The Jazz Detective, Washington D.C., DC (2025)

Multi-Award Winning Producer, Zev Feldman
Jazz Detective Record is a new archival record company that embodies renowned producer Zev Feldman's love and care for archival music around a variety of different genres.

02/28/2024

🚨 RSD 2024: SISTER ROSETTA THARPE - PREVIOUSLY UNISSUED 1966 CONCERT IN FRANCE! We're proud to announce the inaugural release on the Deep Digs label imprint (in partnership with Elemental Music) for Record Store Day 2024 - "Live in France: The 1966 Concert in Limoges" by the "Godmother of Rock 'n' Roll' Sister Rosetta Tharpe. This is a very special project for producer Zev Feldman because he tried for years and years to find a home for this recording before his gracious partners at Elemental, Jordi Soley and Carlos Agustin Calembert, believed in the project and gave it a chance to come out. We hope it will serve as a major revelation for people to learn more about the great Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

"Live in France" is available as a limited-edition 180g 2-LP set at participating record stores starting 4/20 as part of RSD! Find stores and more information at recordstoreday.com. The deluxe CD is available on 4/26 at https://www.deepdigsmusic.com/product-page/sister-rosetta-tharpe-live-in-france-the-1966-concert-in-limoges

This previously unissued live solo recording of the "Godmother of Rock n’ Roll," Sister Rosetta Tharpe, was captured at the auditorium of the Grand Theatre in Limoges, France on November 11, 1966 and is an official release in cooperation with the Sister Rosetta Tharpe Estate and INA France. Transferred from the original tape reels, this recording was restored and mastered by multi-GRAMMY award-winning engineer Michael Graves at Osiris Studio, with lacquers cut by Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab.

The limited-edition 180-gram 2-LP edition (and deluxe CD) includes an extensive insert with rare photographs by Jan Persson, Hans Harzheim, Don Schlitten and Burt Goldblatt; two sets of liner notes by American and French Tharpe biographers — Gayle Wald (Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe) and Jean Buzelin (Sister Rosetta Tharpe: La femme qui inventa le Rock 'n' Roll); and statements by Susan Tedeschi, Shemekia Copeland, Bonnie Raitt, Henry Rollins, Billy F Gibbons and Brian Ray. Pressed by Memphis Record Pressing.

We'd like to thank Sister Rosetta Tharpe for being such an incredible trailblazer and force of nature, paving the way for countless musicians who came after her. Thanks to our label partners Jordi and Carlos at Elemental Music, and Christiane Lemire and her team at INA, for making this release possible. We're grateful for the ongoing support of Michael Kurtz and Carrie Colliton at Record Store Day, and to our publicist Bob Merlis for all his great work. The album cover was designed by Burton Yount, and features a striking photo of Sister Rosetta Tharpe by Jan Persson / CTSIMAGES. Gordon H. Jee designed the rest of the package.

*** READ THE FULL PRESS RELEASE BELOW ***

SISTER ROSETTA THARPE LIVE IN FRANCE: THE 1966 CONCERT IN LIMOGES SET FOR LIMITED-EDITION 2-LP RECORD STORE DAY RELEASE ON APRIL 20 (AND DELUXE CD EDITION ON APRIL 26)

“THE GODMOTHER OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL” HEARD ON 21 TRACKS
NEVER BEFORE RELEASED

Sister Rosetta Tharpe was such a beautiful light and for her to have such faith in her music and her spirit and no doubt to see a lot of darkness, there's a lot to be learned from that. I think there's a lot to learn from an artist like her who started doing it at five or six years old and then did it throughout her whole career and really had a passion for it. She just had a God-given gift.
– Susan Tedeschi

Sister Rosetta Tharpe was a pivotal figure in American 20th century music, though until recently her legend had languished in semi-obscurity. The pioneering gospel/blues singer, extraordinarily gifted electric guitarist and proto rock ‘n’ roll star has been rediscovered of late with a well-deserved induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018 with Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard doing the honors. Thereafter, her influence at the dawn of the rock era on none other than Elvis Presley was acknowledged with a searing portrayal by Yola in Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 Elvis feature film. All of that posthumous notoriety has earned her the title “The Godmother of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” with her undeniable influence acknowledged by rock cognoscenti everywhere.

