Booker Ervin - The Freedom Book (180g LP Analogue Productions)

Booker Ervin's recordings with Charles Mingus and Randy Weston brought him good reviews and a bit of notoriety. But it was his series of Song Books for Prestige Records that broadcast the stentorian announcement that a jazz orator of gigantic stature had arrived. Ervin's tenor saxophone sound was haunted by the loneliness and spaciousness of the Texas plains where he was raised. The Southwest moan was an integral part of his playing. But his style went beyond the classic Texas tenor tradition to incorporate the intricacies of bebop and suggestions of the free jazz that was initiating one of the periods of self-renewal that keeps jazz fresh and interesting. The Freedom Book, recorded at the end of 1963, was one of Ervin's masterpieces. He is abetted by the power and drive of Jaki Byard, Richard Davis, and Alan Dawson.

✓ Part of the ultimate audiophile Prestige stereo reissues from Analogue Productions — 25 of the most collectible, rarest, most audiophile-sounding Rudy Van Gelder recordings ever made. All cut at 33 1/3 and also released on Hybrid SACD
✓ All mastered from the original analog master tapes by mastering maestro Kevin Gray. 180-gram LPs pressed at Acoustic Sounds' state-of-the-art pressing plant, Quality Record Pressings, plated by Gary Salstrom
✓ Tip-on jackets on thick cardboard stock
✓ First 250 LP copies of each title will be numbered editions and will only be available to series subscribers

Vinyl Playlist:
1. A Lunar Tune
2. Cry Me Not
3. Grant's Stand
4. A Day to Mourn
5. Al's In