Ike Quebec – Heavy Soul (UHQCD)

According to many critics, there is no more fitting album title in the entire history of music than “Heavy Soul”, the great classic by renowned tenor saxophonist Ike Quebec, released in 1961. This record marked the comeback of a jazz musician who played an important role in the history of Blue Note. In the 1940s, Quebec had recorded several 78 RPM records for Alfred Lion and worked as a talent scout, encouraging Lion to record some of the rising stars of the then-emerging bebop scene, including Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell. In 1959, Lion began introducing Quebec’s music to jazz fans with a series of jukebox singles. These were a huge success and inspired Lion to bring the saxophonist back to the studio to record a full album. So, in November 1961, Quebec brought a four-piece band consisting of organist Freddie Roach, double bassist Milt Hinton, and drummer Al Harewood to Rudy Van Gelder’s recording studio. The eight tracks that emerged from this memorable recording session were a true masterclass in soul jazz!

Quebec’s powerful tenor saxophone sound expresses a wide range of emotions and moods, from the driving swing rhythms of original pieces such as “Acquitted” and “Que’s Dilemma” to slower, more contemplative pieces such as “Just One More Chance”, “Brother Can You Spare A Dime” and “I Want A Little Girl”. A remarkable interpretation of “The Man I Love” leads to the brilliant title track, which is brimming with soul, but it is the album’s finale that is the real triumph: Roach and Harewood form an extremely reliable rhythm section, while Quebec and Hinton sing a duet in an enchanting performance of “Nature Boy” that lingers in the listener’s soul long after the last note has faded away.

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 the analog reissues of Blue Note US such as “Tone Poet” and “Classic Vinyl” – as a limited-edition Japan only UHQCD with OBI Stripe. The recording session for “Heavy Soul” took place on November 26, 1961 at the 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

1.    Acquitted
2.    Just One More Chance
3.    Que’s Dilemma
4.    Brother Can You Spare A Dine
5.    The Man I Love
6.    Heavy Soul
7.    I Want A Little Girl
8.    Nature Boy