This coming Record Store Day, April 20, will see the release of a limited edition 2-LP set (also available on CD and digital download on April 26) titled Live in France: The 1966 Concert in Limoges, a 21-track album of newly discovered and previously unreleased performances recorded on November 11, 1966, at the Grand Theater in Limoges, the city in west-central France best known for porcelain production. Having been accepted and celebrated by audiences in France and throughout Europe, she toured the continent relentlessly in the ‘60s. Her 1966 performance in Limoges was in fact her third concert there over the years. It was captured on tape that night by the Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (ORTF) and discovered seven years ago by Zev Feldman, the archivist Stereophile dubbed “The Indiana Jones of Jazz,” and who was recently profiled in The New Yorker, for his uncanny ability to uncover heretofore “lost” music recorded decades ago by seminal and critically acclaimed artists. Feldman found the Limoges recording while doing a search of the INA (Institut national de l’audiovisuel) France archives and realized he had discovered something very special: an audio document of the formidable American gospel great playing solo, accompanying herself on her electric guitar. Feldman commented, "Sister Rosetta Tharpe has been a towering and trailblazing figure in music even decades and decades after her passing in 1973, and her influence is still being felt to this day. This recording has never been released before and I consider it a very special time capsule of a document that transports you back to a wonderful performance in the mid-1960s in France."

Feldman worked tirelessly to put the music he’d discovered in a setting befitting the brilliance of the artist and the significance of his find. To that end, Live in France is offered in a lavishly packaged set with rare photos, meticulous art direction and voluminous liner notes by Tharpe experts as well as commentary from contemporary musicians who are in awe of Tharpe, her talent and ongoing legacy. The album is being released on Feldman’s new imprint Deep Digs, in partnership with Elemental Music.

The set features a lengthy essay by Tharpe biographer Gayle Wald, author of Shout, Sister Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Wald wrote, “Sister Rosetta was the first guitar heroine of rock & roll. Her heartfelt gospel folksiness gave way to her roaring mastery of her trusty Gibson Les Paul Custom, which she wielded on a level that rivaled the best of her male contemporaries.” Also included are descriptive notes, translated from French by Jean Buzelin, author of Sister Rosetta Tharpe: La femme qui inventa le Rock ‘n’ Roll. He chronicles her exhaustive touring in Europe and her special relationship with French audiences. Her influence on British guitar players including Keith Richards, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton is widely acknowledged with all the overmentioned having seen her perform when she toured with Muddy Waters and other American blues greats. There is also a heartwarming narrative by Donna Rhea Hamilton (grandmother of Tedeschi Trucks Band drummer Isaac Eady), at whose childhood home in Tullahoma, TN Tharpe was a house guest when she came to town – by Greyhound Bus – to perform at the AME Church there in the late ‘60s. She recalls Sister Rosetta as a “sweet, sweet soul, down to earth just like normal people,” and helping her mother cook for the family.

Beyond those exhaustive notes are comments from Susan Tedeschi, ZZ Top’s Billy F Gibbons, Shemekia Copeland, Henry Rollins, Brian Ray and Bonnie Raitt who wrote, “Rosetta was one of the most beloved and influential artists ever in gospel music...and she blazed a trail for the rest of us women guitarists with her indomitable spirit and accomplished, engaging style. She has long been deserving of wider recognition and a place of honor in the field of music history.” Susan Tedeschi also offered, “I don't know of anybody really who plays exactly like she does, but I can hear her influence in people from Little Richard to Elvis Presley, to Clapton, to Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, a lot of different people. You can hear her in their playing, so when you hear that rock and roll thing, it really kind of comes from her.” Billy F Gibbons commented, “As a guitarist I have to celebrate her six-string slingin’ . . . nobody had done anything like that before and is due a debt of gratitude for being the soulful pioneer she was.” Shemekia Copeland commented, “If Rosetta had been a Mister instead of a Sister, she would have been as famous as Little Richard, Chuck Berry or even Elvis. In fact, she inspired all of them. She was that original. And she’s an inspiration to me every time I perform. Sister Rosetta rocked!!!!” That assertion was seconded by Henry Rollins who stated, “Sister Rosetta rocks absolutely.”

