These records hold a special place in my heart. Firstly, they were largely responsible for introducing me to jazz, after their tactic of grouping together loads of Blue Note songs that had been sampled (mainly by hip hop acts) succeeded in drawing me in.
But I've always loved the design on the covers - everything from the bright colours that seem to defy the norm of smokey jazz hues, to the cool, clean lines and turntable design that sits really well with the style of a lot of the bands that had sampled these songs - Beastie Boys, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest. The formula's consistent through all four releases (they came out in the late 90s) and I was always surprised that they didn't market these albums a little more strongly - Blue Note (under the ownership of EMI) put out a lot of reissues at the same time and I reckon that with the excellently crafted introductory course to Blue Note (and jazz) that was these four Blue Break Beats albums, they had a ready made intro to a potentially hungry audience. But hey, what do I know?
Actually, what I do know is that these are not only great sounding records but also great looking records. Seek them out if they're still available.
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