A Night at Birdland, Vol. 1

Artist: Art Blakey , Clifford Brown , and Horace Silver
Label: Blue Note Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Live
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 724353214623
EAN: 0724353214623
ASIN: B00005MIZ8

Release Date: 2001-08-07

Related Categories:

Bebop General

| Bebop | Jazz | Styles | Music

General

| Jazz | Styles | Music

General

| Pop | Styles | Music

Blue Note Records

| Amazon.com Label Stores | Stores | Music

Bebop

| Live Albums | Jazz | Styles | Music

General

| Live Albums | Jazz | Styles | Music

General

| Jazz | Indie Music | Stores | Music

Bebop

| Jazz | Indie Music | Stores | Music

Hard Bop

| Bebop | Jazz | Styles | Music

$7.99 and Under

| Blowout Music | Stores | Music

$8.99 and Under

| Blowout Music | Stores | Music

Pop

| Styles | Blowout Music | Stores | Music

Jazz

| Styles | Blowout Music | Stores | Music

All Blowout Music

| Blowout Music | Stores | Music

$7.99 and Under

| Prices | Blowout Music | Stores | Music

$8.99 and Under

| Prices | Blowout Music | Stores | Music

Listmania:

IN THE POCKET TRUMPET PLAYERS VOL.VI
Jazz tracks that will break your heart
The king of hard bop: Art Blakey and his alumni
Absolutely Must Have Jazz
Dark and Light
Collect some of the best LIVE jazz recordings (In no order)
Art Blakey: 20 Best CDs (1947-63)
My All-Time Favorite Music
My Top Jazz CDs, Part II
Greatest 'Live' Jazz Albums

Tracks:

Announcement By Pee Wee Marquette
Split Kick
Once In A While
Quicksilver
A Night In Tunisia
Mayreh
Wee-Dot (Alternate Take)
Blues (Improvisation)

Similar Items:

A Night at Birdland, Vol. 2
Study in Brown
Moanin'
Somethin' Else
Song for My Father

Customer Reviews:

What can I say about this album..........2007-03-09

that hasn't been said already? ...I can't think of anything. Simply awesome, would suggest it to anybody that enjoys Clifford Brown or Horace Silver or Art Blakey (in other words, any listener of jazz)

Hard Bop 101.......2007-03-04

This recording is worth five stars alone just to hear Mr. Clifford Brown's performance. No amount of hyperbole can do this man justice. He is simply the best. It is almost bittersweet hearing Brownie sound this great knowing that he had so many of these unbelievable performances still left in him before his untimely and tragic death. This is definitely one of my top five favorites of any album he ever did. This is also one of my top ten favorites of any live album period! It is an amazing performance by the whole group of all-stars - Lou Donaldson, Art Blakey, Horace Silver and Curly Russell.

If you are a fan of Clifford Brown then this is essential! If I was teaching a jazz class this would be the first album I would play to the class as an example of hard bop at it's absolute finest.

5 Star Music...But This Can't Be Rudy's Best Remastering.......2006-12-09

Overall, this remaster is very good. But I have a 1983 Japanese LP issue of A NIGHT AT BIRDLAND that blows Rudy's away. Check out the alternate of "Wee Dot" on this CD--for the love of Clifford, Art Blakey's cymbal rips our ear drums, and ruins Clifford's solo, which is actually the better solo of the two takes. You know something? I question wrether this really is the great Rudy's remastering, especially when you consider this: when asked, in a 1986 interview on NPR, what his regrets are, without hesitation he replied, "Not having the technology back then to accurately reproduce Clifford Brown's trumpet sound" (wow, as great as Clifford sounds on record, we will never really hear him). Anyone with such love for Clifford could not have done such lousy remastering on the "Wee-Dot" alternate (I think producer Michael Cuscuna just puts Rudy's name on many of these). I do want to note, the absolutely essential "Once in a While," Clifford's greatest ballad next to "Ghost of a Chance," sounds much better than on previous domestic issues, and alone is worth many times the price of these volumes.