Sister Rosetta Tharpe Live in France: The 1966 Limoges Concert

LP 1 / SIDE A
1. This Train (4:25) – R. Tharpe
2. When My Life Work Is Ended (3:45) – W.W. Harris, A.J. Bell
3. Didn't It Rain (1:49) – Trad. - arr. R. Tharpe
4. Mother’s Prayer (5:26) – J.W. Van de Venter

SIDE B
1. Up Above My Head, I Hear Music in the Air (Trad. - arr. R. Tharpe) (2:20)
2. Moonshine (2:52) - R. Tharpe
3. Sit Down (2:23) – N. Sherman - J. Keller
4. Down by the Riverside (3:33) – Trad.
5. When The Saints Go Marching In (2:23) – Trad. - arr. R. Tharpe
6. Joshua Fought The Battle of Jericho (2:18) – Trad. - arr. R. Tharpe

LP 2 / SIDE C
1. Jesus Met the Woman at the Well (4:29) – J.W. Alexander, K. Morris
2. Two Little Fishes, Five Loaves of Bread (2:41) – B. Hanighen
3. Traveling Shoes (3:19) – Traditional
4. Beams of Heaven (2:55) – C.A. Tindley
5. That's All / Denomination Blues (2:58) – R. Tharpe, W. Phillips
6. Going Home (2:40)

SIDE D
1. Go Ahead (3:12) – C. Jeter
2. Bring Back Those Happy Days (3:11) – R. Tharpe
3. Give me That Old Time Religion (2:04) – Traditional
4. If Anybody Above Me (1:48) – M. Kenney
5. Nobody's Fault But Mine (4:26) – Traditional

Recorded on November 11, 1966 at the Grand Theater in Limoges, France

For more information please contact:
Bob Merlis / M.F.H. (Merlis For Hire)
bobmerlis at bobmerlis dot com

02/26/2024

🚨 #4 RSD 2024: SUN RA — NEVER-BEFORE-RELEASED LIVE RECORDINGS FROM JOE SEGAL'S JAZZ SHOWCASE IN CHICAGO! We're very excited to announce the Record Store Day release of "Sun Ra At The Showcase: Live in Chicago (1976-1977)" by the cosmic legend Sun Ra on Jazz Detective (in partnership with Elemental Music). This is producer Zev Feldman's first Sun Ra release working closely with Irwin Chusid of the Sun Ra Trust and Michael D. Anderson and it's very personal for him as he's been listening to Sun Ra's music for decades. Sun Ra is an amazing inspiration and this is an absolutely wonderful release of Sun Ra at the height of his and the Arkestra's powers, recorded in an intimate club setting at Joe Segal's famous Jazz Showcase in Chicago in 1976 and 1977.

"Sun Ra At The Showcase" is available as a limited-edition 180g 2-LP set at participating record stores starting 4/20 as part of RSD! Find stores and more information at recordstoreday.com. The deluxe 2-CD set is available on 4/26 at https://www.deepdigsmusic.com/product-page/sun-ra-at-the-showcase-live-in-chicago-1976-1977

Containing previously unissued live recordings of the legendary intergalactic composer/pianist Sun Ra captured live at Joe Segal's Jazz Showcase in Chicago, IL on February 21, 1976 and November 4th & 10, 1977, "Sun Ra At The Showcase" is an official release on producer Zev Feldman's Jazz Detective record label, in partnership with Elemental Music, and in cooperation with the Sun Ra Trust. Researched and compiled by longtime Sun Ra archivist Michael D. Anderson, and transferred from the original tape reels, this limited-edition 180-gram 2-LP edition (and deluxe 2-CD set) includes an extensive insert with rare photographs from the actual performances by Hal Rammel; liner notes by acclaimed author John Corbett; and interviews and statements from a who's who of music icons including Marshall Allen, David Murray, Dave Burrell, Matthew Shipp, Thurston Moore, Amina Claudine Myers, Jack DeJohnette, Michael Weiss and Reggie Workman. Mastered for vinyl by Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab, and pressed by Memphis Record Pressing. The CD edition was mastered by Joe Lizzi.

We're grateful for the ongoing support of Michael Kurtz and Carrie Colliton at Record Store Day. A hearty thanks to our publicist Ann Braithwaite for all her great work as well. The album cover was designed by Burton Yount, and features a striking photo of Sun Ra by Jan Persson. Gordon H. Jee designed the rest of the package.

