Bill Evans, unreleased Don Cherry for RSD 2020

One of the genuine highlights is a brand-new release from Gearbox Records, Cherry Jam. This is a previously-unreleased recording by legendary trumpeter and cornet player Don Cherry, taken from a 1965 pre-record for Danish national radio. The four-track vinyl-only EP features three Cherry compositions, as well as a classic standard. The line-up consists of Cherry on cornet, Mogens Bollerup on tenor, Atli Bjørn on piano, Benny Nielsen on double bass and Simon Koppel on drums, and is available as a 45rpm 12” vinyl disc, produced to Gearbox’s usual exacting standards, and limited to 500 hand-numbered copies.

Back by popular demand, the critically acclaimed 2016 Resonance release by piano icon Bill Evans, Some Other Time: The Lost Session from the Black Forest, is available once again as a deluxe, exclusive RSD limited-edition (6,000 copies worldwide) 180gram 2-LP pressing, newly remastered by renowned engineer Kevin Gray. This studio album features bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Jack DeJohnette and was recorded by legendary engineer/producer Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer at MPS Studios in Villingen, Germany on June 20, 1968, only five days after the trio's acclaimed performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival. The extensive booklet includes essays by the acclaimed author Marc Myers and MPS studios engineer and studio manager Friedhelm Schulz; interviews with Eddie Gomez and Jack DeJohnette; plus previously unpublished photos by David Redfern, Giuseppe Pino, Jan Persson, and Hans Harzheim, including images taken at the actual 20 June session by German Hasenfratz. 

Also on Resonance is a previously unissued collection of studio recordings by pianist Bob James, Once Upon A Time: The Lost 1965 New York Studio Sessions. The album presents James in two different trio settings: one with drummer Robert Pozar and bassist Larry Rockwell (20 Jan 1965) and the other with Bill Wood on bass and Omar Clay on drums (9 October 1965). The record is packaged in a deluxe gatefold sleeve with extensive sleevenotes, new interviews and rare archival photographs. Only 5,000 copies will be made available worldwide.

Making its debut on vinyl is Charles Mingus’ Mingus Ah Um Redux (Get On Down, 3,000 copies), a double LP featuring the bassist's 1959 game-changing debut for Columbia (featuring standards such as "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat", "Boogie Stomp Shuffle", "Open Letter To The Duke") as well as a second disc of outtakes and alternate takes.

Also making its first appearance on wax is Charlie Parker’s Jazz At Midnite (Ume/Blue Note), a selection of stunning performances recorded live at the Howard Theater, Washington, DC, in 1952 and 1953. Previously released as part of a larger collection and only on CD in 2000, the LP features Max Roach, Charlie Byrd, Zoot Sims and more. Also includes original liner notes by producer Bill Potts.

Other jazz treasures include: Mr B by Chet Baker (Tidal Waves Music, 1,500 copies); Imminent, a two-track remix 12” single by The Comet Is Coming (Impulse!); two slabs of  classic 1960s jazz-prog from organist Don Shinn, Departuresand Temples With Prophets (both Sunbeam); Clash of the Galaxies (Enter The Jungle), a 12” by Ezra Collective; a re-release of Black Power classic New Direction by organist Gene Russell (originally released on the highly collectible Black Jazz label back in 1971); a double LP from The Jack Wilson Quartet, Call Me: Jazz From the Penthouse (Century 67, 1,000 copies), recorded in Seattle’s Penthouse Club in 1966 and featuring a young Roy Ayres and available on vinyl for the first time; experimental improv from Keith Rowe and Mark Wastell on Live at I-and-E (Confront); classic early 1980s spiritual jazz – featuring Herbie Hancock and Don Cherry – on Kawaida by Kuumba & Toudie Heath (Reel Music); a limited edition 7” on Decca by Melt Yourself Down, “Born in the Manor” b/w “It Is what It Is”; Miles Davis collectors will want Double Image: Directions in Music by Miles Davis (Rare Miles from the Complete Bitches Brew Sessions), a Sony Legacy double red vinyl LP of rarities originally released only on a 1998 CD box set; another red vinyl double LP, Último Trem (Far Out Recordings) by Milton Nascimento; award-winning bassist Neil Swainson’s only album, 49^th Parallel (1988), which features Joe Henderson and Woody Shaw, making its vinyl debut thanks to a Reel to Real RSD reissue; fans of the great bassist Ron Carter will love Stockholm (In+Out), a double LP in an edition of 1,999 copies, each one hand-numbered and signed by Carter himself, with two bonus tracks not available on the CD version; and finally, Tidal Waves has a real coup with Palais Des Beaux-Arts 1963, a previously unissued Thelonius Monk concert, recorded in Paris.

For a full, detailed list of releases and to find your nearest participating store, visit: www.recordstoreday.co.uk