Now Hear This

Duke Pearson - Now Hear This (1968) {Blue Note Japan SHM-CD TYCJ-81064 rel 2014} (24-192 remaster)
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 278 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 103 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 327 Mb | 5% repair rar | 24-bit 192 kHz remaster
© 1968, 2014 Universal Japan / Blue Note | BN 75th The Masterworks | TYCJ-81064
Jazz / Hard Bop / Progressive Jazz / Piano

Features the high-fidelity SHM-CD format (compatible with standard CD player) and the latest 24bit 192kHz remastering. Duke Pearson returned to a big band setting for Now Hear This!, once again proving his agility and inventiveness as an arranger and leader. Working with a larger band than before – the total number of musicians weighs in at 17 – Pearson nevertheless keeps things clean and uncluttered. His compositions, as well as the songs he covers, cover a broad range of emotions, styles, and tonal colors, with lush ballads taking the center stage. Even if much of this music is beautiful, Pearson's arrangements take chances and are unconventional, which means it rewards close listening as well.

Described as "Cosmic American Garage Rock", This Is Now combines a wall of guitars, smooth vocal harmonies and a driving rhythym section to create a modern rock style of their own…

This release contains the complete 1963 studio recordings by the celebrated Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland big band, all made during the same January 25-26, 1963 sessions and originally issued on two separate albums. As a bonus, we have added the single tune "A Ball for Othello", recorded in 1961 but originally included in one of those albums, and four tunes recorded in 1966.

Captured during a pivotal, trailblazing period of his five decade career, pianist Hal Galper had come off the road with the Cannonball Adderley Quintet looking to establish his new working band. Pulling in Michael & Randy Brecker, whom he had recorded & worked with in the early '70s, along with bassist Wayne Dockery and drummer Bob Moses, Galper set up Sunday matinees at NY's Sweet Basil jazz club for a year to woodshed the group concept and new compositions. In the studio, 1977's "Reach Out" displayed an astonishingly original collective, all matching Galper's chance-taking, high-spirited, free-wheeling approach to music making. 1979's "Speak with a Single Voice" captured the energy of the quintet live, but on this 1977 Berlin Jazz Festival performance, the band shifts into an other-wordly overdrive. From the opening salvos of Galper's "Now Hear This," the mission is defined - jazz giants, in the prime of their youth, set free to blow, pushed to the limits by Galper's facility, full-bodied sound, and fertile imaginatio.