*** READ THE FULL PRESS RELEASE BELOW ***

JAZZ DETECTIVE BOWS COSMIC PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED SUN RA AT THE SHOWCASE: LIVE IN CHICAGO (1976-1977) AS LIMITED TWO-LP RECORD STORE DAY EXCLUSIVE ON APRIL 20

Live Sets Captured in 1976-77 at the Jazz Showcase, Joe Segal’s Storied Windy City Venue, Make Their Debut as Two-CD Package on April 26

Lavish Collection Includes Rare Photos, Notes by John Corbett, and Insightful Interviews with Sun Ra’s Collaborators and Acolytes, Including Contemporary Arkestra Leader Marshall Allen

Record Store Day 2024 will bring an out-of-this-world bonanza to lovers of intergalactic jazz man Sun Ra, as Zev Feldman’s Jazz Detective label launches Sun Ra at the Showcase: Live in Chicago, previously unissued recordings by the bandleader-composer-keyboardist-Afrofuturist’s Arkestra, as a limited edition 180-gram two-LP collection, due April 20.

The set — featuring storming performances captured in 1976 and 1977 at the Jazz Showcase, Joe Segal’s venerable, venerated club at 901 Rush Street in the Windy City’s “Gold Coast” entertainment district — will also be released as a two-CD package on April 26.

Co-produced with Sun Ra archivist Michael D. Anderson, the Showcase album comprises high-energy, freewheeling performances by the 19-piece Arkestra that feature many of the band’s most notable soloists, including tenor player John Gilmore, alto/flute player Danny Davis, baritone saxophonist Danny Thompson, vocalist June Tyson, and, of course, altoist/flautist Marshall Allen, who today leads the group at the age of 99. The ’77 engagement resulted in two LPs released that same year on Sun Ra’s Saturn label, The Soul Vibrations of Man and Taking a Chance on Chances.

The richly annotated Sun Ra at the Showcase includes an in-depth essay by Chicago-based writer, musician, and label/gallery operator John Corbett; previously unseen photographs shot at the Jazz Showcase by Hal Rammel; and insightful interviews with Marshall Allen, Sun Ra collaborators Reggie Workman and Jack DeJohnette, saxophonist David Murray, pianists Matthew Shipp, Dave Burrell, Michael Weiss, and Amina Claudine Myers, and guitarist and Sonic Youth co-founder Thurston Moore.

Feldman, the award-winning “Jazz Detective,” says of this new archival release, “It is an enormous pleasure to bring to you my first collaboration with the Sun Ra estate celebrating the long-lasting legacy of the great Sun Ra. I’ve been listening to Ra's music for decades and find enormous inspiration and creativity in it. The road to this release began in 2022 when I reached out to my longtime friend Garrett Shelton, who had previously worked with Irwin Chusid of the Sun Ra estate and archivist Michael D. Anderson on a Sun Ra project. For a number of months, Michael and I worked together to find a meaningful recording that we could pair up on to release together. These recordings are an extraordinary find.”

Anderson adds, “I’ve been producing records over the last 20 years, and people in the Sun Ra community know who I am. This one, in particular, is a project I feel proud of because it gives us a chance to go into a concert. You're sitting there, it's not like the clapping is faded out or this or that. Here's something new.”

Corbett’s introduction places the ‘70s dates in the context of the music’s Windy City origins: “Sun Ra had a storied history with Chicago. Chicago was, without hyperbole, the place where Ra was conceived. Herman Poole Blount was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1914, but Sun Ra came into existence in Chicago in the 1950s. In a city teeming with great musical talent and suitable venues for almost any venture, Ra had ample opportunities to hone his craft as an arranger and composer, to test his skills as a bandleader, to further his esoteric readings, to develop his unique performance persona, and to write a whole songbook’s worth of original (in every sense) material. At the same time, he was free to experiment broadly and intensely.
Chicago was where Ra imagined, assembled, and incubated his Arkestra.”

Photographer Rammel, who witnessed the Jazz Showcase performances up close, recalls, “The mystery of how this richly orchestrated Arkestral music — its suite of songs, solos, clearly defined passages composed or improvised — unfolded was continually fascinating….Watching musicians listen to each other so intensely and react so effortlessly made traveling the space ways with there Arkestra an absolutely unique experience in all my years as a fellow traveler.”

Marshall Allen, whose involvement with Ra’s music has encompassed 65 uninterrupted years, says, “Sun Ra was a genius. He had the music inside his mind and his own way of playing it, of attacking every note. He was also a good teacher and wrote beautiful music. So being in his band was like a dream. Once there, I found a place to stay. He wasn’t just a musician. He was above all an innovator who could imagine the future."

