June 2019 DV Releases (MFSB, Guess Who, Herbie Hancock, and Donald Byrd)

[Snood]

Snood be in for 4

 

[TVB]

Just bought the Guess Who Rockin/GH #2 and really looking forward to listening. I HAVE and WILL BUY all of the standard rock stuff they offer....Great job DV!!! I have the GH #2 on CD-4, but the problem with
cd-4 is that darn expensive cartridge/stylus!

 

[JonUrban]

Thanks Dave. Your work here at the forum and for D-V is invaluable. I hope everyone appreciates all that you do as much as I do.

 

[DuncanS]

I'll just hold off on the one I missed until the next batch. Oh well. Moron I be.
The web page had 3 across, so that's what I ordered! (Plus the Tomita)

No big deal. Senior moment, you know?

I almost did the same, then for some reason I came here to QQ and saw 4 mentioned so I went back and did some digging and found it, and added it on

 

[fredblue]

The post-1975 MFSB albums have a breezier, more disco-influenced sound. Obviously the times were changing, but also so was MFSB's personnel - a bunch of them were disgruntled (is the opposite of disgruntled...gruntled?) left in the middle of the decade to join Salsoul's house band. The new cats that came in had a bit more of a dancefloor-influenced vibe, so you lose a bit of the grittiness of the earlier years, but there's still lots to like. I think about half the album was produced by McFadden and Whitehead, later of Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now fame. I think the album was a kind of loose concept album around the idea of "Summer" which may account for it sounding slightly different than their other albums.

The real star of the show though of course is Philadelphia Freedom, which as you've pointed out so many times, was previously only available as an SQ-encoded LP. This new reissue is likely the first time the discrete quad master tapes have been played since Arthur Stoppe mixed them in late 1975. It didn't do anything in the charts really, but I think this album is right up their with their best and the quad mix (like all the other PIR quads) is gold standard. I particularly like the two tracks that open side two written and arranged by Dexter Wansel, which seem like something of an audition for his own solo albums - if you like these I highly reccomend checking out his four PIR albums released from '76 to '79.



It was actually never released on SQ LP, I think that's someone on discogs (or elsewhere) mistaking the 'This Album Also Available on Quad Tape' sticker (I posted a photo of one in my UA/Blue Note thread here) for an actual quad LP. The mix is excellent, one of the most discrete of the UA quads and plenty of swirling pans and front/back movement. I think this may be the real revelation of the bunch, given Mike's remastering prowess and the fact that the UA Q8 tapes are hot garbage, even by Q8 standards - they were oversaturated to the point of distortion and their frequency response barely extended above 6kHz. Straight from the master tape with full-frequency range reproduction is going to be something special.

Also, someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this might be the first "pop" (or non-easy listening, or whatever you want to call it) quad mix that UMG has ever licensed out, which I think is a big deal in itself. I hope enough people buy this disc that it gives D-V the imperative to go through the Liberty/UA/Blue Note catalogue the same way they've started to do with CTI and PIR with Sony. At the very least it would be nice to get Donald Byrd's other Blue Note quad (Street Lady) and Lou Donaldson's Sassy Soul Strut which are just as good as Black Byrd in terms of both mix and content.



I'm not sure, but I would assume that for safety's sake - Mike only told me that it was "a dub, but a very good one". I know there have been other possible reissues he's had the opportunity to license where the quad masters were unavailable that he's passed on after having professional-grade Q8 transfers done that didn't meet his quality standards. So if he's happy with the sound of whatever's been used for the Sextant multi-channel layer, you can be assured that it sounds very good, indeed.




I did the liner notes for the Guess Who 2fer - the MFSB disc features liners from Record Collector/Mojo contributor Charles Waring. I'm not sure about the others but I presume Oliver Lomax may have done some of them.



Guess Who's Greatest Hits Vol. II is actually a real treasure trove for the quad collector - first off, having seen the master tape boxes, I can confirm that the whole thing was newly-remixed for quad by the band's longtime engineer Brian Christian (who also did the superb Road Food quad mixes) even where tracks had been previously mixed for albums that were released in quad.

