Jimmy Smith Midnight Special UHQCD

Numbered, Limited Edition UHQCD!
Playable on any CD player, the Ultimate High Quality CD greatly surpasses all previous CDs before it!
The "Incredible" Jimmy Smith was a self-taught keyboard virtuoso who decided in 1954 to give up the piano to devote himself entirely to the Hammond B3 organ. He settled in a warehouse in Philadelphia and cut wood for a year before drawing attention to himself with his revolutionary approach to the instrument, which immediately caught the attention of Alfred Lion. Between 1956 and 1963, the founder of Blue Note recorded the B3 innovator as often as possible in a number of different contexts, releasing with him an extraordinary series of albums that laid the foundation for the soul-jazz movement. "Midnight Special" is one of two albums recorded in one day by Jimmy Smith (the other is "Back At The Chicken Shack"), recorded by strong musicians such as Stanley Turrentine on tenor saxophone, Kenny Burrell on guitar, Donald Bailey on drums and, of course, Jimmy Smith on organ. At AllMusic, the groovy soul-jazz and hard bop with the rich dose of blues that "Midnight Special" offers received the very rare top rating!
In the course 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 the analog reissues of Blue Note US such as "Tone Poet" and "Classic Vinyl" - as a limited Japanese UHQCD with OBI Stripe. The original recording session for "Midnight Special" took place on April 25, 1960 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. UHQCDs, unlike conventional CDs, are not pressed from polycarbonate, but cast from a photopolymer and cured with UV light. To protect the softer photopolymer from scratching, another layer of high-purity polycarbonate is applied. The combination results in a significantly reduced reflection of the laser light inside the CD and an unrivalled precise edge transition between pits and lands of the CD. UHQCDs are 100% compatible with normal CD players. Musically, the result is a sound that is strongly reminiscent of analog master tapes.
While Universal Music Japan's first UHQCD series relied on the DSD data of previous SHM-SACD releases, albums that had not previously been released as SHM-SACD are now being released with increasing popularity. Typically, the master tapes of the Universal Archive 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 have a SACD player.

Features:

• Numbered, Limited Edition
• Made in Japan
• Superior Crystal Sound
• Ultimate High Quality CD
• XRCD-Like Luxury Digipak
• Playable on conventional CD players

Musicians:

• Jimmy Smith, organ
• Stanley Turrentine, tenor sax
• Kenny Burrell, guitar
• Donald Bailey, drums

Selections:

1. Midnight Special
2. A Subtle One
3. Jumpin' The Blues
4. Why Was I Born
5. One O'Clock Jump