Bill Evans Trio Waltz for Debby (Original Jazz Classics Series) 180g LP

Tracking Angle Rated 11/10 Music, 11/10 Sound!

The fourth and final album by one of the most influential groups in jazz history, the Bill Evans Trio album Waltz for Debby was originally released in 1962 as a companion to Sunday At the Village Vanguard. This new edition of the album is released as part of the Original Jazz Classics Series and is pressed on 180-gram vinyl at RTI with all-analog mastering from the original tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and presented in a Tip-On Jacket.

Since its inception in 1982, Fantasy's Original Jazz Classics® (OJC) series quickly established a reputation as the go-to imprint for collectible jazz reissues. OJC served as a home for the label's impressive jazz catalog – which had grown to include thousands of celebrated titles from Prestige, Galaxy, Milestone, Riverside, Debut, Contemporary, Jazzland, and Pablo. Drawing on this vast wealth of material, Original Jazz Classics released over 850 titles.

Its goal was simple: to reissue influential jazz albums with the utmost care and reverence for the originals — from the cover art and liner notes to the audio recordings themselves. Given Craft Recordings' shared passion for meticulous preservation and quality, it is a natural step to relaunch Original Jazz Classics as part of the Craft family.

2023 sees the continuation of this influential jazz series on audiophile-quality vinyl, through the ongoing release of several of the most coveted (and long out-of-print) albums in this vast collection.

The trio [on 'Milestones']—and, for that matter, at most points throughout the album—is a deftly integrated unit.

Waltz is the best album in Bill Evans' vast discography; it's one of the best-sounding live jazz albums, period; and—here's the news—this latest edition, released by Craft Recordings as part of its Original Jazz Classics series, is the best-sounding of all the pressings.

The pianist dashes and spins along a rare wavelength of fluid electricity or kundalini energy channels, leaving his rhythm section to respond and react with an almost Ginger Rogers-like approach — doing everything Evans does but backward.