CLASSIC RECORDS LSP 2527 TEST PRESSING: Sonny Rollins - The Bridge - A1 OOP 1996

$

125

****Welcome to our eBay listing, thanks very much for looking!

****FREE SHIPPING to CANADA and/or the USA - all other locations are subject to a reasonable shipping fee.

****Please check out our other eBay store listings and eBay auctions for more great LPs and CDs - new items added daily!

****To access our eBay store either click on the little red door at the top right section of any of our eBay listings or, click on -

http://stores.ebay.com/Hear-The-Difference

Background on this eBay item -

Test Pressing Manufacturing date: February 27, 1996

• Classic Records LP Item - audiophile issue, TEST PRESSING
  

• Pressing is in STEREO

• Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins (born September 7, 1930 in New York City) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St. Thomas", "Oleo", "Doxy", and "Airegin", have become jazz standards. Although Rollins was born in New York City, his parents were born in the United States Virgin Islands. Rollins received his first saxophone at age 13. He attended Benjamin Franklin High School in East Harlem. He said that a concert by Frank Sinatra there, accompanied by a plea for racial harmony, changed his life.
  
  Rollins started as a pianist, changed to alto saxophone, and finally switched to tenor in 1946. During his high-school years, he played in a band with other future jazz legends Jackie McLean, Kenny Drew and Art Taylor. He was first recorded in 1949 with Babs Gonzales ( J. J. Johnson was the arranger of the group). In his recordings through 1954, he played with performers such as Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk.
  
  In 1950, Rollins was arrested for armed robbery and given a sentence of three years. He spent 10 months in Rikers Island jail before he was released on parole. In 1952 he was arrested for violating the terms of his parole by using heroin. Rollins was assigned to the Federal Medical Center, Lexington, at the time the only assistance in the U.S. for drug addicts. While there he was a volunteer for then-experimental methadone therapy and was able to break his heroin habit. Rollins himself initially feared sobriety would impair his musicianship, but then went on to greater success. As a saxophonist he had initially been attracted to the jump and R&B sounds of performers like Louis Jordan, but soon became drawn into the mainstream tenor saxophone tradition. Joachim Berendt has described this tradition as sitting between the two poles of the strong sonority of Coleman Hawkins and the light flexible phrasing of Lester Young, which did so much to inspire the fleet improvisation of be-bop in the 1950s.
  
  Rollins began to make a name for himself in 1949 as he recorded with J. J. Johnson and Bud Powell what would later be called "Hard Bop", with Miles Davis in 1951, with the Modern Jazz Quartet and with Thelonious Monk in 1953, but the breakthrough arrived in 1954 when he recorded his famous compositions "Oleo" "Airegin" and "Doxy" with a quintet led by Davis. Rollins then joined the Miles Davis Quintet in the summer of 1955, but left after a short stay to deal with his drug problems. Rollins was invited later in 1955 to join the Clifford Brown–Max Roach quintet; studio recordings documenting his time in the band are the albums Clifford Brown and Max Roach at Basin Street and Sonny Rollins Plus 4. After Brown's death in 1956 Rollins began his subsequent career as a leader, his first long-playing albums released on Prestige Records. He also recorded during the 1950s for Blue Note, Riverside, and the Los Angeles label Contemporary.
  
  The Bridge, 1962, was the first release of jazz giant Sonny Rollins following his unexpected early retirement in 1959 and his first recording for Bluebird/RCA Victor. The saxophonist was joined by the musicians with whom he would record for the next segment of his career: Jim Hall on guitar, Bob Cranshaw on bass and Ben Riley on drums.
  
  In 1959, feeling pressured by the unexpected swiftness of his rise to fame, Rollins took a three-year hiatus to focus on perfecting his craft. A resident of the Lower East Side of Manhattan with no private space to practice, he took his saxophone up to the Williamsburg Bridge to practice alone: “I would be up there 15 or 16 hours at a time spring, summer, fall and winter”. His first recording after his return to performance took its name from those solo sessions. Critical reception to the album, which was not the revolutionary new jazz approach many expected, was mixed.  Rollins, who had been considered groundbreaking in his thematic improvisations, was supplanted in critical buzz by the growing popularity of Ornette Coleman's free jazz. However, if not a tremendous departure from Rollins' earlier style, the album was nevertheless quite successful. Tagged by All Music as “a near-classic”, the recording was declared by Inkblot Magazine to be “one of the greatest albums from one of jazz's greatest musicians”. It is one of the albums for which the long-active and prolific Rollins receives his greatest praise. 
  

• Highly sought after title by audiophiles and music lovers alike - the stereo, original shaded dog is very rare, especially in near mint shape - in our humble opinion, the Classic Records reissue bests the original in many ways - in years of collecting we have had a good number of originals. All of them pale in comparison to the reissue, primarily due to condition, noisy vinyl, dynamics, etc. This is your chance to hear what this LP is supposed to sound like!
  

• The Test Pressing stamped information indicates: February 27 1996, LSP 2527, A1, 45 - we can't be sure as the item is sealed, but we believe this stamped information to indicate the date of manufacturing of the test pressing, the record catalog number, the side of the record and stamper number, and that the LP is cut at 45rpm for greatest dynamics.
  

This ebay listing is for a very rare, long out of print and factory sealed audiophile LP TEST PRESSING issue of a much sought after recording featuring -

Sonny Rollins

1. "Without a Song" (Edward Eliscu, Billy Rose, Vincent Youmans) – 7:28
2. "Where Are You?" (Harold Adamson, Jimmy McHugh) – 5:10
3. "John S." (Sonny Rollins) – 7:45
4. "The Bridge" (Rollins) – 5:58
5. "God Bless the Child" (Arthur Herzog Jr., Billie Holiday) – 7:29
6. "You Do Something to Me" (Cole Porter) – 6:49
   

• LP catalog # LSP 2527

CONDITION Details:

So if our definition of the stamped information on the jacket is correct, this test pressing has some of the music from side 1 of this marvelous LP on it, cut at 45rpm.

The white, generic LP jacket is in MINT condition - it is FACTORY SEALED!

A Short Note About LP GRADING -

• Mint = Only used for sealed items.
• Near Mint = Virtually flawless in every way.
• Near Mint Minus = Item has some minor imperfections, some audible.
• Excellent = Item obviously played and enjoyed with some noise.
• Very Good Plus = Many more imperfections which are noticeable and obtrusive.

For best results, always properly clean your LPs before playing them (even for new LPs).

The LP is an audiophile quality pressing (any collector of fine MFSL, half speeds, direct to discs, Japanese/UK pressings etc., can attest to the difference a quality pressing can make to an audio system).