AAA 100% Analogue This LP was Remastered using Pure Analogue Components Only from the Master Tapes through to the Cutting Head

Analogue Productions - ABNJ 1534 - 180 Gram Virgin Vinyl - AAA 100% Analogue

Mastered By Kevin Gray & Steve Hoffman at AcousTech Mastering 

Numbered Limited Edition - Pressed at  RTI - Blue Note 1534

Incredible Jazz Records + the original analog master tapes + cut at 45 RPM + mastered by Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman at AcousTech + pressed on two 180-gram virgin vinyl LPs by RTI = THE ULTIMATE LP REISSUE!

Paul Chambers’s first album with an amazing lineup: John Coltrane, Donald Byrd, Kenny Burrell, Horace Silver and Philly Joe Jones.

"…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

if you haven't picked up every one of the Blue Note  reissues from analogue productions  you're really missing out!" - David W. Robinson, Positive Feedback,

At Blue Note Records in the 1950s, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Philly Joe Jones were about as common as grits at a Southern diner. And about as noticeable, too—not flashy, just solid and reputable. 

Blue Note never had a "house band," but if it had, Chambers and Jones would have been the hard bop core. Art Blakey may have been the more famous and more aggressive Blue Note drummer, and Charles Mingus the more famous (non-Blue Note) bassist, but arguably there is no finer rhythm section in jazz than Chambers and Jones. 

Chambers and Jones started playing together with Miles Davis in 1955, and in the next three years alone they wound up together in at least 15 bands led by such giants as Sonny Rollins, Clark Terry, John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Sonny Clark, Hank Mobley and Chet Baker. 

So here we have Chambers' first recording as a leader. It's a 1956 date with Jones and four other jazz legends. The result, Whims of Chambers, is a terrific little hard bop album that punches all the right buttons, and then some.  First, a note about the players. Yes, John Coltrane is here, but he is not the star, or at least not the only star. In 1956, Coltrane was not yet the popular and adventurous saxman of My Favorite Things (that came five years later), or the spiritual Trane of A Love Supreme (1965), and certainly not the wild man of the later Impulse years. Here, Trane is simply an above-average tenor who plays on four of the seven numbers. Solid, but not spectacular.  Besides Chambers and Jones, the record features three more Blue Note all-stars: pianist Horace Silver, guitarist Kenny Burrell and trumpeter Donald Byrd. They play well together. 

On the opening track especially, Byrd sounds a lot like Dizzy Gillespie, spitting out notes high, hard and fast. It's not exactly a surprise because the tune, "Omicron," starts with a Latin-ish intro that sounds remarkably like Dizzy's "Manteca," and then abruptly restarts as a standard bop number. 

Everyone gets a turn to shine. You expect bluesy, toe-tapping bop solos from Silver, Burrell, Byrd and Coltrane, and you get them. But you also get a beautiful ballad, "Dear Ann," featuring Burrell's gentle guitar and Byrd's wistful trumpet. And there's a playful exchange between Chambers and Jones, trading two bars each, back and forth, on the weirdly named "Tale of the Fingers." (Weird because Chambers plays the bass with a bow, instead of the usual finger-plucking.)  All in all, this is a really nice set from a group of Blue Note regulars who know exactly how to swing. 

Features:
• Mono
• Numbered & Limited to 2500 copies
• Original analog master tapes
• 45 RPM
• Two 180g Virgin Vinyl LPs
• Mastered by Kevin Gray & Steve Hoffman at AcousTech
• Pressed by RTI

Musicians:
Paul Chambers, bass
John Coltrane, tenor saxophone
Donald Byrd, trumpet
Horace Silver, piano
Kenny Burrell, guitar
Philly Joe Jones, drums

Selections:
1 Omicron
2 Whims Of Chambers
3 Nita
4 We Six
5 Dear Ann
6 Tale Of The Fingers
7 Just For The Love