A Swingin’ Affair

Gordon’s 1962 Blue Note release, recorded only a couple days after his classic Go! is one of the greatest jazz releases of all time. It’s Gordon at the height of his powers, playing in a dream quartet composed of Sony Clark on piano, bassist Butch Warren and drummer Billy Higgins. Yet jazz is such a niche market that with a very few exceptions, jazz titles take fifty years to sell as many units as today’s top pop artists turn in a few days. Yet great jazz recordings have much longer legs than today’s pop sensations. Hence the long history of reconstituting the music into (hopefully) better sounding versions.

Music Matters 45 RPM LP set sets the standard for vinyl Blue Note sound. As many times as Blue Notes have been issued on CD, nothing has ever come close to the Audio Wave version sound. Produced by Joe Harley and mastered by Alan Yoshida at Ocean Way Mastering, they are the ultimate digital Blue Notes. The project has been a labor of love for Bob Bantz of US record distributor Elusive Disc, meaning they have not returned a profit. This release is one of four (including two new Blakey and a Tina Brooks) new releases. With five more titles coming, the series will be completed. Let’s pray it doesn’t end there.