Lee Konitz plays with the Gerry Mulligan Quartet (UHQCD)

Three giants of West Coast jazz came together in 1953 for this swinging session recorded for the Pacific Jazz/World Pacific label: alto saxophone master Lee Konitz plays alongside the great Gerry Mulligan on baritone saxophone and legendary trumpeter Chet Baker in a program half live, half studio-recorded, featuring standards and an original by Mulligan. The group is accompanied by bassists Carson Smith and Joe Mondragon and Larry Bunker on drums, delivering a spontaneous and imaginative jazz classic. Ron Wynn’s review on AllMusic described the album as “a simply wonderful combination of idiosyncratic talents.”

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 “Lee Konitz Plays With The Gerry Mulligan Quartet” took place on January 23 and 30 and February 1, 1953, at locations including The Haig Studio in Hollywood and Phil Turetzky’s home in Los Angeles.

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 (Mono-Mix)

1. I Can’t Believe That You’re In Love With Me

2. Broadway

3. Almost Like Being In Love

4. Sextet II

5. Lady Be Good

6. Too Marvelous For Words

7. Lover Man

8. I’ll Remember April

9. These Foolish Things

10. All The Things You Are