combined with incrementally more cash gave me the opportunity to scour the used record bins of Montgomery County, Maryland, and where I would slowly learn the ropes about the jazz LP collecting world.  Over the next five years, I picked up somewhere over 100 Blue Notes from all eras.  I had a handful of 47 West 63rd pressings, though mostly not in great condition.  A slightly larger number of New York USA pressings, in mostly but not all better condition.  Plenty of Liberty Records and 1970s pressings.  As I experimented with listening to these on different vinyl rigs, starting with a Technics SL-1200 MK2 and finishing with the VPI Aries 1 that I still use now, it became clearer to me that yes, pressings did matter.  It was amazing how good an original pressing would sound, even if it were scratched up.  A grading that would forever curse a classical record would somehow be quite acceptable for a Blue Note.  Yes, there'd be surface noise, but the music was so dynamic that you almost instantly forgot about the crackles and pops.  However, the magic of these early pressings was soon to be lost on many of the later pressings, especially once you departed from the early Liberty Records era.  This has been well known for a long time, and most collectors will tell you that if you have a pressing that was pressed by the original Pastylite factory, you're generally in good shape with regards to sound quality.  The earliest pressings of the Liberty Records era were also very decent and could be comparable to the Pastylite pressings, but after that, the plunge was pretty steep.  The blue label pressings of the 1970s truly lacked a great deal of the punch of the originals.  The trade-off, of course, was price, since the later pressings could generally be had for a fraction of the price.

I was relatively pleased owning these records until two years ago, when I decided to go down the dark road of collecting Columbia SAX records.  To finance these purchases, I ended up selling off nearly the entire Blue Note collection, with only two to three unsellable records remaining.  At the time, it didn't matter so much.  I had practically all of them on CD and didn't miss them.  I was far more interested in exploring the sounds of von Karajan, Klemperer, Galliera, Cluytens, Richter-Haaser, Giulini, and more.  Blue Note vinyl for me ... was an afterthought.

Well, I don't know what it was exactly that brought me back to Blue Notes after The Purge, but suffice it to say that I got the fever again this winter.  First, I took things slowly, picking up a few less expensive Liberty Records pressings.  Then I discovered the world of audiophile Blue Note reissues from the now defunct Classic Records, Analogue Productions, and Music Matters.  I dove into the online literature detailing differences in pressings and quality. Then I made the mistake of purchasing a couple original pressings, which reminded me of just how kick ass these records could sound.  Then ... well, you know how it goes.  Collecting is a disease.

While I recognize that come relatively late to the discussion of which Blue Note pressing is sonically the best, I nevertheless wanted to gradually share my thoughts, having recently listened to a wide variety of original "Pastylite" pressings, early and later Liberty pressings, United Artists reissues, Classic Records 200g mono reissues, Analogue Productions 45 rpm reissues, and Music Matters 45 rpm and 33 rpm reissues.  In many but not all cases, originals offer outstanding sound.  Most of my Liberty pressings have come up very close to the originals.  However, I have been particularly impressed with the audiophile reissues.  Classic Records reissues come with the original style covers as the originals as well as the labels and heavy weight of the vinyl.  Soundwise, they sound closer to the original sound than the Music Matters.  However, the Music Matters are a very special set indeed.  While they don't sound the same way that RVG cut his records, they go above and beyond in my opinion to capture the actual sound of the session.  Production quality is uniformly impressive, and though they are by no means cheap, you can easily order a copy for a mere fraction of a near mint original.  Rule of thumb, though, is that everything is on an album to album basis.  And just like I set out to review the Columbia SAX series two years ago, my hope is to roll out the same for Blue Note Records.  As always, I'd welcome any discourse on this topic from readers around the globe.  Happy listening!