The tracks making their quad debut here include Broken/Albert Flasher (a non-album double A-side single), Rain Dance, Sour Suite and Life in the Bloodstream (from So Long, Bannatyne), Runnin' Back to Saskatoon (from Live at the Paramount), Orly and Follow Your Daughter Home (from Artificial Paradise, which was released as an entirely FAKE quad - to quote Seinfeld, the quad mixes of the two tracks on GH Vol. 2 are "real, and they're spectacular"). The only tracks getting a second go-round in quad are Heartbroken Bopper and Guns, Guns, Guns (from Rockin') and Glamour Boy (from #10) and to my ear the GHv2 mixes are all not only more discrete, but superior mixes...and the GHv2 version of Glamour Boy is the single edit, so again somewhat unique.



Completely agree with you, and everyone reading this should be assured that every effort was made to locate the quad master (or a quad master) including searching tape vaults internationally, a process that took more than a year's time. I think that article about the UMG vault fire gives you a sense of how difficult locating tapes can be sometimes, especially ones that haven't been used in more than four decades and D-V and their partners are making herculean efforts to locate these treasures. A similar situation existed with the MFSB quad masters, which couldn't be located at this time last year, so sometimes these things do pay off in the fullness of time.

Hopefully I've covered most of the questions about these here - if anyone has any further inquiries, or I've missed anything, let me know and I'll try and address it.

amazing, just amazing, as always!
in the words of the Stylistics; "thank you baby!" i mean, thank you Dave! ❤

ps. pedantry time, do the Quads Miller Nevada did on DTS CD licenced from Universal/Polygram count? the Moody Blues, the Clapton's, Allman Brothers, Bachman Turner Overdrive, etc.?

 

[4-earredwonder]

The post-1975 MFSB albums have a breezier, more disco-influenced sound. Obviously the times were changing, but also so was MFSB's personnel - a bunch of them were disgruntled (is the opposite of disgruntled...gruntled?) left in the middle of the decade to join Salsoul's house band. The new cats that came in had a bit more of a dancefloor-influenced vibe, so you lose a bit of the grittiness of the earlier years, but there's still lots to like. I think about half the album was produced by McFadden and Whitehead, later of Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now fame. I think the album was a kind of loose concept album around the idea of "Summer" which may account for it sounding slightly different than their other albums.

The real star of the show though of course is Philadelphia Freedom, which as you've pointed out so many times, was previously only available as an SQ-encoded LP. This new reissue is likely the first time the discrete quad master tapes have been played since Arthur Stoppe mixed them in late 1975. It didn't do anything in the charts really, but I think this album is right up their with their best and the quad mix (like all the other PIR quads) is gold standard. I particularly like the two tracks that open side two written and arranged by Dexter Wansel, which seem like something of an audition for his own solo albums - if you like these I highly reccomend checking out his four PIR albums released from '76 to '79.



It was actually never released on SQ LP, I think that's someone on discogs (or elsewhere) mistaking the 'This Album Also Available on Quad Tape' sticker (I posted a photo of one in my UA/Blue Note thread here) for an actual quad LP. The mix is excellent, one of the most discrete of the UA quads and plenty of swirling pans and front/back movement. I think this may be the real revelation of the bunch, given Mike's remastering prowess and the fact that the UA Q8 tapes are hot garbage, even by Q8 standards - they were oversaturated to the point of distortion and their frequency response barely extended above 6kHz. Straight from the master tape with full-frequency range reproduction is going to be something special.

Also, someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this might be the first "pop" (or non-easy listening, or whatever you want to call it) quad mix that UMG has ever licensed out, which I think is a big deal in itself. I hope enough people buy this disc that it gives D-V the imperative to go through the Liberty/UA/Blue Note catalogue the same way they've started to do with CTI and PIR with Sony. At the very least it would be nice to get Donald Byrd's other Blue Note quad (Street Lady) and Lou Donaldson's Sassy Soul Strut which are just as good as Black Byrd in terms of both mix and content.



