The Awakening: Mirage (remastered, blue with black swirl vinyl) [REAL GONE MUSIC]

Why you'll love it

This remastered limited edition comes on blue with black swirl vinyl. Mirage is the second of the Chicago group's two Black Jazz albums, seven original pieces of spiritual jazz and soul-jazz written by the band.

This edition

• Remastered
• Blue with black swirl vinyl
• Limited edition
• Stereo mix

About the album

Black Jazz Records was built to give young African American jazz musicians a home of their own, and it designed its covers so the title could be read however the record sat in a store rack. The Awakening, a Chicago sextet with roots in the AACM, signed on early, and Mirage was their parting statement before the members went back to studio work and the AACM.

Richard (Ari) Brown on saxophone, Ken Chaney on keys, Frank Gordon on trumpet, Steve Galloway on trombone, Roger Willis on bass and Arlington Davis Jr. on drums wrote everything, with Rufus Reid adding bass, vocalists Anita Jeffries and Ben Wright, and Gene Russell producing at Streeterville Studios. "Mode For D.D." and "The Ultimate Frontier" stretch out with spiritual heat, "Slinky" lives up to its name, and the title track shimmers. It's more abstract than their debut, Hear, Sense And Feel, with shifting moods and textures.

Hip hop producers and DJs have kept the Black Jazz catalogue in circulation for years. The swirl on this pressing looks rather like a mirage itself, which we're choosing to believe is deliberate.

Also at Kops: more The Awakening on vinyl · browse Modern Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Real Gone Music / Black Jazz (cat# RGM-1261), a reissue of the 1973 album.