Kenny Burrell

K.B. Blues is a 1957 session by Kenny Burrell that Blue Note left unissued for more than twenty years. It first appeared in 1979, and only in Japan, on an LP numbered GXF 3052, and until this Tone Poet reissue it had never been released on vinyl anywhere else. It is a relaxed, blues-heavy hard bop date with a front line of guitar and tenor saxophone.

Burrell had been recording for Blue Note for less than a year when he entered Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Hackensack, New Jersey. The date was 10 February 1957, his third session as a leader. Around him was a crack hard bop band: Horace Silver on piano, Hank Mobley on tenor saxophone, Doug Watkins on bass and Louis Hayes on drums. Silver brought one of his own tunes, Burrell supplied two, and the blues runs through the whole programme.

Side one stretches out on Silver's Nica's Dream, written for the jazz patron Pannonica de Koenigswarter, followed by Burrell's hard-charging Out for Blood. Side two offers several views of the blues: Lester Young's D.B. Blues sits between two takes of Burrell's easy-going K.B. Blues, so the same tune is heard twice from slightly different angles. Burrell's tone is clean and rounded, his lines economical, while Mobley plays with the soft-edged warmth typical of his mid-fifties work.

The 1979 Japanese release was prepared by Michael Cuscuna, in the same years in which he was bringing other unissued Blue Note sessions into print in the American LT series. The liner notes on the release are credited to Nat Hentoff.

This mono Tone Poet edition was produced by Joe Harley, mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio from the original analogue master tapes. It is pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI and packaged in a deluxe gatefold tip-on jacket.