180 Gram 45rpm Vinyl!
Mastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering.
In 1958, a young, successful French composer-arranger with a major infatuation on American jazz, worked his way to New York and convinced the very best players of the time to record an album of largely jazz standards. Michel Legrand would go on to win numerous prizes and accolades (3 Oscars, 5 Grammies, 2 Palmes D'or, etc.), but little of what followed matched the sheer brilliance of Legrand Jazz. Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Ben Webster, Phil Woods and practically every other session man in town signed up for sessions with Legrand to record his idiosyncratic arrangements of standards (''Django'', ''Don't Get Around Much Anymore'', ''Night in Tunisia'', etc.). Instead of regurgitating then current bop styles, he reinvented the very nature of orchestral jazz band repertoire to make a unique and forward-looking statement on the genre. The sound of Impex's all-analog LP preserves the wide soundstage of late 50's Columbia recordings while creating intimate spaces between players on the stage for maximum definition. This rare, highly-praised recording has never sounded as good as it does now. The meticulously recreated outer jacket is packaged in a gatefold with an original photo montage inside honoring Michel Legrand's masterpiece of reinvention and sublime fan-boy enthusiasm.
Impex's pristine release was mastered by Chris Bellman on Bernie Grundman's All-Tube cutting lathe from a 2-track, all-analog mix down of the original studio work prints, made especially for Impex Records by Mark Wilder at Battery Studios in New York. The results are revelatory. The large recording space is captured in every detail, while Davis' full force dynamic variations come through with incredible veracity. The gentle ebb-and-flow of Legrand's parts highlight microtonal fluctuations on every track. You are along for a magic carpet ride of large jazz ensemble recording when you drop the needle into these grooves.
We have packaged the meticulously recreated outer jacket in a gatefold with an original photo montage inside honoring Michel Legrand's masterpiece of reinvention and focused fan-boy enthusiasm.
The sound of Impex's all-analog LP preserves the wide soundstage of late 1950s Columbia recordings while creating intimate spaces between players on the stage for maximum definition. On 33rpm, this rare, highly-praised recording had never sounded so good. Now that it's on 45rpm double LP? Even Better!!! Go big with Legrand Jazz.
Tracks
The Jitterbug Waltz (Fats Waller)
Nuages (Django Reinhardt)
Night in Tunisia (Dizzy Gillespie)
Blue and Sentimental (Count Basie)
Stompin' at the Savoy (Benny Goodman)
Django (John Lewis)
Wild Man Blues (Jelly Roll Morton)
Rosetta (Earl Hines)
'Round Midnight (Thelonious Monk)
Don't Get Around Much Anymore (Duke Ellington)
In a Mist (Bix Beiderbecke)
This is the non-numbered version