AAA Vinyl

It's the best selling jazz album ever, one of the most influential too, arguably the one that produced a shift from riffing on chord based tunes to modal excursions that gave musicians newfound improvisational freedom. Cynics and the selfish will react to yet another Kind of Blue reissue by claiming that "everyone" already owns a copy but of course that's not true. And no one owns a 200 gram UHQR Clarity vinyl copy pressed one at a time on a manual Finebuilt press.

This essential, musically groundbreaking and sonically spectacular Gil Evans album recorded by RVG in 1960 and released February of 1961 will soon be issued as part of the Verve/Acoustic Sounds series, cut AAA using the original master tape.

I was asked to write a short item for a U.K. business about the high prices of today's new records. I ended up thinking they are not all that high. The Sam Goody's ad from 1973 at the top is for the Led Zeppelin catalog, that at the time consisted of five LPs. The list price was $4.98. The sale price (if you brought in the advertisement) was $3.49. Sounds cheap, no? Well, no.

Even as the Acoustic Sounds Series reissues from Verve/UMe of Coltrane's A Love Supreme and Ballads are set for October 9th release, the label announced today pre-orders for the third installment in the series: two classic (and much needed and welcomed at this time) 1965 Nina Simone albums: I Put A Spell On You and Pastel Blues slated for November.

Pandemic-related closures temporarily put Blue Note’s “Tone Poet” series production on hold, but the series resumes on August 28th with the release of three titles: vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson’s first session The Kicker (1963), alto saxophonist Jackie McLean’s It’s Time (1964) and tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson’s The State of the Tenor: Live at the Village Vanguard, Volume 1 (1965).

Verve/UMe announced today the October 9th release of its second round of Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series/ Acoustic Sounds pressings of two essential John Coltrane albums: A Love Supreme and Ballads, both in stereo, cut using the original analog master tapes. Deluxe laminated Stoughton Press Tip-On gatefold jackets complete the "must have" release.