The new Kenny Burrell is the first BN I've wanted to buy mainly because of the cover!
The music seems decent enough, the sound will, I'm sure, be ace, but that cover
I was going to pass on this as at first, but the cover persuaded me as well. But this 1956 Mono recording sounds great. Joe Harley and Kevin Gray did a great job on this. Given the recording date, the fact that it is four different line ups, recorded in three different recording spaces it should have no right to sound this good. It’s a fascinating insight on one LP as to how RVG modified his recording technique for the different spaces on the different dates. On March 12 (tracks 4-8) were recorded at the Audio-Video Studios, NYC. On May 29 (track 1) & May 30 (track 2) at the Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ and on May 31 1956 (track 3) at the Cafe Bohemia. All sound very good, with excellent, for RVG, piano sound in particular those with Tommy Flalangan, who’s playing is excellent throughout.
You can easily hear the differences in the size of the recording spaces of each venue even in Mono. The more intimate (smaller) space of Hackensack where he uses very close mikes to prevent, on track, 1 mike bleed and that also pushes forward Burrell’s guitar and Candido’s congas into your room, giving amazingly fast transient attack to their playing while you hear the rest of the band further back, but still clearly defined in space, with Kenny Clarke’s cymbal well to the rear , but sounding beautiful. On Track 2, Burrell just solo, he sounds beautifully, closeup, intimate and very full range and dynamic.
Track 3 Mexico City really captures the live club ambience and in particular the great slightly ‘hot’ recording on the excellent Kenny Dorham’s Trumpet solo that is well forward in the mix.
For me RVG really scores with the larger Audio NYC Audio Visual Studios space where the mikes are spaced at a slightly greater distance that captures the ambience of the larger space, but also has a pretty much perfect balance between all the instruments with beautifully captured detail and dynamics. I think he may have used this studio on a couple of other occasions. I think for Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers? I really liked Frank Foster’s Tenor and Flanagan’s piano as well as Burrell’s guitar on 3 of these tacks.
This really is another top notch and fascinating Tone Poet reissue.