Vinyl Me Please Anthology

Hoping it's QRP or RTI on all-black vinyl like the Stax and Blue Note Anthologies were. RKS probably as mastering engineer. All we know about it is from a picture of someone holding it in an email.
Bear in mind that there are very, very few Impulse master tapes that survived the fire. All Alice Coltrane are gone. Many John Coltrane, all the Archie Shepp, all the Pharoah except Karma, Gato Barbieri, John Klemmer, and so on - all gone. The best they can do would be to get the second generation tapes from Japan, but many titles were never released in Japan.
 
Bear in mind that there are very, very few Impulse master tapes that survived the fire. All Alice Coltrane are gone. Many John Coltrane, all the Archie Shepp, all the Pharoah except Karma, Gato Barbieri, John Klemmer, and so on - all gone. The best they can do would be to get the second generation tapes from Japan, but many titles were never released in Japan.

If the masters are gone, then they are gone; which is obviously unfortunate.
But honestly, after this past year with VMP, I would prefer well mastered, digitally-sourced records pressed at QRP, than AAA pressed at GZ. I got lucky with my Herbie box and only needed one replacement, but based on the Essentials, R&HH, and Country tracks, I feel pretty fortunate I didn't have to ask for half a box of replacements.
 
If the masters are gone, then they are gone; which is obviously unfortunate.
But honestly, after this past year with VMP, I would prefer well mastered, digitally-sourced records pressed at QRP, than AAA pressed at GZ. I got lucky with my Herbie box and only needed one replacement, but based on the Essentials, R&HH, and Country tracks, I feel pretty fortunate I didn't have to ask for half a box of replacements.
Yes, fair enough. It is simply a fact that most Impulse first gen masters no longer exist. I would have no problem with quality 2nd gen tapes - these are used more often that many realize despite the claim of AAA from original masters, as the new definition of master tape is whatever is the best tape left.

An Impulse box cannot be legitimate without representation from John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler, Yusef Lateef, Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane, who were the cornerstones of the label. Their finest work was on Impulse.

Some artists were incidental to Impulse and never really fit the Impulse esthetic. Sonny only did 2 records (Alfie IMO is an outlier and not terribly interesting), Blakey was only because he was between contracts and never fit (and the album is nowhere near what came after on Blue Note), Oliver Nelson did a masterpiece but it has been done to death by now, and so on. Marion Brown was vital, and so was Chico Hamilton, but warhorses from late period Coleman Hawkins

But there are real gems that deserve to be unearthed. The ABC period was incredibly fertile. John Klemmer, Michael White, Gato Barbieri, Sam Rivers and Keith Jarrett did some of their most ground breaking work during the ABC period.

Another retread of Ellington/Coltrane, ALS, or some of the lamer early titles, would not be welcome.

Last point - there is STILL unreleased studio recordings of Coltrane with tapes available. Late period complete recordings. If they could get them, and wanted to put an Impulse box way over the top, doing an unreleased Coltrane record would be the way to do it.
 
I imagine a lot of the tapes are gone, but they will take what they can get and probably pick some more obscure titles by big artists . Probably won’t be many retreads from the Acoustic Sounds series though which had all the heavy hitters
 
An Impulse box cannot be legitimate without representation from John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler, Yusef Lateef, Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane, who were the cornerstones of the label. Their finest work was on Impulse.

Some artists were incidental to Impulse and never really fit the Impulse esthetic. Sonny only did 2 records (Alfie IMO is an outlier and not terribly interesting), Blakey was only because he was between contracts and never fit (and the album is nowhere near what came after on Blue Note), Oliver Nelson did a masterpiece but it has been done to death by now, and so on. Marion Brown was vital, and so was Chico Hamilton, but warhorses from late period Coleman Hawkins

But there are real gems that deserve to be unearthed. The ABC period was incredibly fertile. John Klemmer, Michael White, Gato Barbieri, Sam Rivers and Keith Jarrett did some of their most ground breaking work during the ABC period.

