Oscar Peterson Trio: Night Train (Verve Acoustic Sounds series) [VERVE]

Why you'll love it

This Acoustic Sounds edition was mastered from the original analog tapes and pressed on 180g vinyl at Quality Record Pressings, in a tip-on gatefold jacket. Night Train won the 2019 Polaris Heritage Prize, and The Penguin Guide to Jazz placed it in its core collection.

This edition

• Verve Acoustic Sounds series
• Mastered from the original analog tapes
• 180g vinyl
• Pressed at Quality Record Pressings
• Tip-on gatefold jacket
• Remastered
• Stereo mix
• Pressed in the USA

About the album

Oscar Peterson dedicated Night Train to his father, a sleeping-car attendant on the Canadian Pacific Railway, which gives the title a good deal more weight than a nod to Jimmy Forrest's tune. The trio cut it in Los Angeles on December 15 and 16, 1962. Norman Granz had sold Verve by then, but he was still Peterson's manager, and he supervised the session himself.

Ray Brown's bass and Ed Thigpen's drums lock in tight, and Thigpen's rivet cymbal, recorded very close, shimmers over every track. The tunes are short and sharp, partly so radio would play them: "C Jam Blues," "Georgia on My Mind," "Bags' Groove," "Moten Swing" and "Things Ain't What They Used to Be" all come in lean and swinging, and the title track builds and falls away like a masterclass in dynamics. To close, Granz asked for something with a definitive early-blues feel, and Peterson wrote "Hymn to Freedom" on the spot, naming it for Martin Luther King Jr.; with Harriette Hamilton's lyrics it became an unofficial anthem of the civil rights movement.

Nanaimo's Diana Krall has said this album made her want to be a jazz pianist, and Linda May Han Oh credits it with starting her on upright bass. It has been turning listeners into musicians for six decades; we can't promise it'll work on you, but it's worth the risk.

Also at Kops: more Oscar Peterson on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Verve (cat# B0033796-01), a reissue of the 1963 album.