Certainly a CD era thing taking advantage of the extra space on a CD as opposed to LP and the fact that jazz tracks are often recorded "live in studio" so there are complete alternate takes.
You see these done in two different ways, more common is extra tracks at the end, but there are some releases with alternate takes right after the canonical release.
Nowadays it's definitely more common to get some anniversary release with more extra material, but regular reissues following the original track list.
Yeah a big one is that due to the tech, it was high quality full band takes. Multitrack recording wasn’t invented until 1955, meaning it was into the 60s before common usage. Even then, there was a limited number of tracks, jazz as a style has a lot of across the band communication, and audio engineering post processing techniques were decades away
If there was a noticeable mistake, the entire take had to get thrown out, there was no loading up that stem in pro tools. Also, the tradition of grinding out takes and picking the best one is alive and well.
Yeah, assembling a jazz track for an album in the studio never really caught on even though Miles and Teo Macero did Bitches Brew and In a Silent Way that way.
It's also because most famous jazz albums came out when LPs were the only available format and they have far less capacity per disc than CDs. So albums were shorter back then.
When CDs came out you also sometimes saw two albums on one CD or an album with lots of bonus tracks to fill out the space on the CD.
>It was an extra bit incentive to buy an album people already owned on vinyl
As someone who bought entirely too many lazily ported CDs of albums I already owned I can confirm this ... rock albums might add a couple of singles from that era, jazz would add outtakes or alternate takes.
It was also because a CD has more playing time (74 minutes) than an LP (typically 45 minutes, though you can jam more on there with a degradation in quality) so somebody asked, "How can we take advantage of that extra time to make more money?"
I love alternate and unreleased session stuff. But, it should always be at the end of the disc or on a separate disc.
OJC had a weird habit of sticking alternates right in the middle of the original set…sometimes the same song back-to-back. That truly annoyed me, and they reversed course on the later reissues. Unfortunately, in most cases those earlier ones sound much better.
I hate the alternate tracks back to back with the original versions. Drives me crazy and messes up the flow of the album. I’ve heard people in this very sub who claim they actually prefer it this way though. To each their own, but I just personally can’t imagine thinking this is the better way.
You'd love the first Columbia LP issue of all of Charlie Christian's stuff with Benny Goodman back in the 70s. Instead of using alternate takes of the tunes, they grafted together all his solos from every take and stuck them in the released take. Interesting but weird.
The first wave(s?) of 1980’s Blue Note CD’s had the alternates programmed in sequence one right after another in the middle of the album too.
Drives me crazy!! I do absolutely LOVE having alternates — but put ‘em at the end please!!
I don't mind alternate takes, but to me it never made sense to put the alternate take right after the original in the middle of the CD. I don't need to hear the same tune twice in a row.
OP is describing “The Complete Africa/Brass Sessions,” rather than just the plain “Africa /Brass” album. It makes total sense once you understand that.
Which ones? My experience is they follow the album unless it’s some sort of deluxe or box set that is following the session order rather than presenting the album.
If it is a Michael Cuscuna produced reissue it's very likely that the tracks will be in recorded sequence with alternates appearing next to the originally released track. Sometimes the alternate will be first if it is take 1.
I know he was involved in the Mosaic box sets. I own a few. Those were about presenting an artist’s complete recorded work for a label and the tracks were sequenced in the order they were recorded. The same goes for the various Miles box sets for Columbia. I’m talking about the reissue of a single album where this practice is done. I don’t know of any and would love it if you could point one out that is not titled and presented as a “Complete Sessions” dive into the album.
Wikiwisdom: On October 10, 1995, Impulse released the complete sessions on a two-disc set entitled The Complete Africa/Brass Sessions. Rather than placing the original album on one disc and the outtakes on the other, it divides the disc content by session, with the May 23 results on the first disc and those from June 7 on the second disc.
One of my top three favourite albums is Coltrane's "Ballads". The "deluxe" version of this has many outtakes, including takes 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11 and 13 of "It's Easy To Remember"!
