Archie Shepp Quartet - Blue Ballads (1996 Japanese Venus Records, Limited Edition Vinyl LP)

Vinyl: NM
Sleeve: EX
Obi: EX

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Archie Shepp Quartet - Blue Ballads | Vinyl LP - 1996 Venus Records Limited Edition (TKJV-19002, Hyper Magnum Sound LP Collection)

• Archie Shepp's 1995 New York studio session with pianist John Hicks, bassist George Mraz and drummer Idris Muhammad, recorded at Clinton Studio A on 24 and 25 November 1995
• The first in a series of ballad albums Shepp recorded for the Tokyo audiophile label Venus Records in the mid-1990s
  
• Venus Records TKJV-19002; Hyper Magnum Sound LP Collection; produced by Tetsuo Hara; limited edition pressing

Archie Shepp spent the 1960s at the centre of the free jazz movement — he was one of the signatories on the 1965 "Black Music" manifesto, recorded for Impulse! under John Coltrane's endorsement, and was among the most politically explicit voices in American jazz. By the 1990s his recording work had shifted toward a more intimate, ballad-centred approach, and his association with the Tokyo audiophile label Venus Records produced some of his most widely praised recordings of that era. Blue Ballads was the first in a series, recorded at Clinton Studio A in New York over two days in November 1995. Tetsuo Hara, the Venus founder, produced and engineered under the label's "Hyper Magnum Sound" methodology, prioritising analogue warmth and direct signal path recording.

The quartet — John Hicks on piano, George Mraz on bass, Idris Muhammad on drums — is well matched to Shepp's late style. Hicks was one of the more sympathetic post-bop pianists of his generation, combining blues feeling with harmonic sophistication. Mraz was in demand across both mainstream and avant-garde jazz from the 1960s through the 2000s. The six tracks on the LP are all American standards: Rodgers and Hart's "Little Girl Blue," Count Basie and Jerry Livingston's "Blue and Sentimental," Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz's "Alone Together," Vincent Youmans and Billy Rose's "More Than You Know," Arthur Hamilton's "Cry Me a River" and Rainger and Robin's "If I Should Lose You."

This Venus Hyper Magnum Sound LP Collection pressing is a limited edition.