LA 4 Just Friends GROOVE NOTE 45 RPM Limited #0423 (NM)

$

166

LA 4 Just Friends Laurindo Almeida, Bud Shank, Ray Brown, Jeff Hamilton (NM/NM) 2 45 RPM, 180g Vinyl LPs
Record label/brand: Groove Note 1016-1 Limited Edition #0423 upc/mpn: None year: 1978
Limited Edition 180gm HQ 2LP 45rpm. Brazilian Guitarist Laurindo Almeida And Bud Shank On Alto Sax Recorded Music In The Mid-1950s That Set The Stage For Bossa Nova. Two Decades Later They Came Together With Bassist Ray Brown And Drummer Shelly Manne (Who Was Soon Succeeded By Jeff Hamilton) As The LA 4 To Create Highly Appealing Music That Crossed Many Boundaries. From Bop To Brazilian, Classical Melodies To Ellington Themes, The LA 4 Excelled At Everything They Explored On Their Eight Concord Records. This Is An Open, Mint Copy And Is One Of The Numbered Early Pressings. Number 0423.
Sleeve and vinyl are both Near Mint. They are like new. 
Review: Next, I dropped Groove Note’s initial Concord Records vinyl release of the L.A.4’s Just Friends onto the spindle. Cut at 45 rpm and pressed on two double-sided 180-gram vinyl biscuits, Just Friends continues Groove Note’s tradition of flat, dead-quiet pressings. Packaging, too, is first-rate, from the nice cardboard cover stock to the album’s rice-paper liner sleeves right on down to the classy replica of Concord's center label. But it was the sonics that knocked me out. As I’ve noted in the past, the difference between 33 1/3 and 45 rpm is about as great as that between good Redbook CD and SACD. There’s just more information there. The sense of the four musicians standing in front of you is so palpably real that it will come as something of a shock to anyone who has not heard the difference before. About the only negative a 45 rpm record has, especially for the more digitally inclined music enthusiasts among us, is having to get up more often to turn the record over. Just consider it your daily dose of exercise. Because once you’ve driven at 45, you may never want to slow back down to 33 1/3 again.
Just Friends is a laid-back, feel-good session recorded by four musicians who are in total musical sympathy with each other. But then, one should expect no less when bassist Ray Brown, alto saxophonist Bud Shank (both of whom spent much of their careers playing cool jazz on the West Coast), guitarist Laurindo Almedia (whose Latin style fits in perfectly here), and young-gun drummer Jeff Hamilton get together. Musically, picture the Modern Jazz Quartet with Almedia’s guitar in for John Lewis’ piano and Shank’s alto for Milt Jackson’s vibes. While it may make for a slightly different tonal balance, the style is much the same -- smooth, easy, professional jazz that swings like mad. Each instrument stands out in its own acoustic space as a real (well, as real as recorded sound can get) musical instrument being played by an honest-to-goodness musician. You won’t hear anything innovative or new on Just Friends; what you do get is four pros demonstrating how group improvisation is done. They find the groove and ride it, allowing the music to flow. This is lovely, relaxing music that’ll cleanse your soul after a long day's work. ~ soundstage.com