Donald Byrd: A New Perspective (Blue Note Classic Vinyl series) [BLUE NOTE]

Why you'll love it

This Classic Vinyl series pressing was mastered from the original analog tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and pressed on 180g vinyl. Pitchfork ranked the album among the 200 best of the 1960s.

This edition

• Blue Note Classic Vinyl series
• 180g vinyl
• Mastered by Kevin Gray from the original analog tapes
• Pressed in the EU
• Stereo mix

About the album

Donald Byrd called this record "a modern hymnal," and he meant it seriously. Having grown up with spirituals, he had long wanted to make a whole album in that spirit, the way the old New Orleans players would take church music and add their own jazz textures. So he brought a choir into Rudy Van Gelder's studio, four men and four women singing without words, and let them lift a hard bop band skyward.

Duke Pearson wrote the arrangements, and his "Cristo Redentor" is the one that stops people in their tracks: a slow, aching melody where Byrd's trumpet and the voices float together under Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson's choir direction. "Elijah" opens with gospel fire, "Beast of Burden" rolls along at an easy walk, and "The Black Disciple" and "Chant" give the soloists room. Herbie Hancock on piano, Hank Mobley on tenor, Kenny Burrell on guitar and Donald Best on vibes make it a very good band indeed, with Butch Warren and Lex Humphries holding the floor.

Reid Miles designed and photographed the cover, a classic of the Blue Note look. Eight singers and a hard bop band share one room here, and at no point does anybody need to raise their voice.

Also at Kops: more Donald Byrd on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Blue Note (cat# 5832003), a reissue of the 1964 album.