McCoy Tyner – Time For Tyner (UHQCD)

For his third Blue Note album, the great pianist McCoy Tyner took a different direction than before and put together a quartet without horns. Led by piano and vibraphone (Bobby Hutcherson), with double bassist Herbie Lewis and drummer Freddie Waits, the ensemble gives “Time For Tyner” ethereal textures throughout, which nevertheless come across in a rousing performance: The six-song set begins with three extended Tyner originals and ends with three radically revamped standards – a quartet version of “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was”, followed by a trio version of “Surrey With The Fringe On Top” before Tyner closes the album with a breathtaking solo piano performance of “I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face”.

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 “Time For Tyner” took place on May 17, 1968 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

1.    African Village
2.    Little Madimba
3.    May Street
4.    I Didn’t Know What Time It Was
5.    The Surrey With The Fringe On Top
6.    I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face