Archie Shepp - Tray of Silver (1979 Japanese Denon Vinyl LP)

Vinyl: EX
Sleeve: VG+
Obi: None

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Archie Shepp - Tray of Silver | Vinyl LP - 1979 Japanese Denon (YX-7806-ND, Nippon Columbia Co. Ltd.)

By 1979, Archie Shepp had moved a considerable distance from the scorched-earth free jazz of his Impulse! years. The Japanese market had provided a new audience and a string of dates for Denon and other labels, and the music he was making there drew on the hard bop tradition he had grown up with before Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane changed everything. Tray of Silver is one of those dates — a quintet session devoted mostly to Horace Silver.

Three of the four tracks are Silver's: "No Smokin'," his 1952 bebop blues; "Nica's Dream," the 1956 Blue Note staple dedicated to the Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter; and "Cookin' at the Continental," recorded for Silver's The Stylings of Silver in 1957. The fourth track, "If You Could See Me Now," is Tadd Dameron's 1945 ballad. The quintet plays all four long and open, each piece given space to develop past its head statement. Roy Brooks, Silver's drummer between 1959 and 1964, anchors the rhythm section with Takashi "Gon" Mizuhashi on bass. Mickey Tucker plays piano. Howard Johnson switches instruments across the two sides: baritone saxophone throughout the A side, tuba throughout the B.

The session was recorded using Denon's 14-bit/47.25 kHz PCM digital system — one of the earliest all-digital jazz recordings made commercially. Yoshio Ozawa produced; Kaoru Iida engineered.