I'm not sure, but I would assume that for safety's sake - Mike only told me that it was "a dub, but a very good one". I know there have been other possible reissues he's had the opportunity to license where the quad masters were unavailable that he's passed on after having professional-grade Q8 transfers done that didn't meet his quality standards. So if he's happy with the sound of whatever's been used for the Sextant multi-channel layer, you can be assured that it sounds very good, indeed.




I did the liner notes for the Guess Who 2fer - the MFSB disc features liners from Record Collector/Mojo contributor Charles Waring. I'm not sure about the others but I presume Oliver Lomax may have done some of them.



Guess Who's Greatest Hits Vol. II is actually a real treasure trove for the quad collector - first off, having seen the master tape boxes, I can confirm that the whole thing was newly-remixed for quad by the band's longtime engineer Brian Christian (who also did the superb Road Food quad mixes) even where tracks had been previously mixed for albums that were released in quad.

The tracks making their quad debut here include Broken/Albert Flasher (a non-album double A-side single), Rain Dance, Sour Suite and Life in the Bloodstream (from So Long, Bannatyne), Runnin' Back to Saskatoon (from Live at the Paramount), Orly and Follow Your Daughter Home (from Artificial Paradise, which was released as an entirely FAKE quad - to quote Seinfeld, the quad mixes of the two tracks on GH Vol. 2 are "real, and they're spectacular"). The only tracks getting a second go-round in quad are Heartbroken Bopper and Guns, Guns, Guns (from Rockin') and Glamour Boy (from #10) and to my ear the GHv2 mixes are all not only more discrete, but superior mixes...and the GHv2 version of Glamour Boy is the single edit, so again somewhat unique.



Completely agree with you, and everyone reading this should be assured that every effort was made to locate the quad master (or a quad master) including searching tape vaults internationally, a process that took more than a year's time. I think that article about the UMG vault fire gives you a sense of how difficult locating tapes can be sometimes, especially ones that haven't been used in more than four decades and D-V and their partners are making herculean efforts to locate these treasures. A similar situation existed with the MFSB quad masters, which couldn't be located at this time last year, so sometimes these things do pay off in the fullness of time.

Hopefully I've covered most of the questions about these here - if anyone has any further inquiries, or I've missed anything, let me know and I'll try and address it.

Many thanks Dave for your riveting reply which covered everything you wanted to know concerning D~V's new releases....and then some. Likewise hope the UMG Donald Byrd title sells well to encourage other much sought after UMG QUAD titles.

I am posing this question which I'm hoping to receive a candid reply [if you're at liberty to do so]: Has D~V EVER been in negotiations with RHINO/WARNER to release any QUAD product? Or is/was that a myth? Would love for that nagging question to be answered once and for all and I know I'm not alone.

 

[Clement]

Wow! I've been checking DV every morning. This morning I nearly shat myself and came here to start a thread--started 9 minutes earlier! I bought all 4 (i'm from the more is MORE school) and the Thomas Arne - The Judgment of Paris that has been lauded in some thread on this site! And . . . Angela Bofill has been calling to me, so I scored that stereo SACD. Listened to a couple of discs from my recent DV order, did some housekeeping, made another purchase on importcds, and then I went to see if I could add somethings to my discogs list: @fredblue, bless you! all four of today's releases are already there! If the Arne disc doesn't show up, I'll give it a go myself. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

 

[The56Kid]

The post-1975 MFSB albums have a breezier, more disco-influenced sound. Obviously the times were changing, but also so was MFSB's personnel - a bunch of them were disgruntled (is the opposite of disgruntled...gruntled?) left in the middle of the decade to join Salsoul's house band. The new cats that came in had a bit more of a dancefloor-influenced vibe, so you lose a bit of the grittiness of the earlier years, but there's still lots to like. I think about half the album was produced by McFadden and Whitehead, later of Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now fame. I think the album was a kind of loose concept album around the idea of "Summer" which may account for it sounding slightly different than their other albums.

