The best albums from legendary Blue Note Records jazz catalogue get impeccable audiophile treatment by Analogue Productions, cut at 45rpm for ultimate sound quality by equaly legendary mastering engineers Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman at AcousTech, preserving all the analog glory of the Original Master Tapes to bring these sessions to life in spectacular fashion, like they deserve.

• Limited Edition
• Numbered Edition
• Mastered from the Original Analog Master Tapes
• Cut by Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman
• Mastered at AcousTech
• 2LP 180 Gram Virgin Vinyl 45rpm
• Pressed by RTI USA

"…As much as I'd love to relay all kinds of anecdotes about the challenges Steve Hoffman and Kevin Gray encounter during the mastering sessions, I witness none. These boys know the sound of the facility and the Van Gelder masters like the backs of their hands…Back home a month later, I unpack some test pressings Chad Kassem has sent me…I hear the most realistic-sounding drums ever reproduced by my system. It's as though I'm sitting at the point of creation, experiencing the same high that brought such gifted musicians together as one. Steve Hoffman, Kevin Gray, Chad Kassem, and Don MacInnis have done Rudy Van Gelder and his Blue Note artists proud." – Jason Victor Serinus, Stereophile

Tokyo Blues, a quintessential mid-'60s Blue Note session, is Horace Silver's tribute to the Japanese people who have long supported his funky, Latin-flavored modern jazz. American jazz has always been wildly popular in Japan, and this album is Silver's homage to the many fans that he has encountered on various triumphant tours of the island nation. While Silver's trademark funky Latin/swing is at the forefront, the inspiration of eastern delights is clearly evident in all aspects of this grooving date.

"Following a series of concert dates in Tokyo late in 1961 with his quintet, Horace Silver returned to the U.S. with his head full of the Japanese melodies he had heard during his visit, and using those as a springboard, he wrote four new pieces, which he then recorded at sessions held on July 13 and 14, 1962, along with a version of Ronnell Bright's little known ballad "Cherry Blossom." One would naturally assume the resulting LP would have a Japanese feel, but that really isn't the case. Using Latin rhythms and the blues as a base, Silver's Tokyo-influenced compositions fit right in with the subtle cross-cultural but very American hard bop he'd been doing all along. Using his usual quintet (Blue Mitchell on trumpet, Junior Cook on tenor sax, Gene Taylor on bass) with drummer Joe Harris (he is listed as John Harris, Jr. for this set) filling in for an ailing Roy Brooks), Silver's compositions have a light, airy feel, with plenty of space, and no one used that space better at these sessions than Cook, whose tenor sax lines are simply wonderful, adding a sturdy, reliable brightness.

The centerpieces are the two straight blues, "Sayonara Blues" and "The Tokyo Blues," both of which have a delightfully natural flow, and the building, patient take on Bright's "Cherry Blossom," which Silver takes pains to make sure sounds like a ballad and not a barely restrained minor-key romp. The bottom line is that The Tokyo Blues emerges as a fairly typical Silver set from the era and not as a grandiose fusion experiment welding hard bop to Japanese melodies. That might have been interesting, certainly, but Silver obviously assimilated things down to a deeper level before he wrote these pieces, and they feel like a natural extension of his work rather than an experimental detour." - Steve Leggett, All Music

Musicians:

Blue Mitchell, trumpet
Junior Cook, tenor sax
Horace Silver, piano
Gene Taylor, bass
John Harris, Jr., drums

Track Listing:

1. Too Much Sake
2. Sayonara Blues
3. The Tokyo Blues
4. Cherry Blossom
5. Ah! So

Click here to listen to samples on YouTube.com ♫