Mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio from the original master tape
Plated and pressed at RTI
The Blue Note Tone Poet Series was born out of Blue Note President Don Was’ admiration for the exceptional audiophile Blue Note LP reissues presented by Music Matters. Was brought Joe Harley (from Music Matters), a.k.a. the “Tone Poet,” on board to curate and supervise a series of reissues from the Blue Note family of labels.
Kenny Burrell had been recording for Blue Note less than a year when he entered Rudy Van Gelder’s Hackensack, New Jersey studio in February 1957 for his third session as a leader for the label. The date presented the guitarist’s signature stylings with a crack team of hard boppers featuring Horace Silver on piano, Hank Mobley on tenor saxophone, Doug Watkins on bass, and Louis Hayes on drums. Side 1 finds the band stretching out on a jaunty take of Silver’s tune “Nica’s Dream,” written for the jazz baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, and Burrell’s hard charging “Out for Blood.” Side 2 offers up several views of the blues with an excellent version of Lester Young’s “D.B. Blues” book-ended by two different takes of Burrell’s easy-going “K.B Blues.” Previously only issued on vinyl in Japan, this swinging set is given a new shine as part of the Tone Poet Series.