Some of the jazz greats who played with Ra or witnessed him in live orbit speak with awe about him.

Bassist Workman says, “It’s really hard to find words big enough to explain who Sun Ra was, because we are speaking about a very unique character, a learned man, and a very unusual mind….I had the chance to play with Sun Ra a couple of times. Either it was a session or it was some rehearsal or something like that. I was always very busy in those years, but tried to make time to see him, because being in his company was an important thing. It was quite an experience for me.”

Drummer DeJohnette says, “Playing with Sun Ra was challenging. He never laid down any rules about how one should play. He'd just write the music and leave everybody else to use their own creative imagination, to interpret the music.”
Speaking of his first exposure to Ra’s music at a 1973 date in Berkeley, saxophonist Murray remembers, “The band must've finished the gig at about 12:30 a.m. and we sat there talking to Sun Ra until about 3 in the morning. He spoke about many, many things. He was so mystical, and we were mesmerized. I hardly got a word in. I just couldn't believe this man could go on from one topic to another and connect all of them to mystical things, to the universe, to God. I had never heard anybody speak like that before. I love Sun Ra. I love his music and what he did.”

Ra left his mark on later generations of pianists. Burrell says of an Arkestra live show he witnessed, “They were playing with high energy, and I never heard such intense energy as when they walked up and down the aisle. From that time on, I knew that the Sun Ra phenomenon was intense and beautiful, and it inspired me to practice and be more serious about my own destiny.”

Weiss notes, “The writing is so interesting. It really comes from this big band language, but with all those exotic percussion and bells, and his interest in all these diverse keyboards was way before anybody else used that stuff.” Myers says, “Sun Ra was one of the greatest creators, with his ensembles, because of his techniques on the piano, and also due to his compositions. I know that Sun Ra was definitely an inspiration to me.”

Shipp — who included Ra in his grouping of jazz keyboard originals in a 2020 essay, “Black Mystery School Pianists” — says, “I relate Sun Ra’s imagination to what I call a cosmic musician, and that's what I get out of him. It's not even really jazz. He's trying to tap into the pure music of the cosmos.”

Thurston Moore, whose adventurous music boasts a deep familiarity with Sun Ra’s pioneering work and spirit, reflects on its meaning today: “‘Greetings from the 21st Century’ is Ra singing to the future a good two decades plus from where we live together now. Oh if only Ra could be here to butter our burning hearts with all the current crop of false idols running rampant in riots of war and desecration. What the world needs now…is Ra sweet Ra. Peace on Earth…and beyond the beyond – thank you for the music, Mister Ra.”

TRACK LISTING
Side A - 11-10-1977
1. New Beginning [3:00]
2. View From Another Dimension [9:50]
3. Visitor’s Approach [8:30]
4. Ankhnaton [5:48]

Side B - 11-10-1977
1. Rose Room [6:32]
2. Moonship Journey [10:19
3. Velvet [8:16]

Side C - 02-21-1976
1. Calling Planet Earth & The Shadow World [17:39]

Side D - 02-21-1976
1. Theme Of The Stargazers [3:00]
2. Space Is The Place [7:09]
3. Applause [1:45]
4. Ebah Speaks In Cosmic Tongue [3:24]
5. Greetings From the 21st Century [2:17]
6. Joe Segal announcements [1:09]

All titles composed by Sun Ra © Enterplanetary Kocepts (BMI)
Except “Rose Room” by Williams-Hickman, arr. Sun Ra

Personnel:
Sun Ra – Piano and Electric Keyboard
John Gilmore - Teno
Marshall Allen - Alto, Flute, Kora
Danny Davis - Alto, Flute
Elo Omoe - Alt, Bass Clarinet
Danny Thompson - Baritone, Flute
Michael Ray - Trumpet
Ahmed Abdullah - Trumpet
Emmett McDonald - Trumpet
Vincent Chancey - French Horn
Dale Williams - Guitar
Richard William - Bass
Luqman Ali - Drums
Eddie Thomas - Drums, Vocal
James Jacson - Ancient Ihnfinity Drum, Obo
Atakatune - Congas
June Tyson - Vocals
Cheryl Banks-Smith - Vocals
Wister (Judith Holton) - Vocals

For more information please contact:
Ann Braithwaite / Braithwaite & Katz Communications
ann at bkmusicpr dot com

02/21/2024

🚨 RSD 2024: CHET BAKER & JACK SHELDON — NEVER-BEFORE-RELEASED 1972 STUDIO ALBUM! It's a huge thrill to announce the Record Store Day release of "In Perfect Harmony: The Lost Album" by West Coast trumpet icons Chet Baker & Jack Sheldon on Jazz Detective (in partnership with Elemental Music).

