Clark Terry, Freddie Hubbard, Dizzy Gillespie & Oscar Peterson The Alternate Blues (Pablo Series) 180g LP

Michael Fremer Rated 9/10 Music, 10/10 Sound!

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For The Alternate Blues, producer Norman Granz set aside his rule against issuing what are variously called in the recording business outtakes, breakdowns, or alternate takes.

The reason was that despite missed cues and procedural problems in the rhythm section, Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, and Clark Terry played the blues at a level of passion and expressiveness the equal of the versions originally released on The Trumpet Summit Meets the Oscar Peterson Big 4. In addition, there are four standards not heard in the original album. With Joe Pass, Bobby Durham and Ray Brown.

Cut from metal parts mastered by Doug Sax from the original analog master tape. Pressed at Quality Record Pressings for superior sound quality, and housed in a handsome Stoughton Printing tip-on jacket.

Demo disc quality IMO for timbral accuracy, sound staging, dynamics, you name it but especially for how the trumpets were recorded and how each horn players' distinct tonal and textural personality is so well captured. The closer, 'If I Should Lose You' might be the set's highlight, though it's hardly the showiest piece and there are no low lights. Its melancholic nature reminds us that they are all gone now, and that Gillespie, whose solos on the track stand out, passed away a short thirteen years after this was recorded.