Clifford Brown: Memorial Album (Blue Note Classic Vinyl series) [BLUE NOTE]

Why you'll love it

This Blue Note Classic Vinyl series edition is remastered in mono on 180g vinyl. It gathers the trumpeter's first sessions as a leader, which Blue Note annotator Bob Blumenthal said set an incredibly high standard for debut recordings.

This edition

• Blue Note Classic Vinyl series
• Mono
• Remastered
• 180g vinyl
• Pressed in Germany

About the album

Clifford Brown packed a whole career into about four years, and these were the first sessions he led. In 1953 the young Delaware trumpeter cut two dates for Blue Note, first issued on separate 10-inch records; in 1956, after his death in a car accident at 25, Alfred Lion joined them up as this album.

Side B comes from June 9 at WOR Studios in New York, with Lou Donaldson on alto, Elmo Hope on piano, Percy Heath on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums; "Brownie Speaks" and "Cookin'" crackle with energy. Side A, from August 28, adds Gigi Gryce, Charlie Rouse, John Lewis and Art Blakey for a fuller sound on "Hymn Of The Orient," a blazing "Cherokee" and a tender "Easy Living." Rudy Van Gelder engineered both dates. Brown was just 22 and already sounded like a fully formed master, bright and fluid at any tempo.

Brown's warm, round tone and dazzling ideas still set the bar for trumpet players. They've been practising along with these sides for seventy years, and so far nobody has quite caught him up.

Also at Kops: more Clifford Brown on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Blue Note (cat# 5831985), a reissue of the 1956 compilation.