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Introduction

 

This blog was created as a reference site for Blue Note releases from 1939 to 1985, covering the following:

The transition from shellac 78s on 10" and 12"

    78 rpm Releases

    Blue Note Singles

The 5000 "Modern Jazz" and 7000 "Traditional" series that ran from 1950 to 1955.

    5000 Series

    7000 Series

1500 and 4000 Series 12" releases

    1500 Series

    4000 Series
Liberty Era releases under the LA- and LT- Series.

    LA- Series

    Complete Liberty / UA Series 1971-1980

    LT- Series

 Japanese issues, including previously unreleased sessions in the "World's First Appearance" GXF- Series

    Toshiba / King Releases

CD Releases

    2- Series

    3- Series

    4- Series 

    5- Series (in progress)

    7- Series (in progress)

    8- Series (in progress)

    Japanese CD Releases (in progress)

    CD-Only Releases


Unreleased Sessions

Complete RVG Sessions 1951-1980

Tone Poets

Miscellaneous

Missing Numbers


And will ultimately include references for all sessions released on the label up to the label's re-emergence in 1985.

Each page is allocated to a specific cat. number, containing session information, track listing, photos from the session or in support of the release, liner notes and any relevant miscellaneous info I assume useful to a better understanding and appreciation of the release. At some point I'll add some information for sessions that did not result in a release, and include additional supplementary album as I find it. All liner notes have been uploaded from my own collection.

Mistakes, missing links, formatting disasters are entirely my own doing. I have corrected some, but not all spelling, grammar and general proofing issues in order to make the liner notes more readable where necessary (the LT and GXF series especially), but some I have intentionally left hanging....

Corrections, comments, general observations always welcome.


I'm (very slowly) posting links to releases on Twitter: @blp1553 and one day will work out how to Instagram (this may never happen.....blp1553)


Photos: Francis Wolff/Mosaic Images / 
https://www.mosaicrecordsimages.com/

60636

Donald Byrd - Live At Montreux

Released - 2022

Recording and Session Information

"Montreux Jazz Festival", "Casino De Montreux", Switzerland, July 5, 1973
Fonce Mizell, trumpet; Donald Byrd, trumpet, flugelhorn; Allan Barnes, tenor sax, flute; Nathan Davis, tenor, soprano sax; Kevin Toney, electric piano; Larry Mizell, synthesizer; Barney Perry, electric guitar; Henry Franklin, electric bass; Keith Killgo, drums, vocals; Ray Armando, congas, percussion.

Poco-Mania 

You've Got It Bad, Girl 

Untitled No. 3 

Black Byrd 

Flight-Time 

Track Listing

Side One
TitleAuthorRecording Date
Black ByrdLaurence C MizellJuly 5 1973
You've Got It Bad GirlStevie WonderJuly 5 1973
The EastDonald ByrdJuly 5 1973
Side Two
TitleAuthorRecording Date
Introductions
KwameDonald ByrdJuly 5 1973
Poco-ManiaDonald ByrdJuly 5 1973

Liner Notes

As teenagers in Detroit during the 1960s, my friends and I regarded Donald Byrd with the same lofty respect reserved for other hometown musical heroes like Smokey Robinson, the MC5, Elvin Jones. Mitch Ryder, Aretha Franklin and John Lee Hooker...they were all amazing artists who were changing the face of music by exporting the sounds of our city to the rest of the world.  


The music of Donald Byrd was ubiquitous back then...cats like the legendary Motor City jazz disc jockey, Ed Love, would hit tracks like "Nai Nai" from Free Form and "Cristo Redentor" from A New Perspective on a nightly basis...Later on, in the 1970s, Mr. Byrd started adding a healthy dose of Detroit-style funk to his records and his innovative music could be heard blasting out of dashboard mounted 8 track players and back seat subwoofers all over town...He was a Motor City Trumpet Revolutionary and his timeless music will never be forgotten.  


Shortly after Mr. Byrd's passing in 2013, we got an email from the noted British music icon, Gilles Peterson, inquiring about a legendary performance from 1973's Montreux Jazz Festival. Inexplicably, the tapes had been tucked away in the Blue Note vaults. When we listened, we were knocked out: the 16-track, 2" analog master tapes revealed a more raw and gritty side of Donald Byrd's 70's music.  

As a special tribute to this Jazz Immortal and as a gift to the legions of aficionados who, like all of us at Blue Note Records, treasure the music he's left behind, we are honored to present - on vinyl and CD for the first time - Donald Byrd, Live at Montreux from July 5, 1973.  


Don Was  

President, Blue Note Records 

 

My brother Fonce and I were invited by Blue Note Records (President George Butler & Donald Byrd) to travel with the Blue Note artist roster to attend and perform at the 1973 Montreux Jazz Festival. At the time, Donald Byrd's "Black Byrd" album was a big success for Blue Note, along with Bobbi Humphrey's "Blacks and Blues". The American Airlines plane was playing various cuts from "Black Byrd" as part of the cabin music. We flew from NYC to Boston to change planes and while waiting, saw Bobby Hutcherson (wearing a denim suit with a red scarf) walk up to an airport security guard and told him to watch out for a weird guy walking around the airport wearing a denim suit with a red scarf, and then Bobby walked away. We knew this flight would be quite the experience.  
 
The plane ride over was fun, energetic, and wild. The stewardesses were pleading for the passengers to go back to their seats as the aisle was packed with non-stop exuberance.  Byrd poured a packet of salt into the open mouth of a sleeping (unnamed) horn player. Woody Shaw was holding court throughout the flight. We stopped in London and bought the latest wooden clogs and stumbled around throughout the city. Byrd took us up to a friend's house in the mountains above Montreux. There we played tennis and Stan Smith was on the adjoining court. We saw drummer Kenny Clarke (Klook) on the streets and waved, he was living over there. We stopped in to watch McCoy Tyner warming up in one of the Piano rooms. We visited the well-known Chateau de Chillon Castle on Lake Geneva - beautiful. Fonce and I bought these Bulbul Tarang (Indian Banjo) keyboards with typewriter keys and jammed in the hotel room 'til late at night until someone complained to the front desk.  
 
