Jack Wilson

The Chicago-born pianist and composer Jack Wilson made three albums for Blue Note in the late 1960s, and Easterly Winds, the second, is often considered his finest. Recorded in September 1967 and released early in 1968, it puts him at the head of a first-rate hard bop sextet. The front line has trumpet, trombone and alto saxophone.

Before Blue Note, Wilson had worked with singers such as Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan and recorded as a leader for Atlantic. He made his label debut in 1966 with the highly unusual Something Personal. For this date he had Lee Morgan on trumpet, Garnett Brown on trombone and Jackie McLean on alto, with Bob Cranshaw on bass and Billy Higgins on drums. The session was recorded by Rudy Van Gelder at his Englewood Cliffs studio on September 22, 1967.

Four of the six pieces are Wilson originals. Besides the title track, they include the groovy opener Do It, On Children and the sublime ballad Nirvanna shows Wilson's gift for lyrical writing. On A Time For Love, the Johnny Mandel song, the horns sit out and the trio plays alone, a tender interlude in the middle of the first side. The album ends with Frank's Tune by the saxophonist Frank Strozier. The piece found a new audience in 2021 when Makaya McCraven reworked it for his Blue Note project Deciphering The Message.

Reviewing the album for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that it makes an excellent contrast with Wilson's first Blue Note album. The original session was produced by Francis Wolff, and Leroy Robinson wrote the liner notes. Wilson recorded one more album for the label before the end of the decade.

This stereo Tone Poet edition was produced by Joe Harley and 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.