Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers Roots & Herbs UHQCD

Numbered, Limited Edition UHQCD!
Playable on any CD player, the Ultimate High Quality CD greatly surpasses all previous CDs before it!
How is it that one of Art Blakey's best recordings with the Jazz Messengers is so little known? The 1961 line-up of the Messengers included Lee Morgan on trumpet, Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Bobby Timmons on piano, and Jymie Merritt on bass. It was this formation, along with pianist Walter Davis Jr., who played on two tracks ("Roots & Herbs," "United"), that was responsible for "Roots & Herbs"—a brilliant collection of six shorter compositions, including the driving hard bop of the title track, the playful "Ping Pong," and the cunning "United." "Roots & Herbs" was released nine years after the recording sessions (1970) and definitely deserves a top spot among Blakey's best albums.
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 sessions for "Roots & Herbs" took place on February 18 and May 27, 1961 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:

• Art Blakey, drums
• Lee Morgan, trumpet
• Wayne Shorter, tenor saxophone
• Bobby Timmons, piano
• Walter Davis Jr., piano
• Jymie Merritt, bass

Selections:

1. Ping Pong
2. Roots And Herbs
3. The Black Sliders
4. United
5. Look At The Birdie
6. Master Mind