Collection: Blue Note Tone Poet

Joe Harley has been chasing the sound of Blue Note's original master tapes for decades. The Tone Poet series is what happens when you let him loose on the catalogue. Launched in 2019 to mark Blue Note's 80th anniversary, each title is mastered all-analog by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI in California, and housed in gatefold tip-on jackets printed by Stoughton. Familiar sessions from the hard bop and post-bop years sit alongside records that never got the attention they deserved the first time around, with titles drawn from Pacific Jazz, United Artists, and Solid State as well as the Blue Note catalogue proper. Francis Wolff's session photography completes the package. If you're after the closest thing to hearing a Rudy Van Gelder master tape at home, this is the series.