Thelonious Monk - Genius of Modern Music Volume 1 & 2

[MK]

Here's the rundown on this music:

Thelonious Monk was an early pioneer of bebop/bop music and, if you'll pardon the hyperbole, one of the greatest/most important/most influential composers and pianists in jazz history. His recording career breaks down into three or four sections: the earliest recordings on Blue Notes, the brief period he spent at Prestige, his prolific years at Riverside, and his long, final stay at Columbia Records.

If you're new to Monk, the first stop is his Blue Note recordings, then his landmark Lp's with Riverside, now issued on the OJC label owned by Fantasy Records.

The early Blue Note Recordings were originally issued as "The Genius Of Modern Music" Volumes One and Two, with a session featuring Milt Jackson issued as "The Wizard of the Vibes" under Milt Jackson's name. The CD issues of these three discs are more organized because they're arranged more or less in chronological order and include a boatload of alternate takes.

"The Genius Of Modern Music" Volumes One and Two were originally issued on CD in the late 80's. I found some scratched up copies at the library, both dated 1989. Ron McMaster is credited with the 'digital transfers.' No other mastering credit is found.

In the late 90's or early 00's, they were remastered and reissued by Rudy Van Gelder, who is credited with 'digital transfers,' 'restoration' and 'mastering.' These are easy to distinguish from the older discs because they restore the original 10" Lp artwork on the booklet's front cover and are marked as 'Rudy Van Gelder Edition,' aka RVG Editions. The artwork used for the older CD issues has also been retained, but can only be seen under the clear, plastic tray holding the CD. Also, alternate takes have been sequenced at the end of each respective session rather than following the master take.

I have CD-R's of RVG Editions of "The Genius Of Modern Music" Volumes One and Two, which I bought but sold after copying them and taking a few decibels out of the upper frequencies.

In general, RVG's should be avoided because they're bright and hard sounding due to a very strident treble boost. It's worse than anything you'll find on any Rhino CD mastered by Ken Perry. They usually have a strong dose of compression, too. Even worse, for albums where true stereo masters exist, Rudy Van Gelder would feed the stereo master through a mixing board in order to fold down the channels, a practice that degrades the signal. Rudy has said that he favors the mono masters, but Blue Note wouldn't let him use them if stereo masters were available. So, where he was forced to use stereo masters, he would try to get around it by - as mentioned - folding down the channels to near-mono.

Obviously a lot of people like the way they sound because they sell very well, but I don't, which is why I avoid them.

So why didn't I avoid "The Genius Of Modern Music" Volumes One and Two? Because on the now-defunct Blue Note Records Bulletin Board, the moderator "Tom," who does have connections with the label, always announced new releases and reissues from Blue Note, and sometimes he'd give relevant information when asked. He told people there that "The Genius Of Modern Music" Volumes One and Two were going to mastered from the original lacquer discs, unlike the old CD issues and even the Japanese RVG editions that came out a few years prior to the current U.S. RVG editions [as a footnote, I should mention that for some reason, when they first started their line of RVG editions, only a handful were done for the U.S. market while a ton were issued in Japan. This isn't the case anymore, but it's worth noting because supposedly most if not all of the Japanese RVG editions feature different mastering even though it's the same mastering engineer, Rudy Van Gelder.]

However, you didn't hear this information repeated anywhere else, not even in the liner notes, which in hindsight seems like a mistake because it definitely would've appealed to audiophiles. But being the skeptic I am, I wondered if it was not true or perhaps true but not a big improvement.

So I finally find these CD's at the library and I took them home to compare them to the CD-R's I made of the RVG Editions.

Everything on "The Genius Of Modern Music" Volume One had lacquer discs as their original source. Almost everything on Volume Two had lacquer discs as their original source, too. The only exceptions were the last nine tracks on Volume Two, at Monk's last Blue Note session under his own name, May 30, 1952. [For the record, the previous session, covering the first nine tracks on Volume Two, were recorded on July 23, 1951]. This last session was recorded on tape.

I compared about two dozen tracks from both volumes to their counterparts on the older CD, and there's no comparison. The older CD's definitely came from inferior sources. This is especially true when you hear the horns, or sections where the cymbals are recorded very well. The RVG Editions sound A LOT better. Again, I'm making this comparison with CD-R's of the RVG Editions with some EQ work already done. If memory serves, I think I did -3 at 16k, -2 at 8k, and -1 at 6k. I thought I was being conservative, but even with the -3 at 16k, there's still plenty of easily audible noise and hiss on the lacquer disc tracks, a lot more than what you hear on the older CD. It's possible the older CD was also NoNoised to death, but it's hard to tell because much of the loss in quality definitely feels like a result of an inferior source. As for compression, I had to reduce the tracks on my CD-R's to 40% of their original volume to match the levels on the older CD's. Even after that, the tracks I ripped from my CD-R's still sounded far more open and dynamic. It's possible the tracks on the older CD's came from tape copies that were heavily EQ'ed or compressed, or at least EQ'ed or compressed in the transfer or mastering. To sum up, there's no way around it, the RVG Editions sound better in every way. They may need a little EQ work to tame that top end, but that's it.

