Earl Hines - Hot Jazz Classics (1950) LP

Enough cannot be said about Earl Hines, he is without question one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz (hence "Fatha"). This is a fantastic collcection of early Hines 1928 and 1932-33 reissued by Columbia in 1950 with liner notes from the great producer John Hammond including the smash hits "Rosetta" and "I Ain't Got Nobody". This was the dawn of the record album as 3-4 discs were presented as such depending on the work, and consequently LPs were named "albums" as well, a misnomer of course as far as single LPs go. This was also the dawn of the LP cover, as prior to 78 rpm albums, single discs were sold in plain brown paper sleeves with the occasional record store advertisment typed as 78 collectors are aware. Columbia used the brilliant ALex Steinweiss as art director who is largely credited as the father of the album cover as we know it today.
On the technical side, the 4 shellac discs of this Columbia album were in VG+ condition which is quite rare, a 1964 Dual 1019 with a Shure M75 strapped for mono playback equipped with a 2.8 mils truncated elliptical stylus from the Expert Stylus Co in the UK was used for playback and Brian Davies' great software suite was used for the necessary declicking/decrackling, denoising and EQ. I strived for the "R.T. Davies sound" i.e. try to stay as close to the original as possible without adding or substracting too much making it sound artificial, always a great execrise with 78s as each disc posesses its own "soul".
The work of the great, late John R.T. Davies can be heard on countless reissues of early jazz in the digital domain, most notably the renown French series Chronological Classics (in fact, the recordings on ths Columbia album can be found on the early Hines releases on CC).


Tracks:

01. 57 Varieties (Hines) - 3:20
02. I Ain't Got Nobody (Graham-Williams) - 3:15
03. Caution Blues (Blues in Thirds) (Hines) - 3:01
04. A Monday Date (Hines) - 3:19
05. Down Among the Sheltering Palms (Brockman-Olman) - 2:31
06. Love Me Tonight (Crosby-Washington-Young) - 2:49
07. Rosetta (Hines) - 3:08
08. Deep Forest (Hines) - 2:50

Personnel:

Earl Hines - piano solo (#1-6)
Earl Hines and His Orchestra (#7,8)