Ornette Coleman – New York Is Now! (UHQCD)

“New York Is Now!” – a rather bold statement by saxophonist Ornette Coleman, but one that clearly illustrates his changing role: from one of the most important figures in the LA underground scene of the early 1960s to an artist who paved the way for an enormous wave of growth in the New York downtown scene in the years that followed! Ornette Coleman can be heard here in his late 1960s phase – freer than ever before and with a line-up that included Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums – still without piano – as well as Dewey Redman on tenor saxophone, who really made a name for himself with this album. Phil Freeman remarked: “The interplay is intense, and the rhythm section, taken over from John Coltrane, combined powerful swing with an indescribable gravitas. It is this sense of greater down-to-earthness that makes “New York Is Now!” so unique in Coleman’s discography.”

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 “New York Is Now!” took place on April 29 and May 7, 1968 at A&R Studios in New York.

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. The Garden Of Souls

2. Toy Dance

3. Broad Way Blues

4. Round Trip

5. We Now Interrupt For A Commercial