Herman Foster - Ready and Willing

Herman Foster Trio - Ready and Willing - Argo LP 727, First pressing, Grey Label

Herman Foster - Piano
Herman Wright - Bass
Bruno Carr - Drums

Recorded - October 3, 1963, Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Supervision - Esmond Edwards
Engineer - Rudy Van Gelder
Cover Photo - Benito Robles
Cover Design - Don Bronstein

Released - March 28, 1964 (Approx)

Just dropping in mid week for a posting of a wonderful and rather unexposed Argo piano trio side by Herman Foster! Foster, who incidentally was blind, was a long time associate and sideman of Lou Donaldson, frequently appearing with Donaldson on his famous Blue Note , and not so heralded Argo/Cadet sides. Despite this pretty visible sideman exposure, Foster's recorded legacy is pretty sparse as he only cut a handful of solo sides. It's a shame as Foster was a gifted pianist, with a unique and percussive sound.

This Argo side was one of the label's few ventures outside Chicago; recorded by the legendary Rudy Van Gelder at his New Jersey studio with Chess jazz A&R man Esmond Edwards supervising once again. I've been looking for this side for sometime now... It's a genuine Argo/Cadet rarity as it never received any subsequent pressing-domestic reissue; vinyl copies are very scarce, once commanding collectible prices of up to 150$! However, this seems to be a rather fluid situation as additional copies seemed to have resurfaced lately, bringing down prices as I acquired my very good condition copy for a very reasonable expenditure. This side also received a japan only CD reissue a few years back, since deleted and next to impossible to find. Nice fidelity again, after minimal restoration.

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