The real star of the show though of course is Philadelphia Freedom, which as you've pointed out so many times, was previously only available as an SQ-encoded LP. This new reissue is likely the first time the discrete quad master tapes have been played since Arthur Stoppe mixed them in late 1975. It didn't do anything in the charts really, but I think this album is right up their with their best and the quad mix (like all the other PIR quads) is gold standard. I particularly like the two tracks that open side two written and arranged by Dexter Wansel, which seem like something of an audition for his own solo albums - if you like these I highly reccomend checking out his four PIR albums released from '76 to '79.



It was actually never released on SQ LP, I think that's someone on discogs (or elsewhere) mistaking the 'This Album Also Available on Quad Tape' sticker (I posted a photo of one in my UA/Blue Note thread here) for an actual quad LP. The mix is excellent, one of the most discrete of the UA quads and plenty of swirling pans and front/back movement. I think this may be the real revelation of the bunch, given Mike's remastering prowess and the fact that the UA Q8 tapes are hot garbage, even by Q8 standards - they were oversaturated to the point of distortion and their frequency response barely extended above 6kHz. Straight from the master tape with full-frequency range reproduction is going to be something special.

Also, someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this might be the first "pop" (or non-easy listening, or whatever you want to call it) quad mix that UMG has ever licensed out, which I think is a big deal in itself. I hope enough people buy this disc that it gives D-V the imperative to go through the Liberty/UA/Blue Note catalogue the same way they've started to do with CTI and PIR with Sony. At the very least it would be nice to get Donald Byrd's other Blue Note quad (Street Lady) and Lou Donaldson's Sassy Soul Strut which are just as good as Black Byrd in terms of both mix and content.



I'm not sure, but I would assume that for safety's sake - Mike only told me that it was "a dub, but a very good one". I know there have been other possible reissues he's had the opportunity to license where the quad masters were unavailable that he's passed on after having professional-grade Q8 transfers done that didn't meet his quality standards. So if he's happy with the sound of whatever's been used for the Sextant multi-channel layer, you can be assured that it sounds very good, indeed.




I did the liner notes for the Guess Who 2fer - the MFSB disc features liners from Record Collector/Mojo contributor Charles Waring. I'm not sure about the others but I presume Oliver Lomax may have done some of them.



Guess Who's Greatest Hits Vol. II is actually a real treasure trove for the quad collector - first off, having seen the master tape boxes, I can confirm that the whole thing was newly-remixed for quad by the band's longtime engineer Brian Christian (who also did the superb Road Food quad mixes) even where tracks had been previously mixed for albums that were released in quad.

The tracks making their quad debut here include Broken/Albert Flasher (a non-album double A-side single), Rain Dance, Sour Suite and Life in the Bloodstream (from So Long, Bannatyne), Runnin' Back to Saskatoon (from Live at the Paramount), Orly and Follow Your Daughter Home (from Artificial Paradise, which was released as an entirely FAKE quad - to quote Seinfeld, the quad mixes of the two tracks on GH Vol. 2 are "real, and they're spectacular"). The only tracks getting a second go-round in quad are Heartbroken Bopper and Guns, Guns, Guns (from Rockin') and Glamour Boy (from #10) and to my ear the GHv2 mixes are all not only more discrete, but superior mixes...and the GHv2 version of Glamour Boy is the single edit, so again somewhat unique.



Completely agree with you, and everyone reading this should be assured that every effort was made to locate the quad master (or a quad master) including searching tape vaults internationally, a process that took more than a year's time. I think that article about the UMG vault fire gives you a sense of how difficult locating tapes can be sometimes, especially ones that haven't been used in more than four decades and D-V and their partners are making herculean efforts to locate these treasures. A similar situation existed with the MFSB quad masters, which couldn't be located at this time last year, so sometimes these things do pay off in the fullness of time.

