This arrived today.
I already have the paperback edition of Volume 1. This smaller hardback version collates all of both volumes 1 and 2, obviating the need for me to seek out Volume 2 (which is both pricey and rare).
It also means I can use my older larger Volume 1 to cut up and frame some groovy album cover prints.
The hardback edition is nice and robust. But it is smaller. And that is a pity. But it’d be churlish to dock even half a star. This remains a very beautiful treasure trove.
I just counted the covers, in both of the above editions. I may have over- or under-counted a bit? But the new one came out at about 435! The old one about 230.
So I’m glad I got the new one. As I already said, I no longer need search for rare and overpriced copies of Vol. 2. And I can now chop up my older copy for wall art. That’ll take some doing, as it’s a nice thing as it is.
Blue Note really established a benchmark. For not just great music, but a unified aesthetic, across the whole gamut: beautiful music, beautifully recorded and produced, and beautifully packaged.
To this day the many productions of the Reid Miles dominated era remain a high water mark in the area of sympathetic artistic cross-disciplinary homogeneity.
Just as the discerning ear can revel in the beauty of great musicians captured masterfully on recordings, so too the discerning eye can peruse with exquisite pleasure these wonderful visual creations.