Gil Evans Orchestra Great Jazz Standards UHQCD

Numbered, Limited Edition UHQCD!
Playable on any CD player, the Ultimate High Quality CD greatly surpasses all previous CDs before it!
The brilliant arranger, composer and pianist Gil Evans had already worked with Miles Davis on "Birth Of The Cool" and "Miles Ahead" and recorded his debut album "Gil Evans & Ten" for Prestige when he signed with World Pacific Records in 1958 and recorded the first of two albums for the label: "New Bottle, Old Wine" with soloist Cannonball Adderley. The following year, Evans returned to the studio to record the next album, "Great Jazz Standards," with two different ensembles, including trumpeters such as Johnny Coles, trombonists Curtis Fuller and Jimmy Cleveland, soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, tenor saxophonist and clarinetist Budd Johnson, guitarist Ray Crawford, drummer Elvin Jones, and others.
As the title promises, the album presents a program of great jazz standards, starting with Bix Beiderbecke's "Davenport Blues" before plunging into a sparkling version of Thelonious Monk's "Straight No Chaser." A beautiful rendition of "Ballad Of The Sad Young Men" by Fran Landesman and Tommy Wolf and a no-frills version of "Joy Spring" by Clifford Brown are followed by "Django" by John Lewis – with an impressionistic arrangement full of surprises – and a modernist version of "Chant Of The Weed" by Don Redman. The album culminates in a rendition of "Theme", the original by Evans, which later became known as "La Nevada".
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 "Great Jazz Standards" took place in New York in early 1959.
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:

• Dick Carter, Tommy Poetter, bass
• Gil Evans, conductor, piano
• Dennis Charles, Elvin Jones, drums
• Earl Chapin, Bob Nothern, French horn
• Chuck Wayne, Ray Crawford, guitar
• Steve Lacy, soprano saxophone
• Budd Johnson, tenor saxophone, clarinet
• Bill Elton, Curtis Fuller, Dick Lieb, Jimmy Cleveland, Rod Levitt, trombone
• Allen Smith, Danny Stiles, Johnny Coles, Louis Mucci, trumpet
• Bill Barber, tuba
• Al Block, Ed Caine, woodwind

Selections:

1. Davenport Blues
2. Straight No Chaser
3. Ballad Of The Sad Young Men
4. Joy Spring
5. Django
6. Chant Of The Weed
7. La Nevada (Theme)