Elvin Jones – Poly-Currents (UHQCD)

After six years with John Coltrane’s extraordinary quartet, the great drummer Elvin Jones signed with Blue Note in 1968 and began a brilliant career as a bandleader. On his first two albums for Blue Note – “Puttin’ It Together” and “The Ultimate” – Jones played alongside saxophonist Joe Farrell and double bassist Jimmy Garrison. For his next album, released in 1968 – “Poly-Currents”, a wild post-bop exploration – Jones expanded his band to include additional wind instruments and percussion, while still giving his musicians plenty of room to develop original modal ideas, as can be heard clearly in tracks such as “Agenda”, “Agappe Love”, “Mr. Jones” and “Whew”. Of course, it is also thanks to the high-caliber band, including Fred Tompkins on flute, George Coleman on tenor saxophone, Pepper Adams on baritone saxophone, Wilbur Little on double bass and Cuban Candido Camero on congas, that “Poly-Currents” became an absolute classic!

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 session for “Love Bug” took place on September 26, 1969 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. Agenda

2. Agappe Love

3. Mr. Jones

4. Yes

5. Whew