Milt Buckner - Mighty High - Argo LP 660 (First Pressing, Sealed, Cut Out)
Milt Buckner - Organ
Jimmy Campbell - Alto Saxophone
Kenny Burrell - Guitar
Joe Benjamin - Bass
Maurice Sinclaire - Drums
Recorded: December 2, 1959 at Fine Sound, New York
Engineer: Bill Stoddard
Cover: Emmet McBain
Supervision: Jack Tracy
UPDATE 23/05/10 - Thanks for the comments and input, I've uploaded a new true stereo rip - Cy Touff post will return.
Here's my regular Friday Argo rarity posting, and it's a good one; one of the label's few attempts at cracking the Jazz Organ/Soul Jazz/Chitlins market, except it doesn't sound like typical groove fare...Buckner was one of the pioneers of introducing the Hammond Organ to Jazz, and here his playing is very unobtrusive, very unflashy, sitting back and letting his sidemen take some good licks. Some good support here from the legendary Kenny Burrell on guitar as well. I don't believe this record has ever surfaced on a domestic CD reissue, but it may have come out in France/Europe on some collections.
Acquired this as a still sealed copy with the shrink wrap still attached (don't worry, price was still reasonable) Opening this record after it came out some fifty (!) years ago was bit of a rush; so much history has passed in the meantime... Then taking the record out of its sleeve and listening to it for the very first time felt very special. Screw this collectors' fetish about sealed/near mint/mint grades: this music needs to be heard! More Milt to come in the next few weeks.
Get it
Thank you for this!
ReplyDeleteand another fantastic Argo post thank you, you made my saturday even better
ReplyDeleteI`m loving this blog since I discovered it.You`re doing a great job finding all this Argo/Cadet stuff and I thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing the brand spanking new-old record - sounds like it needs a birthday party of sorts! Maybe this is it! Can't wait to give a listen.
ReplyDeleteMan! That must be such a buzz a new sealed gem but 50 years old.Cheers for the post.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks, as always for your marvelous efforts.
ReplyDeleteMILT BUCKNER - MIGHTY HIGH
ReplyDeleteThanks for making the three Milt Buckner Argos available. According to the discographies they were reissued on a Vogue 2-CD set, and likewise there was supposedly an Al Grey Argo 2-CD set, but I have never seen any of those, so they must have been pulled very quickly after release. It's possible that Vogue was in possession of old LP master tapes, but didn't actually any longer have the rights to the release the material. I'm just speculating, but such things happened several times during the CD era, and who has the right to what on foreign markets is sometimes not very clear. It's difficult to otherwise explain why I've never seen these releases.
As can seen by the album cover, this was a stereo LP, and this time your early mono transfer doesn't work entirely well, since the balance gets a bit wrong. Buckner is heard too low compared to other instruments. Fortunately jazzy62's blog recently posted a stereo rip, and indeed Buckner is pretty much in his own channel, which means that he isn't drowned out by the other instruments as becomes the case in a mono fold-down.
I know that it is quite some time since you posted this and that you now do stereo.
By the way, what happened to your Cy Touff post? I was going to post about the incredible gaffe the AMG review makes about that album...
Thanks so much for Milt Buckner. Jorge, from Buenos Aires
ReplyDeleteMILT BUCKNER - MIGHTY HIGH
ReplyDeleteI have now burnt and listened to your stereo rip and it is a huge improvement over your previous mono rip! Very nicely done!
It is also much quieter than the Jazzy rip which had considerably more surface noise. This rip shows that you have come a long way since your earliest offerings! Keep up the goood work!