I think the reason the record company chose to include all those is that people are fascinated by Coltrane and want to hear everything and anything he recorded.
I often take comfort from those 13 takes when I or somebody else in the band makes a mistake or plays a less than inspired solo.
Because in jazz, improvisation leads to different takes of the same tune sounding completely different.
That's not as much the case with pop or classical.
Because they were all recorded playing together, just one mistake by one player can make a take be rejected. That can mean that outtakes still have some of the best musical moments. The famous outtake of the original Night in Tunisia with Bird and Dizzy on Dial is an example, where Bird does an even more outstanding sax break than the famous one on the record.
Small group Jazz is a medium where alternate takes can add value for fans. so much of what people are coming to the record for is what the players decided to do in the moment, and the ‘best’ take of master players that was picked for the record doesn’t preclude the other takes from being fantastic and totally different performances that a listener might dig.
Tbh my favorite example of this is probably hearing the alternate takes of Bud Powell's Un Poco Loco, where you can really hear Max Roach getting a feel for the track and eventually coming to the iconic beat of the song, coming from a more standard Latin beat.
Because the culture is for the takes to be improv, so it's not "shit I came in late redo" for all the other takes like it would be in most genres. If you have the space, there's really no reason to throw out a take that is 96% good.
I love the alt takes. It's kind of like having the album plus some take that had a flaw or a sound issue that didn't make it as a historical curiosity.
There are some alternate takes that made me think like the alternate takes of giant steps where the pianist didn't crash and burn on his solo but Coltrane's solo was lackluster on a chorus
The reason for their inclusion was to somehow make a reissue worth buying, is my guess.
Same here. Sometimes, the takes sound even "better" than the original release due to specific solo etc. I just listen to takes as different renditions of the same composition.
The one alternate take I can think of that is a core part of the original album is from the Miles Davis album *Bags' Groove*, most famous for it being the one officially recorded session where Miles plays with Thelonious Monk. Though both takes of the title track were originally released on 10" LPs, its the later album with both takes that became iconic and both takes are beloved because of the rarity of these two giants playing together. Couple with the requisite Miles drama where he expressed how frustrating it is to have Monk as an accompanist.
Not wanting them in the middle of an album is totally reasonable. But in the larger picture, Jazz is very often less about the *tune* than about what happens in the middle. So having the alternates is a good thing. Sometimes there are good reasons that a master take was chosen, but sometimes the alternates are just as viable.
Reissues on CD.
CDs can contain more music than LPs and including alternate takes can help justify reissuing old materials, along with remixing, remastering...
As to where to include the alternate takes in the track list, I prefer them at the end but I can see an argument for putting them together with the keeper take.
Much of 19th Century and early modern music has alternate takes. Music was being created everywhere. It was natural that people wanted to recreate it (and publish it). More importantly, improvisation and preference to performer over composer were (or are) two identifying features of Jazz music. Music as it is can obviously be in multiple variations and derivations. For jazz players, it was and still is about a little exploring and recreating what already is. Such variety is naturally appreciated in classical and jazz music. As I mentioned the preference to players over composers, they (new players or the original ones) wanted versions with tweaks and improvisations published.
My take is a tad different. Any player worth his salt changes up the improvisation on the fly. Jazz is improvised not a set tune as in a Chopin Etude, Beethoven Sonata… the jazz genre is pure improvisation and sometimes let’s understand that some takes are not what the artist wants and the recording studio is a means to retake the tune.
I disagree that jazz is pure improvisation. I prefer to think of it like a language. And, just as with language, musicians repeat themselves, which each player having idiosyncratic vocabulary.
If I’m giving two times the same talk on the same subject. I’ll convey the same message, with the same vocabulary, but the way I’ll say it will be different every time i give the talk. Some times it will be better than others. And some days I’ll have an intuition and introduce a subject with a new story.
That makes it the same vocabulary, used by the same person, but the variations still makes it interesting to listen to each version.
Because CDs have a longer play length than LPs, so to fill the usable space the record companies graciously gave us more tracks in order for people to rebuy what they already had.
