Impulse vs Blue Note

[Snapping]

other people gtfoh with that later Klemmer type shit. there's plenty of liberty legends of acid jazz funky organ terds for every one of those. talbout the real schitt.

I only posted the klemmer cover to show some bad Impulse cover photography. There were some great photographs on Impulse album covers but Blue Note covers were just amazing all the way into the 60's.
And for what its worth why wouldn't you include the lesser output in a comparison of the two labels? Those seventies crossover fusion albums came out on Blue Note and those jazz-for-hippies albums came out on Impulse and are part of their legacy.

 

[Birdman9]

For the title of greatest jazz label evar.

covers: impulse
close, respect to reid miles and francis wolf, but those gatefolds and orange black spines.

Madness....


Blue Note in all respects by a mile.
Got a lot going on, but had to chime in and cosign here.

As much as I love the best Impulse LPs, the worst Impulse LPs kinda leave you feeling a little sad, and the worst Blue Note LPs are just boring, but almost ALWAYS looked good at the very least.

I'll come back and read the thread later, but Frank I have the Impulse book for you the next time I see you, if you ain't already got it.

 

[drbrownscelray]

Understanding by John Patton!

One of my favorite jazz records period. The soul-jazzy parts would be too pedestrian by themselves, and the horns alone would be too out for me, but together they are like bananas and peanut butter.


PS- I'll take Impulse, but whomever in this thread was disputing the uber-iconic status of Blue Note design is how do you say? TRIPPING.

I also want to put in my dark horse vote for Riverside. Lotta badness going on on that label.

 

[king_maxwell]

I appreciate the distinction of Blue Note before & after UA.

I'm half way through the Kahn book & the descriptions of the label design (Creed Taylor driven) and power of ABC to make longer-recordings is pretty interesting. Worth picking in my opinion.

 

[LaserWolf]

I also want to put in my dark horse vote for Riverside. Lotta badness going on on that label.

I had this Charlie Byrd lp. I think it was on Riverside, or a subsidiary.
Looked mint but there was a terrible hiss throughout the album.
I was half way through the second side before I realized the hiss was the drummers non-stop brushes.

The first thing I think of when I think Riverside is The Sounds Of Fast Cars!

 

[pickwick33]

I also want to put in my dark horse vote for Riverside. Lotta badness going on on that label.

I had this Charlie Byrd lp. I think it was on Riverside, or a subsidiary.
Looked mint but there was a terrible hiss throughout the album.
I was half way through the second side before I realized the hiss was the drummers non-stop brushes.

The first thing I think of when I think Riverside is The Sounds Of Fast Cars!
When I see these label discographies, it's cool seeing the stuff you wouldn't expect.

Blue Note pretty much stayed true to the jazz vision and only started doing non-jazz in the past five years or so (Al Green, Amos Lee).

Impulse, as you can see from the book, made a few detours into folk and comedy. (And the first Genesis LP, as somebody stated earlier.)

I have an old Prestige catalog from maybe '64, and it looked like they were kicking as much butt with world music and folk/bluegrass as they were jazz and blues.

But Riverside took the cake. Besides Theolonius Monk and Cannonball Adderley, they also had sound effects records, dipped a toe in the folk/bluegrass scene, got right with God on some gospel elpees, and even had a subsidiary label for children's music (Wonderland).

And when they briefly revived themselves in the mid-sixties, seems like their big artist was soul singer Lou Courtney.

 

[Fatback]

The Riverside recordings of Thelonious Monk are my imaginary Grandfather.

 

[drbrownscelray]

The Riverside recordings of Thelonious Monk are my imaginary Grandfather.

That's word.

 

[The_Hook_Up]

didnt Impulse try its hand at the blues game also with John Lee Hooker "It serve You right to suffer"?

But Blue Note takes the cake for me...and I do like outside stuff, but even the more thoughtfully crafted outside stuff of Blue Note (Grachan Moncur's LPs, Out to Lunch, etc) seems to hold my attention more than the vomit sax explorations of Shepp and Sanders of Impulse(not that I dont like them).

