Mal Waldron with Eric Dolphy and Booker Ervin The Quest (Original Jazz Classics Series) 180g LP

Jazz pianist Mal Waldron's 1962 album, The Quest, features Eric Dolphy (clarinet, alto sax) and Booker Ervin (tenor sax). Recorded at Rudy Van Gelder Studios in New Jersey, the album contains seven cuts that fall somewhere between hard-bop and avant-garde. 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 saw 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.