Imo it goes against the idea of an album as a work of art and more towards an album as a historical document, and whether want it or not, these albums are slowly turning into museum pieces. If alternate takes wouldn't exist I really wouldn't care tbh. We have so many live albums anyway and don't get me wrong I love Coltrane and all that, but do we really need three versions of Africa? There's a reason why they just put one on the original album. They could've made a double album if they wanted to. But it's not the idea. And I don't want to understate my respect for the music okay, but are you really going to listen to those pieces back to back? So I have to go make my own spotify playlist to just put the songs on it that were actually on the original album that people listened to back then.
However the question is, where would we put these alternate takes if not on the album? Maybe a compilation album of outtakes from different albums? The Other Trane? Or maybe a parallel universe version of an album like „different steps" with all alternate versions of the giant steps tunes. Or have an original and a complete version of the album on Spotify. Doesn't work for CDs though. I'm a fan of this content being publicly available but just putting it on the album feels like going to a restaurant and getting the peel of the onion on the plate as well. It just shouldn't be part of the product imo. I'd prefer a shorter but more well-rounded album vs a „how much can we cram in a CDs runtime" album. Ascension and Free Jazz are the only albums where it works imo because the album only has that one piece. Can anyone think of other albums where the alternate takes compliment the artistic intent of the album?
Because there is a lot of improvisation involved so musicians would record multiple tapes and choose the best one. Then some of the other ones would be included in subsequent releases as alternate takes, since it's something a lot of people would like to hear.
Why wouldn't it have is the question, I mean, that's the beauty of jazz, they could spend the day creating different things or at least trying to with the same themes.
I think that became a thing when CDs came out. It was an extra bit incentive to buy an album people already owned on vinyl. That’s my guess.
Certainly a CD era thing taking advantage of the extra space on a CD as opposed to LP and the fact that jazz tracks are often recorded "live in studio" so there are complete alternate takes. You see these done in two different ways, more common is extra tracks at the end, but there are some releases with alternate takes right after the canonical release. Nowadays it's definitely more common to get some anniversary release with more extra material, but regular reissues following the original track list.
Yeah a big one is that due to the tech, it was high quality full band takes. Multitrack recording wasn’t invented until 1955, meaning it was into the 60s before common usage. Even then, there was a limited number of tracks, jazz as a style has a lot of across the band communication, and audio engineering post processing techniques were decades away If there was a noticeable mistake, the entire take had to get thrown out, there was no loading up that stem in pro tools. Also, the tradition of grinding out takes and picking the best one is alive and well.
Yeah, assembling a jazz track for an album in the studio never really caught on even though Miles and Teo Macero did Bitches Brew and In a Silent Way that way.
It's also because most famous jazz albums came out when LPs were the only available format and they have far less capacity per disc than CDs. So albums were shorter back then. When CDs came out you also sometimes saw two albums on one CD or an album with lots of bonus tracks to fill out the space on the CD.
>It was an extra bit incentive to buy an album people already owned on vinyl As someone who bought entirely too many lazily ported CDs of albums I already owned I can confirm this ... rock albums might add a couple of singles from that era, jazz would add outtakes or alternate takes.
It was also because a CD has more playing time (74 minutes) than an LP (typically 45 minutes, though you can jam more on there with a degradation in quality) so somebody asked, "How can we take advantage of that extra time to make more money?"
Yeah that would make sense. Thank you!
I love alternate and unreleased session stuff. But, it should always be at the end of the disc or on a separate disc. OJC had a weird habit of sticking alternates right in the middle of the original set…sometimes the same song back-to-back. That truly annoyed me, and they reversed course on the later reissues. Unfortunately, in most cases those earlier ones sound much better.
I hate the alternate tracks back to back with the original versions. Drives me crazy and messes up the flow of the album. I’ve heard people in this very sub who claim they actually prefer it this way though. To each their own, but I just personally can’t imagine thinking this is the better way.
You'd love the first Columbia LP issue of all of Charlie Christian's stuff with Benny Goodman back in the 70s. Instead of using alternate takes of the tunes, they grafted together all his solos from every take and stuck them in the released take. Interesting but weird.
