In honor of its 80th anniversary, Blue Note Records is releasing a slew of vinyl albums as part of a new rollout called the Tone Poet Vinyl Reissue Series, produced by Joe Harley, who launched the Music Matters Blue Note LP reissue series in 2007. Harley picked the titles himself—classic Blue Note releases along with some more obscure picks—to create this series of all-analog LPs mastered from the original tapes.
The first two albums in the series—Wayne Shorter’s 1965 album Etcetera and Chick Corea’s 1968 trio record Now He Sings, Now He Sobs—are being released today (Feb. 8), with two more albums coming out every month until November.
“The LPs are mastered directly from the original analog master tapes,” Harley wrote in a post on Blue Note’s website, adding: “We go about it in the exact same way that we did for so many years for the Music Matters Blue Note reissues. We do not roll off the low end, boost the top or do any limiting of any kind. We allow the full glory of the original Blue Note masters to come though unimpeded! Short of having an actual time machine, this is as close as you can get to going back and being a fly on the wall for an original Blue Note recording session.”
A full list of the albums in the series, with release dates, is below.
February 8
Wayne Shorter: Etcetera (1965)
Chick Corea: Now He Sings, Now He Sobs (1968)
March 15
Sam Rivers: Contours (1965)
Cassandra Wilson: Glamoured (2003)
April 26
Gil Evans: New Bottle Old Wine (1958)
Joe Henderson: The State of the Tenor: Live at the Village Vanguard, Volume 2 (1985)
May 31
Lou Donaldson: Mr. Shing-A-Ling (1967)
Lee Morgan: Cornbread (1965)
June 28
Baby Face Willette: Face to Face (1961)
Dexter Gordon: Clubhouse (1965)
July 26
Kenny Burrell: Introducing Kenny Burrell (Blue Note, 1956)
Andrew Hill: Black Fire (1963)
September 6
Donald Byrd: Chant (1961)
Stanley Turrentine: Hustlin’ (1964)
October 25
Grant Green: Born to Be Blue (1962)
Tina Brooks: Minor Move (1958)
November 15
Hank Mobley: Poppin’ (1957)
Stanley Turrentine: Comin’ Your Way (1961)