Another retread of Ellington/Coltrane, ALS, or some of the lamer early titles, would not be welcome.

Last point - there is STILL unreleased studio recordings of Coltrane with tapes available. Late period complete recordings. If they could get them, and wanted to put an Impulse box way over the top, doing an unreleased Coltrane record would be the way to do it.

Well, I’m on the record guessing:

Kai Winding and J.J. Johnson - The Great Kai & J.J. (Impulse #1)
Benny Carter & His Orchestra - Further Definitions
John Coltrane - Africa/Brass
Charles Mingus - Mingus Plays Piano
Alice Coltrane - Ptah, El Doud (Featuring Pharoah Sanders and Joe Henderson)
Albert Ayler - In Greenwich Village
Chico Hamilton - The Dealer
Sons of Kemet - Your Queen is a Reptile

But I’d happily swap out the Benny Carter album (or Mingus album) for Lateef’s Live at Pep’s, Klemmer's Magic and Movement, of Shepp's Four for Trane.

I think there is zero chance they do unreleased Coltrane stuff (for this). Universal would be throwing away money, and I can't imagine the Coltrane family would ok that being buried in a box set, unless it was just a John Coltrane Anthology.
 
Agree, unreleased Coltrane on this is a pipe dream.

I hope they do not do any recent titles. They may have the Impulse logo, but have nothing whatsoever to do with the label as it was conceived and run in the 60's and 70's. Impulse was Bob Thiele, and after Ed Michel. Both I feel are the 'true' Impulse label.

Live At Pep's was an ABC era release of vault tapes, they would be better to represent the period where Lateef was active on the label and did an amazing run of records. Unfortunately, all Impulse Lateef tapes were destroyed, as were all Ayler.

Africa/Brass has a fabulous reissue on SC from before the tapes went up in flames.

I'm not a fan of The Dealer, but to each their own. Too much Chico trying to attract an avant-garde rock audience with Coryell. The masterpiece, Man From Two World, would be much more fitting to me.

Interesting, though, about the Kai/JJ. I didn't remember it was Impulse 1. Would be a great tribute to start the anthology with it.

Last thought - Ornette's two Impulse albums were never reissued, due to Ornette having some grudge against Impulse and owning the rights. Very unlikely, and I would imagine that most people who know of these albums have an original already, but if they could shake them loose, it would be amazing.
 
ornette and alice's "ptah el daoud" would make the box an instant must-have. Agreed that unreleased coltrane is not going to happen -- given the furor over 'both directions at once' and how much money was made, there's no reason anyone remotely sane would agree to put anything on that level of interest and potential money-making in box set, limiting both it's appeal and marketability.

very likely they'll drop in someone recent (likely at impulse's insistence)

I got lucky with my Herbie box and only needed one replacement, but based on the Essentials, R&HH, and Country tracks, I feel pretty fortunate I didn't have to ask for half a box of replacements.
herbie, grateful dead and metal blade boxes were basically bowl factories. PIF thread was full of 'em. I think Mather is personally responsible for at least two people's grateful dead bowl collections.
 
ornette and alice's "ptah el daoud" would make the box an instant must-have. Agreed that unreleased coltrane is not going to happen -- given the furor over 'both directions at once' and how much money was made, there's no reason anyone remotely sane would agree to put anything on that level of interest and potential money-making in box set, limiting both it's appeal and marketability.

very likely they'll drop in someone recent (likely at impulse's insistence)


herbie, grateful dead and metal blade boxes were basically bowl factories. PIF thread was full of 'em. I think Mather is personally responsible for at least two people's grateful dead bowl collections.
I know people want Ptah but I will be really shocked if they do that album. From most accounts, tapes don’t exist anymore after the fire and you’d think if someone had access to tapes or even a high res transfer someone would have done a reissue by now. It would be a huge get for them and probably cause the box set to instantly sell out.
 
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