Duke Pearson: Now Hear This (1968) Fantastic Overlooked Big Band Date.

Duke Pearson who was the house arranger at Blue Note Records after Ike Quebec died in 1963, stayed at the label until around 1970.

Duke mainly stuck to small group hard bop albums while with Blue Note, like Wahoo and Sweet Honey Bee respectively.

In 1967 Duke branched out into big band territory with Introducing Duke Pearson's Big Band. One year and 2 albums later he returned with another big band date, That album is: Now Hear This.

Now Hear This is more of the same, but this time I can hear a little bit of a Duke Ellington sound mixed in, especially "Dad Digs Mom, and Mom Digs Dad", that brings to mind Ellington's "In a Mellow Tone"

Underrated singer Andey Bey performs one vocal number "I'm Tired of Crying Over You" A really nice up beat blues, reminds me of a Joe Williams with Count Basie type number.

Side 2 opens up with a nice detective film score sounding piece "Minor League" or might sound like one of them late 60's Marvel Comics cartoons? the long drawn out note near the end the track reminds me of something you might hear on those early Amazing Spider-man Cartoons.

Then another Ellingtonian style piece the standard "Here's that Rainy Day," a little bit heavy on the shmaltz, just a tad bit more sugar than I like, but still lovely in a Rainy Day kind of way.

I would say the thing that keeps you coming back to Now Hear This and Introducing Duke Pearson's Big Band is the variety.

Pearson really stretches and takes more than a few chances, showing his obvious swing roots, while wearing his new bop and hard bop credentials on his sleeve.

Not sure why Duke Pearson is better known outside of staunch jazz circles, If your Blue Note Collector, no doubt you have most of the Important stuff all ready either on vinyl or CD.

The 2 big band dates I mention here are not easy to find on CD, I have bothe vinyl copies, I think I paid less than 10 bucks a piece for my originals, they are in fact blue and white label Liberty Addressed copies.

Check out the gate fold cover? this was something Blue Note experimented with in the late 60's
This particular cover actually had the record sliding out the way in should, I have a few where Blue Note went to some moronic inside the fold slide out cover?

It's all most impossible to get the record out of those without scuffing somewhat, or putting undue pressure on the cover spine, really bad idea!