Note Perfect 

Along with the labels "Riverside" and "Impulse," the words "Blue Note" are synonymous with Jazz.  

Unfortunately for music lovers and record collectors, the original pressings of Blue Note's catalog are difficult to locate (especially in pristine condition) and often prohibitively expensive to acquire. Rejoice! There is no need to be blue anymore... for fans of the Blue Note recordings of the 50's and 60's, two separate vinyl reissue series are now at hand.  

All the info after the jump.

Complementary by design, Music Matters Ltd. and Analog Productions are rolling out a worthy selection of the seminal jazz recordings from this iconic label.  

Music Matters, LTD, the brainchild of Ron Rambach and Joe Harley, was formed specifically for the purpose of presenting Blue Note like never before.  

By focusing on many of the lesser known gems from the label's archive, Music Matters has effectively established the new standard against which all other reissue series will be judged. 

Steve Hoffman and Kevin Gray, the gurus at AcousTech Mastering, bring these past performances back to life through the use of the original master session tapes.  

The pros at Record Technology Inc. (RTI) then press the masterpieces onto virgin, 180g, 45 RPM vinyl. The result? Definitive sonic splendor with first-class physical and graphic presentation.  

High quality stock, gatefold jackets with heavy lamination serve as the platform for not only the recreated cover art (color-corrected original negatives are employed whenever possible), but also for Francis Wolff's black and white session photos, which adorn the inside of each gatefold. 

These limited edition titles run $50 each (at least 63 are planned) and are being released in pairs on roughly a monthly basis, with numbered subscriptions to the series available.

Analog Productions, a heavyweight in the land of Jazz reissues, is itself releasing a total of 50 titles from Blue Note's library. 

Since one can't improve on perfection, the AcousTech team of Hoffman and Grey are again tapped for remastering duties, with RTI pressing the results on 180g, 45 RPM vinyl.  

The titles ($50 each) are generally more familiar, and the presentation not quite as elaborate, but the quality of the records themselves leaves nothing to be desired. 

Only in connection with these two projects did the mastering team realize that, although originally issued as mono recordings, the master tapes were very often stereo (the classic mono simply being a 50/50 down-mix of the original stereo masters). 

Accordingly, whenever the masters are in stereo, so too are the newly minted LPs (the reissues remain mono, however, for titles where the recovered master was merely mono).

I've been a subscriber to both series from the start, and look forward each month or two for the additions to these collections.  

While all are delightful, a few of my favorite titles released so far include Tina Brooks' True Blue (Music Matters), Gil Melle's Patterns in Jazz (Music Matters) and Cannonball Adderley's Somethin' Else (Analog Productions). 

One of the joys of being a subscriber is discovering lesser known gems.  

Due to the efforts of Music Matters Ltd. and Analog Productions, new joys are repeatedly delighting--isn't it time you joined the fun? 

Stay tuned, as we'll be exploring something Impuls!ve next month.

Pete's last LP Update can be found here.