Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Moanin'

Analogue Productions' Blue Note and Nat "King" Cole Reissues WIN A Positive Feedback 2010 Brutus Award!
"...if you haven't picked up every one of the Blue Note and Nat King Cole reissues from Chad Kassem and company at Acoustic Sounds, you're really missing out!" - David W. Robinson, Positive Feedback, Issue 52

"...Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers (later known as Moanin') is among several terrific albums Blakey and Co. laid down for Blue Note...The recording is upfront and more distinctly left/right than usual. Sterophonic subtlety aside, this set has outstanding clarity, a fine feeling of breadth, rich tonality, and a visceral sense of life." - Wayne Garcia, The Absolute Sound, June/July 2009 "…Moanin' is the best-sounding title I've yet heard in AP's series of Blue Note 45s. The horns are 3D, the trapset is crisp, the bass sounds like wood, there's air everywhere, you're in the room. And it also happens to feature the best Jazz Messengers that Blakey ever assembled, including Lee Morgan on trumpet, Benny Golson on tenor sax, and Bobby Timmons on piano. If you want to hear what 'the Blue Note' sound sounded like, get this Moanin'. That goes for the corporate guys at modern-day Blue Note, too." – Fred Kaplan, Stereophile

"These are simply amazing pressings. I have no regrets whatsoever about signing up for this subscription. The folks I'd invited over last Saturday are by no means audiophiles, but they couldn't believe that they were listening to vinyl, or that recordings that were 40+ years old could sound so good. I'm working hard to turn them into vinyl converts. These discs are the icing on the cake!" – Tim Bingaman, Acoustic Sounds customer

"…As much as I'd love to relay all kinds of anecdotes about the challenges Steve Hoffman and Kevin Gray encounter during the mastering sessions, I witness none. These boys know the sound of the facility and the Van Gelder masters like the backs of their hands…Back home a month later, I unpack some test pressings Chad Kassem has sent me…I hear the most realistic-sounding drums ever reproduced by my system. It's as though I'm sitting at the point of creation, experiencing the same high that brought such gifted musicians together as one. Steve Hoffman, Kevin Gray, Chad Kassem, and Don MacInnis have done Rudy Van Gelder and his Blue Note artists proud." – Jason Victor Serinus, Stereophile, April 2008

Art Blakey's most successful album gave us Bobby Timmons' "Moanin'" and Benny Golson's "Along Came Betty" and "Blues March," tunes so powerful that Blakey played them almost every night for the next 30 years. This beautifully performed and recorded session made the Jazz Messengers a jazz institution and put Golson, Timmons and Morgan to the forefront of jazz.