Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers Moanin' (Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series) 180g LP

TAS Super LP List! Special Merit: Informal

More than any other album in the canon of Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, 1958's Moanin' - featuring the great drummer with trumpeter Lee Morgan, tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, pianist Bobby Timmons, and bassist Jymie Merritt - was the perfect crystallization of the band's bluesy, soulful sound, and it still stands today as perhaps the most quintessential hard bop recording of all-time. Originally self-titled, the album was later renamed Moanin' due to the popularity of Timmons's unforgettable opening track. The album also introduced several indelible Golson compositions that would become standards of the jazz songbook including "Along Came Betty" and "Blues March."

This Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

Blue Note is proud to present the Blue Note Classic Vinyl Reissue Series, a continuation of their acclaimed Blue Note 80 Vinyl Reissue Series which was launched in celebration of their 80th anniversary in 2019. The Classic Series will once again feature all-analog 180g vinyl pressings in standard packaging that are mastered by Kevin Gray directly from the original master tapes and manufactured at Optimal in Germany.

In a review of the BN80 Vinyl Edition of Dexter Gordon's Doin' Allright, Analog Planet wrote "this reissue is a success for Blue Note in terms of quality at a great price point, and I look forward to the rest of this excellent and affordable series." In selecting the BN80 Vinyl Edition of Herbie Hancock's Takin' Off as their Recording of the Month, Stereophile awarded the sonics of the pressing 4½ stars writing "The sound of this reissue is strong and articulate, with balance and clarity from all the instruments."

The Classic Series will be on-going, running alongside the Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series which is produced by Joe Harley.

Certainly a complete and wholly satisfying album, Moanin' ranks with the very best of Blakey and what modern jazz offered in the late '50s and beyond.