Anthony Williams – Life Time (UHQCD)

The gifted drummer and composer Anthony “Tony” Williams was a member of the Miles Davis Quintet and, at a very young age, played on numerous groundbreaking Blue Note recordings, including Herbie Hancock’s “Empyrean Isles,” Eric Dolphy’s “Out To Lunch,” Andrew Hill’s “Point Of Departure,” Jackie McLean’s “One Step Beyond,” and Grachan Moncur III’s “Evolution.” When he recorded his own adventurous debut album “Life Time”, he was just 18 years old. Williams had no intention of playing it safe on his maiden voyage as a leader and set out to document his uncompromising expression with innovative original compositions.

“Life Time” features the fantastic two-movement suite “2 Pieces Of One,” on which he is accompanied by tenor saxophonist Sam Rivers and bassists Gary Peacock and Richard Davis. On the freely improvised “Memory”, featuring Herbie Hancock on piano and Bobby Hutcherson on vibraphone, Williams plays various percussion instruments, and the thoughtful piano-bass duet “Barb’s Song To The Wizard,” played by Hancock and Ron Carter, which concludes the album, is tailor-made for Williams.

As part of the extremely popular “Blue Note 85th Anniversary Reissue Series” Universal Music Japan presents the sonically impressive remastering of this jazz classic by the legendary Kevin Gray, who is also responsible for Blue Note US’s analog reissues such as “Tone Poet” and “Classic Vinyl” – as a limited Japan only UHQCD with OBI stripe. The original recording sessions for “Life Time” took place on August 21 and 24, 1964, at Rudy Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

UHQCD stands for Ultimate High Quality Compact Disc and is a joint development of the Japanese CD replication company Memory-Tech and the Audio Quality CD Company from Hong Kong. Unlike conventional CDs, UHQCDs are not pressed from polycarbonate, but cast from a photopolymer and cured with UV light. Another layer of high-purity polycarbonate is applied to the softer photopolymer for scratch protection. The combination results in significantly reduced reflection of laser light inside the CD and an unmatched precise edge transition between pits and lands of the CD. UHQCDs are 100% compatible with standard CD players. Musically, the result is a sound image strongly reminiscent of analog master tapes.

While Universal Music Japan’s first UHQCD series relied on the DSD data of previous SHM-SACD releases, with increasing popularity, albums that had not previously been released as SHM-SACD are now appearing. Typically, the Universal Archive master tapes are re-converted to DSD for this purpose. UHQCDs are ideal for music lovers who want to get as close as possible to the sound of the recording, but do not own an SACD player.

Lista pieselor

UHQCD

1. 2 Pieces Of One: Red

2. 2 Pieces Of One: Green

3. Tomorrow Afternoon

4. Memory

5. Barb’s Song To The Wizard