Ervin, Booker - The Song Book (Japanese mini-lp sleeve/20 bit K2-encoding mastering)
SKU
02-VICJ-41556
An unbelievable price on the hard to find Japanese version of this great album!
To be fair, we must mention that these copies have a VERY MINOR cut on the side.
"The Song Book" was Booker Ervin's answer to the "Ballads" album trend of the early 60s. This album exclusively features jazz standards, and while Ervin plays beautifully on the ballads "Come Sunday" and "Yesterdays," he also tackles "The Lamp Is Low," "All The Things You Are," "Just Friends," and "Our Love Is Here To Stay" with his trademark aggressive fervor, and soulful meets avant-garde style. On "Song Book," Ervin is joined by frequent collaborators Richard Davis on bass and Alan Dawson on drums, and is joined on piano by Tommy Flanagan, with whom he recorded only this once. I find Flanagan's straight-ahead approach more suited to this outing than Ervin's usual piano partner of this period, Jaki Byard, who would have provided a more modern, exploratory feel which I don't think would have meshed as well. In all, "The Song Book" is another great piece of jazz literature from Booker Ervin.