"In Perfect Harmony" is available as a limited-edition 180g LP at participating record stores starting 4/20 as part of RSD! Find stores and more information at recordstoreday.com. The deluxe CD is available on 4/26 at https://www.deepdigsmusic.com/product-page/chet-baker-jack-sheldon-in-perfect-harmony-the-lost-album and Bandcamp (https://chet-baker.bandcamp.com/album/in-perfect-harmony-the-lost-album).

Recorded in Tustin, California in 1972 with pianist David Frishberg, bassist Joe Mondragon, drummer Nick Ceroli and guitarist Jack Marshall, this studio session was produced by Jack Marshall and Hank Quinn. The tape comes from the personal archives of the legendary film producer Frank Marshall (Jack Marshall's son) — The Last Waltz, the Indiana Jones and Bourne Identity franchises, Gremlins, The Goonies, Back to the Future, Jurassic World, The Color Purple and countless others. This is an official release co-produced by Zev Feldman and Frank Marshall, with executive producers Jeff Pollack, plus Jordi Soley and Carlos Agustín Calembert from Elemental. The all-analog mastering and cutting by Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab directly from the original master tape reel and pressed at Memphis Record Pressing.

The limited-edition 180g LP edition (and deluxe CD, out April 26) includes an extensive insert with rare photographs courtesy of the Marshall family, newly-commissioned liners note by acclaimed music writer Richard S. Ginell, and essays by Zev Feldman, Frank Marshall and engineer Matthew Lutthans.

We'd like to first and foremost acknowledge the tremendous gifts Chet Baker and Jack Sheldon left us with their incredible artistry. Thanks to label partners Jordi and Carlos at Elemental Music, and Frank Marshall and Jeff Pollack for all making this release possible. We're grateful for the ongoing support of Michael Kurtz and Carrie Colliton at Record Store Day. A hearty thanks to our publicist Ann Braithwaite for all her great work. The album cover was designed by John Sellards.

*** READ THE FULL PRESS RELEASE BELOW ***

JAZZ DETECTIVE PRESENTS NEVER-BEFORE-HEARD
CHET BAKER/JACK SHELDON SET IN PERFECT HARMONY: THE LOST ALBUM AS LIMITED-EDITION RECORD STORE DAY LP RELEASE ON APRIL 20

Newly Unearthed Studio Date from 1972 Featuring the Trumpeters/Vocalists with a Top-Flight Band of L.A. Musicians Arrives on CD April 26

Release is Co-Produced by “Jazz Detective” Zev Feldman and Famed Film Producer Frank Marshall, Who Discovered the Recordings in the Family Garage

Zev Feldman’s Jazz Detective label will present a previously unheard musical treasure on Record Store Day 2024, as the archival imprint releases In Perfect Harmony: The Lost Album, a hitherto unknown 1972 studio recording featuring trumpeters/vocalists Chet Baker and Jack Sheldon.

The collection will be released on April 20 as a limited 180-gram audiophile LP, mastered from the original analog tapes by engineer Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab in Salina, KS, followed by a CD release on April 26.

The sextet date is the third release featuring Baker from award-winning archival producer Feldman, succeeding the previous Live in Paris: The Radio France Recordings (1983-1984) (Elemental Music, 2021) and Blue Room: The 1989 VARA Studio Sessions in Holland (Jazz Detective, 2022). Both titles were issued in partnership with Barcelona-based Jordi Soley and Carlos Agustin Calembert of Elemental Music.

In Perfect Harmony is co-produced by the legendary, hit-making film producer Frank Marshall, whose glittering resumé includes the Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, and Jason Bourne franchises, among many other box office blockbusters. Marshall’s father was jazz guitarist and composer Jack Marshall; he is a featured player on the Baker-Sheldon recordings, which were cut at United Audio, the Tustin, CA, studio facility he operated with partner Hank Quinn, who co-produced the original ’72 date. Veteran music executive and TV/film producer, Jeff Pollack —whose recent credits include The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash, Laurel Canyon: A Place in Time, Rhythm + Flow and McCartney: 3,2,1 — is an executive producer on the album.