Afterwards Byrd gave us the keys to his apartment Paris. There we spotted a clothing store in the city named "The Jackson 5" and Fonce took pictures with the owners. We & a friend took the train over to the University of Paris and listened to Weather Report's latest album in a dorm room filled with students loving the music.  
 
Unforgettable moments for sure.  
 
Larry Mizell 

5-21435-2

 Jimmy Smith - Six View Of The Blues

Released - 1999

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, July 16, 1958
Cecil Payne, baritone sax; Jimmy Smith, organ; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Art Blakey, drums #1-3; Donald Bailey, drums #4-6.

tk.3 St. Louis Blues
tk.8 The Swingin' Shepherd Blues
tk.9 Blues No. 1
tk.10 Blues No. 2
tk.14 Blues No. 3
tk.16 Blues No. 4

Track Listing

TitleAuthorRecording Date
St Louis BluesW. C. HandyJuly 16 1958
The Swingin' Shepherd BluesMoe KoffmanJuly 16 1958
Blues No. 1Jimmy SmithJuly 16 1958
Blues No. 3Jimmy SmithJuly 16 1958
Blues No. 4Jimmy SmithJuly 16 1958
Blues No. 2Jimmy SmithJuly 16 1958

Liner Notes

THIS was Jimmy Smith's 19th recording session for Blue Note since he'd joined the label 29 month earlier. Jimmy Smith had revolutionized the sound and the use of the organ in jazz and he became incredibly popular very quickly. Fortunately for Blue Note, he was also prolific. Still the label couldn't get sessions out fast enough. Jimmy and producer Alfred Lion seemed to settle on four basic rotating contexts in which to record: Smith's working trio (studio and live), an all-star trio (usually Kenny Burrell and Art Blakey), a quartet with Lou Donaldson (later Stanley Turrentine) and jam sessions with three-horn front lines made up of Blue Note regulars like Donald Byrd, Lee Morgan, Blue Mitchell, Curtis Fuller, Donaldson, Jackie McLean, George Coleman, Tina Brooks, Hank Mobley and Ike Quebec.

This session, issued now for the first time, is somewhat different in two respects. While it wasn't unusual for ringer Art Blakey and Jimmy's regular drummer Donald Bailey to split the drum chores (as they do here), it was unusual for the single horn to be anyone but Lou Donaldson. The choice of baritone saxophone in general and Cecil Payne in particular was an odd one. An excellent player, Cecil, for some reason, was not a Blue Note regular. In fact, he'd only appeared on the 1948 James Moody sides, when both men were in Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra, and on Kenny Dorham's 1955 album Afro-Cuban. And after the session in hand/ he only appeared one more time on a 1961 Tadd Dameron session, which has just been issued on the CD, The Lost Sessions. Perhaps the idea was Burrell's, who'd featured Cecil on his Prestige album Blue Moods the year before. At any rate, this was a peak period for Payne who was in the middle of a long tenure with pianist-composer Randy Weston. It's great to hear him stretch out in this context.

What's even more unusual is the choice of material. Though Jimmy Smith was a fiery blues player who practically created the chitlin circuit of the fifties, he was a fully-equipped jazz artist as likely to play a Monk tune, a be-bop line or an old standard as a soulful blues. His records always reflected his range. Yet this session is an all-blues program, which may be why it was passed over for release over the years. Another reason may have been sonic; each time Cecil Payne finished soloing, engineer Rudy Van Gelder would close his microphone, which changed the sound of the recording abruptly.

Nonetheless, Smith and his superb cast find infinite variety and creative inspiration in the blues form. Art Blakey is present for the first half of the session, which opens with a relaxed reading of the 1914 W.C. Handy tune "St. Louis Blues".

The next piece was "The Swingin' Shepherd Blues," a left field 1958 hit by Canadian flutist Moe Koffman. This was such an inescapable record at the time that every saxophonist was looking through his closet to find his flute. There were dozens of cover versions, and Buddy Collette even organized a group called Four Swingin' Shepherds with Bud Shank, Paul Horn, Harry Klee and the leader all playing different sized flutes. Fortunately, Jimmy and Alfred had the sense and good taste to do a version without flute. This track was issued on Blue Note 45-1711.

Blakey's last tune was the first of four Jimmy Smith blues, a relaxed, medium-up blues with a great walking bass line courtesy of Smith's feet.

Donald Bailey, a Philadelphian who'd joined Smith's trio in time for the organist's second Blue Note session in March 1956, completes the date. Bailey stayed with Smith until well into 1 963, when he settled in Los Angeles where he later joined The Three Sounds and pianist Jack Wilson's trio. Besides freelancing heavily on drums, he also eventually developed a second career playing harmonica.

Jimmy seems intent with his originals on showing and exploring the variety that the blues form has to offer. Blues No. 2 has a shuffle feel; Blues No.3 is in the great slow blues tradition that Smith set with "The Sermon" and Blues No. 4 is a fast, modern bop line with some blistering organ.

This may not be the most earth-shattering of Jimmy Smith's 31 recording sessions for Blue Note, but it is a delightful addition to his incredible and influential legacy at the label. Anytime Smith and Burrell get together (and they still do!), it's a delightful musical experience. And hearing Cecil Payne in this relaxed blues context is an added bonus.

—MICHAEL CUSCUNA, 1999