Jackie McLean Lights Out! (Mono)

Mono 180g Vinyl LP!
Mastered from the Original Analog Master Tapes by Kevin Gray!
Pressed at QRP!
Hard bop saxophonist Jackie McLean appears as bandleader for the second time for "Lights Out!" from 1957. McLean's style still clearly shows the influence of Charlie Parker, who had died just a year earlier. At the same time, he sometimes ventures out of the artistic certainty of imitation, experimenting with tone variations. McLean moves on a solid blues foundation in everything he plays, developing improvisations with trumpeter Donald Byrd. Elmo Hope on piano, Doug Watkins on bass and Art Taylor on drums complete the quintet.
A perpetual favorite among Jackie McLean's earlier recordings, Lights Out! finds the hard-swinging young alto saxophonist in 1956 still very much under the wing of Charlie Parker, who had died less than a year earlier. Yet McLean was beginning to find ways out of the seductive artistic security of Bird imitations. For one thing, he was experimenting with tonal variations. For another, he was working with Charles Mingus, and Mingus's genius as a leader included forcing musicians to look deeply into their most cherished stylistic practices. The McLean of Lights Out! is the hot young bebopper with a slightly acid edge to his sound and a solid blues foundation under everything he played. McLean and trumpeter Donald Byrd occasionally engage in the "pecking" technique of mutual improvisation they developed as members of the George Wallington Quintet.
"During his avant-garde period in the early 60s McLean dismissed his earlier recordings, but whatever impossible standards he was setting for himself, his playing on them still sounds fresh, creative, and inspired... The only way McLean's bright, biting sound was ever heard to better advantage was live." - Duck Baker, The Absolute Sound, April 2013

Features:

• 180g Vinyl
• Mono
• Cut from the Analogue Masters by Kevin Gray
• Pressed at Quality Record Pressings
• Deluxe High-Gloss Tip-On Album Jacket

Musicians:

• Jackie McLean, alto sax
• Donald Byrd, trumpet
• Elmo Hope, piano
• Doug Watkins, bass
• Arthur Taylor, drums

Selections:

Side A
1. Lights Out
2. Up
3. Lorraine
Side B
1. A Foggy Day
2. Kerplunk
3. Inding

Originally released in 1957.