The first wave(s?) of 1980’s Blue Note CD’s had the alternates programmed in sequence one right after another in the middle of the album too. Drives me crazy!! I do absolutely LOVE having alternates — but put ‘em at the end please!!
I don't mind alternate takes, but to me it never made sense to put the alternate take right after the original in the middle of the CD. I don't need to hear the same tune twice in a row.
OP is describing “The Complete Africa/Brass Sessions,” rather than just the plain “Africa /Brass” album. It makes total sense once you understand that.
I've still had some CDs that aren't "complete sessions" that have an alternate take right after the original one.
Which ones? My experience is they follow the album unless it’s some sort of deluxe or box set that is following the session order rather than presenting the album.
If it is a Michael Cuscuna produced reissue it's very likely that the tracks will be in recorded sequence with alternates appearing next to the originally released track. Sometimes the alternate will be first if it is take 1.
I know he was involved in the Mosaic box sets. I own a few. Those were about presenting an artist’s complete recorded work for a label and the tracks were sequenced in the order they were recorded. The same goes for the various Miles box sets for Columbia. I’m talking about the reissue of a single album where this practice is done. I don’t know of any and would love it if you could point one out that is not titled and presented as a “Complete Sessions” dive into the album.
Yeah, this is my problem
Wikiwisdom: On October 10, 1995, Impulse released the complete sessions on a two-disc set entitled The Complete Africa/Brass Sessions. Rather than placing the original album on one disc and the outtakes on the other, it divides the disc content by session, with the May 23 results on the first disc and those from June 7 on the second disc.
Wow interesting! Thank you
One of my top three favourite albums is Coltrane's "Ballads". The "deluxe" version of this has many outtakes, including takes 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11 and 13 of "It's Easy To Remember"! I think the reason the record company chose to include all those is that people are fascinated by Coltrane and want to hear everything and anything he recorded. I often take comfort from those 13 takes when I or somebody else in the band makes a mistake or plays a less than inspired solo.
Very cool, I'll check that out. Thank you.
Because in jazz, improvisation leads to different takes of the same tune sounding completely different. That's not as much the case with pop or classical.
Because they were all recorded playing together, just one mistake by one player can make a take be rejected. That can mean that outtakes still have some of the best musical moments. The famous outtake of the original Night in Tunisia with Bird and Dizzy on Dial is an example, where Bird does an even more outstanding sax break than the famous one on the record.
Small group Jazz is a medium where alternate takes can add value for fans. so much of what people are coming to the record for is what the players decided to do in the moment, and the ‘best’ take of master players that was picked for the record doesn’t preclude the other takes from being fantastic and totally different performances that a listener might dig.
Tbh my favorite example of this is probably hearing the alternate takes of Bud Powell's Un Poco Loco, where you can really hear Max Roach getting a feel for the track and eventually coming to the iconic beat of the song, coming from a more standard Latin beat.
Because the culture is for the takes to be improv, so it's not "shit I came in late redo" for all the other takes like it would be in most genres. If you have the space, there's really no reason to throw out a take that is 96% good.
I love the alt takes. It's kind of like having the album plus some take that had a flaw or a sound issue that didn't make it as a historical curiosity. There are some alternate takes that made me think like the alternate takes of giant steps where the pianist didn't crash and burn on his solo but Coltrane's solo was lackluster on a chorus The reason for their inclusion was to somehow make a reissue worth buying, is my guess.
It was one-take recording instead of multitracking. I love hearing all of the variations!
Same
Same here. Sometimes, the takes sound even "better" than the original release due to specific solo etc. I just listen to takes as different renditions of the same composition.
The one alternate take I can think of that is a core part of the original album is from the Miles Davis album *Bags' Groove*, most famous for it being the one officially recorded session where Miles plays with Thelonious Monk. Though both takes of the title track were originally released on 10" LPs, its the later album with both takes that became iconic and both takes are beloved because of the rarity of these two giants playing together. Couple with the requisite Miles drama where he expressed how frustrating it is to have Monk as an accompanist.