Im a big Hard Bop fan, so naturally I tend to gravitate to Blue Note releases...Art Blakey has gotten more spins in my house than any other jazz artist (not to mention his 2(?)Impulse releases are yawn-fests, he seemed to saved his best for Blue Note and his 3 Riverside LPs)

 

[pickwick33]

didnt Impulse try its hand at the blues game also with John Lee Hooker "It serve You right to suffer"?

Yes, they did. I have a jukebox EP of four of the songs from that one...

Speaking of which, I notice that one jazz subgenre that Impulse lacked was soul-jazz. Obviously they had Mel Brown and Shirley Scott (not to mention actual hit singles with John Handy's "Hard Work" and Ray Charles'"One Mint Julep"), but they didn't seem to dwell on that, like Blue Note and Prestige did.

Other Impulse picks:

- Larry Frazier's "Before Six" b/w "After Six" (single produced by Curtis Mayfield!)

- Howard Roberts' Antelope Freeway (Roberts actually recorded some more blues/R&B-oriented elpees on Capitol, but he had two Impulse albums where he was stretching out into some "other" shit...I haven't totally made up my mind about this album, it's "interesting," but I don't have the deep-down urge to play it every day...I still think it's cool that he expanded his boundaries a little)

 

[LaserWolf]

didnt Impulse try its hand at the blues game also with John Lee Hooker "It serve You right to suffer"?

Yes, they did. I have a jukebox EP of four of the songs from that one...

Speaking of which, I notice that one jazz subgenre that Impulse lacked was soul-jazz. Obviously they had Mel Brown and Shirley Scott (not to mention actual hit singles with John Handy's "Hard Work" and Ray Charles'"One Mint Julep"), but they didn't seem to dwell on that, like Blue Note and Prestige did.

Other Impulse picks:

- Larry Frazier's "Before Six" b/w "After Six" (single produced by Curtis Mayfield!)

- Howard Roberts' Antelope Freeway (Roberts actually recorded some more blues/R&B-oriented elpees on Capitol, but he had two Impulse albums where he was stretching out into some "other" shit...I haven't totally made up my mind about this album, it's "interesting," but I don't have the deep-down urge to play it every day...I still think it's cool that he expanded his boundaries a little)
Those two Howard Roberts lps are sadly overlooked.

 

[family_brick]

Yep, for the Hard Bop end of things Blue Note had it sewn up - stuff like Hubbard's 'Breaking Point', Mobley's 'No Room For Squares' and the Henderson/Dorham collabs for example - but for the 'thoughtfully crafted outside stuff' (nicely put) Blue Note were peerless: Think of the amazing run of Andrew Hill LPs, Hutcherson's 'Components', All the McLean/Moncur/Williams collabs..the list of top drawer sessions that balance beautiful composition with new thing / uncharted waters is bigger and better on Blue Note than someone might think..

But I do think later in the decade Blue Note got a bit too conservative for their own good and couldn't release recordings that had the sheer energy, militancy and oddness that Impulse and say, Flying Dutchman had.

Masterpieces like Shorter's 'Etcetera' and 'The Soothsayer' were left to gather dust in the Blue Note vaults while straight-forward and sometimes plain dull soul-jazz started to clog up the release schedule.

Blue Note couldn't have hoped (or even wanted) to release something as progressive as Archie Shepp's 'Things Have Got To Change' and 'For Losers'. The spirit of fusion Lion and Wolff embraced was somewhat less of the untempered black nationalist variety.

Also I kind of think Pharoah Sanders kept his best - Izipho Zam - for Strata East.

Riverside makes me think of all kinds of crazy stuff but the Wes Montgomery sides are what make that label for me.

My personl label shout goes out to Limelight for releasing my all time favourite LPs by Roland Kirk and Dizzy Gillespie - 'Slightly Latin' and 'Jambo Caribe' are true desert island discs for me, and to be honest I doubt many Blue Notes or Impulses would even get on that list