I think these RVG issues are little more than another of Michael Cuscuna's re-marketing strategies. Geeze, how many times does he expect us to buy these same titles? But we do! We get suckered in, thinking these will be the best-sounding yet--just because they were remastered by Rudy Van Gelder himself. How many issues, how many years, does it take to get it right? For the Japanese, it takes just once. They had it right as far back as 1985, when they issued the Prestige Jazz Masterpieces series--gorgeous sound! (Compare those 1985 CDs, if you're lucky enough to own any, to the currently available harsh and brittle sounding domestic OJC CDs of the same sessions.) Japanese Blue Notes always sound magnificent--perfect. Very simply put, they are the best documentation of the masters on earth.

I know the jazz CD market is nothing like the trillion dollar pop CD market; Blue Note and Mosaic are probably barely keeping above water. Thus repackaging the same music every few years is probably necessary to keep the Blue Note catalog in existence (remember the days, just before CDs, when Blue Note LPs were simply no longer available...except from Japan?). And from reading Cuscuna's liner notes, I do believe he has a passion for this music. But remastering the domestic Blue Notes to, by design, make them sound inferior to, or at least very different from, the pristine Japanese Blue Notes is taking marketing strategy too far.

I have this strong suspicion that Rudy did not actually remaster all of these in the RVG series. If you ask me, many of these RVGs are nothing more than previously shelved, unscheduled reissues and/or repackaged Connoisseur series issues--compare sometime to Connoisseus you may already own and you'll hear what I mean. All in all, there is some sort of racket going on between Cuscuna and the Japanese. Think about it: Why, after all these years, after all those issues--Blue Note, Connoisseur, Ultimate, Gold, 16-Bit, RVG--why do the Japanese CDs still sound superior? (By the way, they're not always priced at $35--you now can find Japanese Blue Notes as low as $14.29.) And, while I'm at it, how many times have you purchased "The Complete," only to discover a new issue with additional material? The answer to both those questions is simple: Michael Cuscuna knows what he's doing.

I've not yet heard a Japanese RVG, but I'd bet if you compared one to a domestic RVG of the SAME title, you'd like the Japanese audio better. If I'm right, that would prove, this RVG marketing ploy is a crock. What, Rudy would master it differently for the Japanese?

IMPORTANT NOTE: if you buy any of these RVGs, be sure to grab the two volumes of Thelonious Monk. These include the 1951, pre-RVG Blue Notes recorded by Doug Hawkins at WOR studios on lacquer discs, not tape. In remastering these sessions, Rudy applied a process by which the disc surface noise is now just about eliminated, and he brought out much detail and nuance--these Monk RVGs are really so incredible that previous issues are now simply obsolete. By the way, as the notes indicate, the sessions are complete, and "Four in One" and its alternate take are included even though the tray card track sequence is all out of whack and does not show the alternate of "Four in One." GET THESE--can't emphasize it enough. On the other hand, on PERFECT TAKES, the sample cut from Hank Mobley's SOUL STATION is in mono--why ever would Rudy remaster his originally stereo recording in mono!?

So much began here.......2006-11-14

If you love hardbop and/or Horace Silver and/or Art Blakey, you need this album. It is just a joy to hear the band setting the course that so many others would follow over the years.

This is it!!!.......2005-06-13

This CD, with its partner Volume 2, is one of the greatest live recordings of a club date in jazz history. The hard-driving Blakey with his best group ever; Brownie is incredible. And unlike a studio date, there are no retakes, no editing, just raw improvisation at the highest level.

Music CD:

Music CD

Music CD

Music CD

Dick Tracy ~ Ice-T

Until the Day ~ Nonchalant

One & Only (Limited Edition w/ Bonus CD ~ Gran Torino

Ensiferum ~ Iron

Vol. 2-Big Shiny 90's

Frame ~ Frame

Seven Tears ~ Golden Earring

Planet Rock ~ Various Artists

KICKIN DOWN DOOZ ~ Conspiracy Clique

Perfection ~ Foesum