George Duke - The Best Of MPS Years

 

The Best Of The MPS Years presents you all the classics and highlights of George Duke's time at the Black Forest label on one album.

A curious happenstance in 1966 triggered the partnership between MPS head Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer and George Duke. Brunner-Schwer was in San Francisco to record the Art van Damme Quintet. After finishing the recording session one evening, he and his team strolled over to a club called the Jazz Workshop. Les McCann was supposed to be playing, but this particular day was his day off. Instead, a 20 year old pianist, still involved in his studies, was performing with his quartet.

The music's freshness so enthralled the German that he set up a recording session on the spot. This encounter between George Duke and Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer in sunny California was both accidental and noteworthy. It turned out to be the jazzy prologue to future events: five years later the American began his fusion-infused sessions for the man from Germany's Black Forest. The six albums of this series still count as a fascinating and essential part of George Duke's life's work — and canon of the genre.

 

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