Besides the leaders and Marshall, the session features three top Los Angeles rhythm players: pianist Dave Frishberg (who later penned some of the witty tunes the Sheldon famously sang for ABC’s Saturday-morning children’s programming, Schoolhouse Rock), bassist Joe Mondragon, and drummer Nick Ceroli.

Feldman says, “Co-producing this album with the great film producer Frank Marshall, seeing it crystallize and come together, has been one of the biggest thrills of my career….These recordings are simply remarkable, and I’m grateful that we’re able to keep finding gems like this that have been tucked away for so many years.”

In August 2022, Frank Marshall brought the tapes that became In Perfect Harmony to Feldman. Marshall had been going through boxes in storage from the family's Lido Isle home and recalls in his notes for the package, “The sessions went well, and, when they finished mixing, Dad took the tapes to L.A. to shop them. He had several record labels interested, but on September 20, 1973, he died suddenly of a heart attack. The tapes got packed away in our garage and were never released. Until now. After 50 years in storage, we can finally enjoy and celebrate this long-lost gem of an album.”

This session was projected as one of the first in years to feature Chet Baker in a leadership role. He had been largely inactive in the studio since suffering a savage assault on the street in the San Francisco Bay area in August 1966. The beating broke several of the musician’s teeth and forced him to be fitted with dentures, which left him uncomfortable and wary of playing. But Sheldon, a close friend and peer of Baker, tried to coax him back to work.

“One day during the summer of 1972,” Frank Marshall recalls, “Jack Sheldon had an idea: ‘Just think, Chetie, if we do an album together, you’ll only have to play on half of it!’ Chet liked the idea, but was still hesitant. To make him comfortable, the two Jacks did what they did best — get great musicians together.”

In his notes devoted to the music, historian Richard S. Ginell writes, “This newly-discovered session comes from a time when Sheldon was riding high on the Merv Griffin show while Baker was struggling, out of the music for a while trying to repair his embouchure. Jazz historians say that Baker’s ‘comeback’ started in 1973, but this session predates that by about a year. Sheldon and Jack Marshall set it up as a way to ease their friend gradually onto the scene again by sharing the date and enlisting first-class help from some of L.A.’s finest resident jazzers.”

Splitting the vocal chores down the middle with five leads apiece, Baker and Sheldon essayed largely standard repertoire (augmented by one Sheldon original and a Mexican ballad he performed in Spanish) in relaxed style. A lone instrumental, the bossa nova “Once I Loved” rounds out the album.

The approaches of the chill, laid-back Baker and the exuberant, ebullient Sheldon were a study in contrast. Ginell says, “Sheldon had a bright, brash sound rooted in the bebop gospel according to Dizzy Gillespie. Baker, by contrast, was a cooler customer, more in the Miles Davis manner, and as such became a poster boy for what was labeled West Coast Jazz, a label that was plastered rightly or wrongly on anyone who came from California. They differed even more as singers — Sheldon ever the lively hipster who sometimes seemed to be kidding the lyrics in the Great American Songbook; Baker ever the callow, fluid, subtly swinging presence who always sounded as if he was barely out of his teens.”

Happily, after half a century on the shelf, the tapes were in good shape, and engineer Lutthans writes, “In December 2023, I had the pleasure of threading up the tape on the late Doug Sax’s customized, all-tube-electronics tape machine feeding the tube amplified Neumann lathe, hitting play, and cutting the masters 100% all analog. Enjoy!”

TRACK LISTING:

Chet Baker - trumpet, vocals
Jack Sheldon - trumpet, vocals
Jack Marshall - guitar
Dave Frishberg - piano
Joe Mondragon - bass
Nick Ceroli - drums

Side A
1. This Can’t Be Love (2:12)
2. Just Friends (2:29)
3. Too Blue (4:20)
4. But Not For Me (3:35)
5. Historia de un Amor (3:06)
6. Once I Loved (3:46)

Side B
1. You Fascinate Me (3:01)
2. When I Fall In Love (5:05)
3. I Cried For You (3:32)
4. I’m Old Fashioned (2:31)
5. Evil Blues (2:04)

Recorded in 1972 at United Audio in Tustin, CA

For more information please contact:
Ann Braithwaite / Braithwaite & Katz Communications
ann at bkmusicpr.com

Address

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