Donald Byrd: Electric Byrd [THIRD MAN]

Why you'll love it

This Third Man and Blue Note pressing is mastered and cut from the original analog tapes, pressed on 180g vinyl in Detroit and housed in a tip-on jacket. AllMusic called it the best of Byrd's transitional sessions of 1969 to 1971.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Mastered from the original analog tapes
• Tip-on jacket
• Pressed in Detroit
• Remastered

About the album

Donald Byrd was born in Detroit, so there's something fitting about his electric masterpiece being pressed in that same city half a century on. By 1970 the trumpeter had heard where jazz was heading and wanted in, and on May 15 he gathered a big, unusual band at Rudy Van Gelder's studio with producer Duke Pearson to find out what it would sound like.

Pearson plays electric piano, Ron Carter holds down the bass, Mickey Roker drums, Wally Richardson adds guitar, and a horn section of Pepper Adams, Frank Foster, Lew Tabackin, Jerry Dodgion and Bill Campbell paints in broad colours. Airto Moreira's percussion gives everything a Brazilian pulse, and his own "Xibaba" features the great Hermeto Pascoal on flute. "Estavanico" and "Essence" stretch past ten minutes each, floating and simmering, before "The Dude" closes on a tighter groove.

It points straight at the funk and soul of Byrd's later Black Byrd years while keeping one foot in hard bop. Twelve musicians across 43 minutes works out at roughly one genius every three and a half minutes, a ratio our staff meetings have never come close to.

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

Tracklist

Listen

On Blue Note / Third Man (cat# TMR 851), a reissue of the 1970 album.