THE past and present conspire to lure audiophile jazz aficionados with a treat of epic proportions – six legendary albums from Blue Note Records, available in high-resolution format for the first time at HDtracks. For a fee, of course, gourmet meals are seldom free!
The six titles are Blue Train (John Coltrane), Maiden Voyage (Herbie Hancock), Speak No Evil (Wayne Shorter), Song For my Father (Horace Silver), Out To Lunch (Eric Dolphy) and Unity (Larry Young), benchmark releases that shaped the future of jazz decades ago.
The albums have been digitally remastered for the first time in 24/192 and 24/96 resolutions from the original analogue multi-track masters.The high-resolution mastering was done by Alan Yoshida and Robin Lynn in April this year.
If you haven’t been up to speed in your digital treks across the Internet, HDtracks was set up a couple or so years ago by David and Norman Chesky, of the famed audiophile label. The company is a high-quality music download service that has a diverse catalogue of music across genres and from around the globe. No digital rights management system is applied, so these music files are not encrypted and can be access from any computer or portable device.
HDtracks offers its customers a choice of several formats, too, from 24-bit/96kHz (DVD-Audio standard) and CD quality to AIFF, FLAC and 320kbps MP3 … oh, and 24/192, too, if you really can’t live without this.
Blue Note, as any jazz fan should know, has been turning out high quality jazz records for more than seven decades and, at one time or another, housed most of the big cats of the genre under its roof. In fact, its name is almost synonymous with jazz, although it does have artistes of note from other genres, too.
As for the high-resolution downloads, each album is accompanied by the original sleeve notes, along with additional photos and newly-written package essays.
According to Blue Note president Don Was, great effort was made to stay true to the spirit of the original releases.
“In preparing these hi-def remasters, we were very conscientious about maintaining the feel of the original releases while adding a previously unattainable transparency and depth,” he said.
If you’re a jazz fan with an unquenchable thirst for magnificent music, what better way to get into the high-resolution download game than with these legendary pieces of work, now revealed in their pristine brilliance.
