Ramsey Lewis - Barefoot Sunday Blues

Ramsey Lewis Trio - Barefoot Sunday Blues - Argo LP 723, Argo original Pressing. Stereo, Blue Label

Ramsey Lewis - Piano
Eldee Young - Bass, Cello
Red Holt - Drums

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Christopher White - Bass on A1, B2

Recorded - August 20, 1963, Rudy Van Gelder's Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Supervision - Esmond Edwards
Engineer - Rudy Van Gelder
Cover Photo - Camera One Inc.
Cover Design - Don Bronstein

Released - December 7, 1963

Continuing the 'Ramsey Lewis' and 'Sunday' Theme, here's another nice vintage Argo jazz piano trio side - this time from the summer of 1963 and recorded by the legendary engineer Rudy Van Gelder at his home studio in New Jersey...This was among a select number of sides cut and supervised by Esmond Edwards during a brief late 1962- 1963 sojourn in the New York area, away from Argo/Chess' usual base in Chicago, and also complete with liner notes by LeRoi Jones (The future Amiri Baraka)

I think that this side reveals both the strengths and weaknesses of the Ramsey Lewis trio's approach of the early 60s - there's a strong melodic consistency and slick musicianship which is demonstrated across the breadth of their collected sides - no surprises here, you know what you're going to get each time you put it on your turntable.... But unfortunately that also makes most of these sides mostly interchangeable and indistinguishable from each other - hence most of them were largely forgotten and never made it to the CD era. Solid fidelity off the original Argo stereo vinyl.

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