Walter Bishop Jr. - Coral Keys (2026 Black Jazz Records Reissue Vinyl LP)

Walter Bishop Jr. - Coral Keys | Vinyl LP - 2026 Black Jazz Records/Real Gone Music Reissue (RGM-1078, remastered by Mike Milchner)

Walter Bishop Jr. grew up in Harlem's Sugar Hill neighbourhood, the son of Jamaican-American songwriter Walter Bishop Sr. His teenage friends included Sonny Rollins, Kenny Drew and Art Taylor, and by the late 1940s he was a regular at the bebop jam sessions at Minton's Playhouse. He played piano with Charlie Parker from 1951 to 1954, appeared on Miles Davis's Dig session alongside Rollins, Jackie McLean and Art Blakey, and worked with Oscar Pettiford and Kai Winding before leading his own trio dates with Jimmy Garrison and G.T. Hogan in the early 1960s. By 1971, when Gene Russell signed him to Black Jazz Records for Coral Keys, Bishop was 44 and had been a working musician for more than two decades without ever becoming a marquee name. The album splits cleanly into two sessions. Side A is a quartet: Bishop, Harold Vick on soprano saxophone and flute, Reggie Johnson on bass and Idris Muhammad on drums. Four Bishop originals, each one built on the kind of modal structures that owe more to Herbie Hancock's Blue Note records than to the bebop Bishop grew up playing. Side B adds Woody Shaw on trumpet, brings Vick over to tenor and swaps in Alan Shwaetz Benger for Muhammad on drums, and the music tightens accordingly. "Freedom Suite" closes the album at nearly eight minutes, the longest and most open-ended piece on the record.

All seven compositions are Bishop's. "Waltz For Zweetie" also appears on Joe Henderson's 1968 album Tetragon, where Henderson recorded it before Bishop got to it himself, and "Soul Turn Around" turned up on Freddie Hubbard's A Soul Experiment in 1969, again predating Bishop's own version.

This is the 2026 Real Gone Music reissue (RGM-1078), remastered by Mike Milchner and limited to 500 copies on blue with black swirl vinyl. Pat Thomas wrote new liner notes placing both the label and the album in their broader musical and political context. Dorothy Tanous's original 1971 cover photography is preserved.