Hopefully I've covered most of the questions about these here - if anyone has any further inquiries, or I've missed anything, let me know and I'll try and address it.

Dave, you are DA MAN, my man! I’ll be getting all of the new titles and only regret that you didn’t do the liner notes for all of them. Thank you, Michael Dutton!

 

[fredblue]

Dave, you are DA MAN, my man! I’ll be getting all of the new titles and only regret that you didn’t do the liner notes for all of them. Thank you, Michael Dutton!

he's a man! not a machine!
(ain't that right DZ-1000!)

 

[4-earredwonder]

he's a man! not a machine!
(ain't that right DZ-1000!)

Sez WHO Mr. BLUE?

Toronto'sMEGAMIND!

 

[Which_One_Is_Pink]

Ordered me 3...
Donald Byrd - Black Byrd Cool Jazz!
Herbie Hancock - Sextant Cool Jazz Fusion! (oh yes need more!)
The Guess Who - Rockin' & The Best of The Guess Who - Volume 2 (with all the speculation I had an itch that more G.W. would/should be involved , now I can stop scratching that itch )

 

[Scott65]

Amazing how quickly this thread has grown. Probably a good indicator of demand for DV product

 

[esimms86]

Yeah, I sprung for five, including “Firebird.” Now I almost expect to see a “Life In Surround” video about the Guess Who... OK Mike, you’re on!

 

[key_wiz]

Ordering all! Great selection! Rock on D/V!!!!

 

[key_wiz]

Did Steely Dave do any of the liner notes on these? Ive missed his notes on the last few releases!

 

[~dave~~wave~]

Did Steely Dave do any of the liner notes on these? Ive missed his notes on the last few releases!

Your question is answered in post # 62:

I did the liner notes for the Guess Who 2fer - the MFSB disc features liners from Record Collector/Mojo contributor Charles Waring. I'm not sure about the others but I presume Oliver Lomax may have done some of them.

 

[quicksrt]

Best of Vol. 2 is most welcome and much needed to go with the AF first “Best of” set.

The sound quality should be quite great on this later set of hits. It ties up so many loose ends. They could have made it a reg not 2-fer - it's so chock full of strong material and hits it would still sell just fine. If one has "Road Food", and the two "Best of" sets in quad SACD, you will have all Guess Who hits in their quad mixes!!!

UMG got the Capitol/EMI/Blue Note catalogs (thankfully) after that awful fire. So these other quad masters are likely just sitting there just waiting to be reissued. So glad D/V made a successful effort there. Glad to hear that D/V have made international efforts to secure the best tapes. Now if they could or would just grab one good quad title from Warner Music Group or Rhino, it would round out things just perfectly.

 

[Mesozoic Mike]

Just ordered Donald Byrd and MFSB. Thinking about the Guess Who.
Three cheers for Dutton Vocalion.

 

[key_wiz]

Looks like D/V is going to have their hands full shipping out orders this weekend!

 

[Eggplant]

the MFSB release isn't a two-fer with the quad mix of Love Is The Message (which included "TSOP", the Soul Train theme). I guess they're saving one for another batch down the line.

Or worse ... maybe the quad master is lost, as with Sextant. That would suck big time, but my guess is that’s the case. Since when do CBS quad masters disappear? First I’ve ever heard of that, but where there’s one missing tape, there are others. Don’t think Michael D would stick us with a stereo flip-side without a reason.

Speaking of two-fers, do we really need to get two Tomita albums as standalone releases? I’d like to have Daphne and Chloe to replace my Japanese CD-4 (the one that I haven’t played since 1980). And I wouldn’t mind Firebird from the master tape. But with the crapbunch of quad Tomita’s out there, can’t we pair them up? Or does Isao’s output somehow command a loftier position than — oh, I dunno — Art Garfunkel? Or Billy Paul?

If that’s how it must be, then be it must.
I’d just like to know why.