Name: High Voltage
Brand: The Count Basie Orchestra

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

0211560MSW

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Colour

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2022-04-08

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Proper

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

4029759115601

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Total Cap

1 / CD / Extended format: No / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

0211545MSW

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Black

4029759115458

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1 / Extended format: No / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No / black

Artist

The Count Basie Orchestra

Genre GB

Jazz

Label GB

MPS is a German jazz label that was founded in 1968 by Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer. It started as a successor to SABA and quickly gained recognition for its exceptional sound quality. Often compared to the renowned Blue Note label, MPS became known as Most Perfect Sound.

From 1971 onwards, MPS releases were distributed by BASF and later by Metronome Records GmbH (renamed Metronome Musik GmbH in 1977). However, in 1983, due to declining budgets for recording jazz music, Brunner-Schwer shifted his focus to classical music and sold the rights of MPS to Philips. Eventually, the label found its way under Polydor's ownership and its recordings were re-released by Motor Music starting from 1993.

In Hamburg, Universal Jazz Germany took over the MPS archives in 1999 while Speakers Corner Records released various vinyl reissues. After ten years since Brunner-Schwer's passing, Edel acquired MPS's back catalogue from Universal on January 7th, 2014. Now led by Andreas Brunner-Schwer and Friedhelm Schulz, the team has returned to Villingen where they continue recording new material.

Reissue of the Count Basie Orchestra's 1970 album High Voltage, arranged by Chico O'Farrill and featuring Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Cecil Payne, Joe Newman, Freddie Green and Harold Jones among others.

When in January, 1970 Count Basie entered the studio with his 17-piece big band to record High Voltage, he ushered in the last full decade as bandleader of his Orchestra. The Orchestra had left its imprint on the sixties by recording with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. There would be more great albums with star vocalists in the seventies, but the band's purely instrumental works, which had begun in 1965, would also continue. Back then Basie had engaged acclaimed Cuban composer/arranger Chico O'Farrill to arrange the music for such concept albums as "Basie Meets Bond" and "Basie's Beatle Bag", transforming them into crossover gems.

On High Voltage O'Farrill demonstrates his affinity to Basie's big band sound, this time with a repertoire of standards. For this album, Basie specifically chose pieces the band had never recorded in their more than 30-year existence. This is saying something, since the band covers such an impressive span of jazz history, from the beginning of the swing era to the bop-influenced bands of the 50's on through to the present album.

The Count's new drummer Harold Jones propels Fred Fisher's "Chicago" with a tremendous drive. The Rogers and Hart classic "Have You Met Miss Jones" features beguilingly dense deep- register horn lines and an almost languorous piano, and Eric Dixon's tasty flute solo spices up "The Lady Is A Tramp". With its smoky sophistication, Eddie Lockjaw Davis' Tenor dominates "Bewitched", whereas guest trumpeter Joe Newman's muted tongue- in- cheek solo highlights "Day In Day Out". Of course, Basie himself also steps forward: for instance, on the Fats Waller- like intro to "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You", and with the playful grace notes on "If I Were A Bell"." Reminiscent of the Las Vegas shows the band performed with Frank Sinatra, "Get Me To The Church On Time" is also a masterful dialogue between the horn sections.

High Voltage

Music GB