Jackie McLean

Tippin' the Scales is a quartet date that Jackie McLean recorded for Blue Note in September 1962 and that then sat in the vault for seventeen years. It first appeared in Japan in 1979, in the limited "World First Appearance" series issued by King Records. American listeners had to wait until 1984. Recorded between two of the altoist's most searching records, Let Freedom Ring and One Step Beyond, it shows another McLean, relaxed, swinging and close to the blues.

The session took place on 28 September 1962 at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, with Alfred Lion producing and Rudy Van Gelder engineering. McLean is the only horn. He is backed by Sonny Clark on piano, Butch Warren on bass and Art Taylor on drums. Clark had already worked with McLean on A Fickle Sonance, and he died in New York on 13 January 1963, less than four months after this date.

The writing is shared almost equally between the altoist and the pianist. McLean brought the title track and Rainy Blues. Clark contributed three tunes, Nursery Blues, Nicely and Two for One, which gives the set much of its character and adds a late chapter to his book as a composer. The album closes with a tender reading of Vernon Duke's Cabin in the Sky. With no second horn, the solo space belongs to McLean and Clark, and the quartet keeps to the hard bop idiom both men knew from the inside.

Reviewing it for AllMusic, Steve Huey placed the album among the more conventional entries in McLean's discography. He also valued it as a rare chance to hear him in an unusually relaxed quartet setting. When the first CD edition appeared in 1989, it added three alternate takes from the same session.

This stereo Tone Poet edition was produced by Joe Harley and mastered by Kevin Gray from the original analogue master tapes. It is pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI and housed in a deluxe gatefold tip-on jacket, with liner notes by Terry Martin.