Oh boy. Bit of a scoop here folks. Not only do we now have one of my all-time favourite recordings – Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue – in its full sublime tape glory, but now another absolute jazz classic has just been released on 15ips 2-track tape.
Thanks to Italian label Hemiolia Records having signed a long-term collaboration agreement with an Anglo-French company Ermitage Distribution, they now have access to an important archive of rigorously preserved analogue production master tapes – check out my blog from last November for more on this.
So far, the label has released three albums from the archive: Kind of Blue, John Coltrane’s Blue Train and Charles Mingus’ Mingus Ah Um – all absolute classics of their genre.
Now, we have another real biggie – one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time! It’s none other than the gob-smackingly gorgeous bossa nova tour de force, Getz / Gilberto, featuring American saxophonist Stan Getz and Brazilian guitarist João Gilberto, with pianist and composer Antônio Carlos Jobim who also composed many of the tracks. Without doubt, the star cut on the album is the deliciously seductive ‘The Girl From Ipanema’, featuring the creamy sweet vocals of Astrud Gilberto, Joao Gilberto’s wife. Amazingly, this was her first professional vocal assignment – one that earned a Grammy Award for Song of the Year and a nomination for Best Vocal Performance by a female artist.
Getz/Gilberto was originally released by Verve Records in 1964. As well as being acclaimed by music critics, the album won a total of three Grammys and was also the first ever non-American album to win Album of the Year in 1965. It also featured in Rolling Stone magazine’s ‘best albums of all time’.
As with Hemiolia’s other recent releases, this tape is produced from a first-generation flat production master.
To find out more and grab your copy (and I’ll be right there with you!) head over to www.hemioliarecords.com/en
And, if you want to hear a copy and meet the guys at Hemiolia, they’ll be at the Munich High End Show in May and will have copies of this, and other recent releases, for sale.
Dave Denyer: The Reel-to-Reel Rambler 