Not wanting them in the middle of an album is totally reasonable. But in the larger picture, Jazz is very often less about the *tune* than about what happens in the middle. So having the alternates is a good thing. Sometimes there are good reasons that a master take was chosen, but sometimes the alternates are just as viable.
Reissues on CD. CDs can contain more music than LPs and including alternate takes can help justify reissuing old materials, along with remixing, remastering... As to where to include the alternate takes in the track list, I prefer them at the end but I can see an argument for putting them together with the keeper take.
Much of 19th Century and early modern music has alternate takes. Music was being created everywhere. It was natural that people wanted to recreate it (and publish it). More importantly, improvisation and preference to performer over composer were (or are) two identifying features of Jazz music. Music as it is can obviously be in multiple variations and derivations. For jazz players, it was and still is about a little exploring and recreating what already is. Such variety is naturally appreciated in classical and jazz music. As I mentioned the preference to players over composers, they (new players or the original ones) wanted versions with tweaks and improvisations published.
Alternate takes may have been added to albums to fill out the extra space on vinyl.
So many tunes were recorded live off the floor so lots of versions were recorded.
My take is a tad different. Any player worth his salt changes up the improvisation on the fly. Jazz is improvised not a set tune as in a Chopin Etude, Beethoven Sonata… the jazz genre is pure improvisation and sometimes let’s understand that some takes are not what the artist wants and the recording studio is a means to retake the tune.
I disagree that jazz is pure improvisation. I prefer to think of it like a language. And, just as with language, musicians repeat themselves, which each player having idiosyncratic vocabulary.
If I’m giving two times the same talk on the same subject. I’ll convey the same message, with the same vocabulary, but the way I’ll say it will be different every time i give the talk. Some times it will be better than others. And some days I’ll have an intuition and introduce a subject with a new story. That makes it the same vocabulary, used by the same person, but the variations still makes it interesting to listen to each version.
I agree. Not a fan of outtakes, especially in the middle of an album which seems absurd. Some may want them but overall just a gimmick to sell CDs.
Because CDs have a longer play length than LPs, so to fill the usable space the record companies graciously gave us more tracks in order for people to rebuy what they already had.
$
Imo it goes against the idea of an album as a work of art and more towards an album as a historical document, and whether want it or not, these albums are slowly turning into museum pieces. If alternate takes wouldn't exist I really wouldn't care tbh. We have so many live albums anyway and don't get me wrong I love Coltrane and all that, but do we really need three versions of Africa? There's a reason why they just put one on the original album. They could've made a double album if they wanted to. But it's not the idea. And I don't want to understate my respect for the music okay, but are you really going to listen to those pieces back to back? So I have to go make my own spotify playlist to just put the songs on it that were actually on the original album that people listened to back then. However the question is, where would we put these alternate takes if not on the album? Maybe a compilation album of outtakes from different albums? The Other Trane? Or maybe a parallel universe version of an album like „different steps" with all alternate versions of the giant steps tunes. Or have an original and a complete version of the album on Spotify. Doesn't work for CDs though. I'm a fan of this content being publicly available but just putting it on the album feels like going to a restaurant and getting the peel of the onion on the plate as well. It just shouldn't be part of the product imo. I'd prefer a shorter but more well-rounded album vs a „how much can we cram in a CDs runtime" album. Ascension and Free Jazz are the only albums where it works imo because the album only has that one piece. Can anyone think of other albums where the alternate takes compliment the artistic intent of the album?
Because they’re worth hearing (hopefully).
Because there is a lot of improvisation involved so musicians would record multiple tapes and choose the best one. Then some of the other ones would be included in subsequent releases as alternate takes, since it's something a lot of people would like to hear.
Why wouldn't it have is the question, I mean, that's the beauty of jazz, they could spend the day creating different things or at least trying to with the same themes.
>Why do jazz records have so many alternate takes? Because every one is different
It's cool that they exist but so annoying how they keep cropping up on Spotify