Wynton Marsalis - J Mood (1986 Japanese CBS/Sony Vinyl LP)

Wynton Marsalis - J Mood | Vinyl LP — 1986 Japanese CBS/Sony (28AP 3243)

• The first quintet album with Marcus Roberts on piano: Branford Marsalis and Kenny Kirkland had both departed, and “J Mood” introduced the new lineup with Roberts alongside Robert Hurst on bass and Jeff “Tain” Watts on drums, a more introverted rhythm section that suited the album’s after-hours atmosphere.
• Illustrated by Romare Bearden: the sleeve art is by the American collagist whose work defined the visual language of jazz as a Black American art form; the choice of Bearden, whose jazz-themed collages were already part of permanent museum collections, signals how seriously Columbia was positioning Marsalis’s catalogue.
• Liner notes by Stanley Crouch and Japanese notes by critic Ogawa Takao: Crouch was Marsalis’s closest intellectual collaborator and the leading theorist of the neoclassical jazz movement they developed together; Ogawa Takao was among Japan’s most respected jazz critics and a key figure in introducing Marsalis’s work to the Japanese market.

“J Mood” arrived in 1986 as Wynton Marsalis’s fourth jazz album for Columbia, and the personnel change it documents is as significant as any of its musical contents. Branford Marsalis had left the group and Kenny Kirkland had followed. Marcus Roberts, nicknamed “J Master” on the sleeve, was twenty-two years old and a student at Florida State University when Marsalis discovered him. He would remain in the quintet for nearly a decade. Robert Hurst came in on bass, bringing a different grounding to the rhythm section than Fambrough had: less propulsive, more spacious, suited to the late-night introspective tone that runs through the album’s seven original Marsalis compositions. “J Mood” is not the group’s most celebrated record: “Black Codes (From the Underground)” (1985) and “Marsalis Standard Time Vol. 1” (1987) draw more consistent collector attention. But it is the document of the quintet’s second phase beginning, and it received the Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist in 1987. Produced by Steve Epstein at CBS studios in New York, mastered by Vlado Meller, this is the 1986 Japanese CBS/Sony pressing manufactured by CBS/Sony Inc. in Japan.