The story isn't the same for the last nine tracks on Volume Two, the ones recorded on tape. The RVG Edition claims to use the original master tapes for these last nine tracks, according to the info I scanned on to my computer. It sounds like the older CD had access to the same tapes.

The difference is the RVG Edition's mastering had the same flaws you'd expect to find on any RVG Edition: compression and strident top-end EQ. Again my CD-R's had some EQ work, and I know I applied the same EQ on all the tracks on both CD-R's. However, the tracks on my CD-R's still sounded a little 'whitened,' like it needed more easing on the top end. Also bothersome was the compression. I only had to reduce my CD-R copies of these nine tracks to 60% of their original volume, but that's still quite a bit of compression, and the older CD's sounded more open and dynamic on these nine tracks. These nine tracks were recorded in mono, so I don't think any degradation from a mixing board should come into play.

To sum up, if you want to make perfect CD-R copies of these two discs, you'd want to use the RVG Editions for all the lacquer sourced tracks and take out some of the top end. But, for the last nine tracks on Volume Two, the ones sourced from tapes, you'd want to use the older CD's. If you're concerned about consistent volume, reduce the lacquer-based tracks to 40% of their original volume so that they level out with those last nine tracks taken from the older CD of Volume Two.

[lukpac]

Yeah, I've heard that about those RVG CDs being narrowed down. At the same time, however, I seem to remember a bunch of "original" Blue Note CDs (don't know if they were RVG or not) that were mono, but had some mention on the back of "the original two-track tapes were played back - there was no additional mixing" or somesuch. I couldn't quite figure out why they'd issue the CDs in mono if they were coming from a stereo source.

[MK]

Pretty much every pre-RVG Blue Note jazz CD will say this at the bottom of the back cover of the booklet:

The classic Blue Note albums which span the mid 1950's to late 1960's were recorded directly on to two track analog tape. No multitrack recording was used and consequently no mixing was required. Therefore, this CD was made by transferring the one step analog master to digital.

They just slapped them on every booklet, a standard thing with little regard towards fact checking. You can't blame them, they have so many titles in their back catalog, many of which fall in and out of print, and they churn out so many CD's, I'm sure after awhile they just don't care. A lot of the earlier stuff and the live recordings were done straight to mono, especially before Van Gelder came along. He may be associated with the Blue Note sound but a lot of other studios like WOR did a fair share of Blue Note recordings.

A good rule of thumb that seems to work with these CD's is that they'll always go for stereo, but if mono's all that's available, not only will they use it, but it'll also make a small note in the credits, "These are mono recordings." They'll still put that "....directly on to two track..." stuff at the bottom, even though it's incorrect, but at least you'll know it's mono if they say "These are mono recordings."

Also, some CD's will reprint the wrong Lp jacket, that is, even if it's mono, they'll reproduced the jacket that has the "electronically processed stereo" logo on the cover. Disregard this as Michael Cuscuna produces just about all Blue Note CD issues before the the RVG's, and he's careful not to use fake stereo on the CD's. He may let that logo slip by on the cover, but he doesn't let it slip by where it counts.

More to the point, don't take the whole "...straight to two track..." statement too literally.

[lukpac]

Yeah, that's the note.

I could have sworn one of the albums in question (sorry, it's been several years) was released in stereo too, but I suppose it could have just been reprocessed or something.

Of course, it's my dad who's the big jazz buff, not me. I just noticed all the crap like that.

[RDK]

Hey MK, great review of the RVG Series (in general) and the Monks in particular. I have dozens of the RVGs, and generally prefer then to the earlier editions despite the problems you note (actually, I have few of the earlier editions and generally don't upgrade the ones that I already have). But damn, they are bright!

[krabapple]

This isn't the case anymore, but it's worth noting because supposedly most if not all of the Japanese RVG editions feature different mastering even though it's the same mastering engineer, Rudy Van Gelder.]

Now that is interesting. I have the RVG remaster of 'Out to Lunch (Eric Dolphy) and that is one LOUD-ASS remaster. The imaging is more 'realistic' (less hard panning left-right) that the previous CD, but christ knows the EQ has been fiddled with. You can't listen to this and other CDs in the same session without some serious volume adjusting.

So, is the Japanese RVG version different?

(I'm thinking' we may have to wait for RVG to kick before we get the best possible versions of these classics.

That said, I have the RVG remastered SACD of Coltrane's 'Love Supreme' and it sounds good)

[MK]

I've never heard or even seen any of the Japanese RVG's. At the old Blue Note board, they were very well known and the moderator "Tom" as well as other Blue Note employees acknowledged their existance. I don't know if "Out To Lunch" would be different, though.

I have the older CD and used to have the RVG before selling it. Yes, the older CD is very wide, and Van Gelder definitely narrowed it for the RVG remaster. I could see why Van Gelder would prefer the mono mix after hearing old vinyl copies of some classic Blue Note Lp's in the mono mix, but narrowing a stereo mix is a poor substitute. I'd rather hear the stereo mix as is.