INTRODUCING SMALL BATCH
Craft Recordings is thrilled to announce Small Batch, a carefully curated, limited edition, one-step process vinyl series devoted to creating the highest quality vinyl reissues of legendary recordings from our vast catalog.
Each album selected for the series will undergo all-analog mastering, and then be pressed on 180-gram vinyl in a one-step lacquer process at RTI—as opposed to the standard three-step process—allowing for the highest level of musical detail, clarity, and dynamics while reducing the amount of surface noise on the record.
Kicking off the series is John Coltrane’s iconic 1961 album Lush Life, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. Available for pre-order now and set for release February 19th.
The Small Batch series is available exclusively on craftrecordings.com.
ONE-STEP LACQUER PROCESS AND ALL-ANALOG MASTERING OFFERS THE HIGHEST QUALITY LISTENING EXPERIENCE
ICONIC PACKAGING
Housed in a foil-stamped, linen-wrapped slipcase. The vinyl disc—extractable through a unique frictionless ribbon pull tab—comes in a reproduction of the original album jacket and protected by an archival-quality, anti-static, non-scratching inner sleeve.
NEW LINER NOTES
New liner notes from some of music’s best educators, historians, and journalists will accompany each title.
LIMITED EDITION
Each reissue will be limited edition and numbered. The limited nature of these pressings guarantees that each record is a true representation of the original lacquer and is as close as the listener can get to the original recording.
Featured product
John Coltrane - Lush Life (Small Batch, One-Step Pressing)
Details
This edition is now sold out. As always, we are incredibly grateful for your support and look forward to bringing you more timeless classics in state-of-the-art sound quality and world class packaging. Sign up to our newsletter to be the first the know about our new releases, as we have very exciting Small Batch title announcements coming very soon.
John Coltrane’s iconic 1961 album, Lush Life is the first release in our Small Batch series — a carefully curated one-step process vinyl collection that is devoted to creating the highest quality reissues of legendary recordings from our vast catalog.
For this reissue, the original analog tapes were sent to mastering engineer Bernie Grundman, who utilized a custom tube pre-amp and analog mixing console with discrete electronics—both made in-house—as well as a Scully solid-state lathe with custom electronics. Grundman’s lacquers were then sent to Record Technology Incorporated (RTI) for plating using the plant’s one-step process where the lacquers are used to create a “convert” that becomes the record stamper. Utilizing Neotech’s VR900 compound, Lush Life was then pressed on to 180-gram vinyl.
Each pressing is individually numbered and housed in a foil-stamped, linen-wrapped slipcase featuring an acrylic inset of the original artwork. The vinyl disc is housed in a reproduction of the original album jacket, complete with tip-on jacket, and protected by an archival-quality, anti-static, non-scratching inner sleeve. New liner notes from liner notes from GRAMMY®-winning music historian, Ashley Kahn accompanies the title.
Please note, due to the limited nature of this pressing there is a per customer limit of one copy. Product is excluded from discount code offers.
Tracklist
Side A:
1. Like Someone in Love
2. I Love You
3. Trane’s Slo Blues
Side B:
1. Lush Life
2. I Hear a Rhapsody
Features
• All-analog mastering by Bernie Grundman from the original master tapes
• Pressed at RTI utilizing Neotech’s VR900 compound
• Featuring liner notes from GRAMMY®-winning music historian, Ashley Kahn
• Housed in a foil-stamped, linen-wrapped slipcase
• Numbered and limited to 1,000 worldwide
ABOUT LUSH LIFE
Recorded in three sessions over 1957 and 1958, Lush Life finds Coltrane on the verge of a career breakout. Though he was still a few years away from emerging as an influential and boundary-pushing bandleader, the saxophonist’s mature and complex sound was beginning to grab ears and sell records. Here, he’s accompanied by an all-star lineup of talent, including Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, Donald Byrd on trumpet, and Art Taylor on the drums. The tracklist, comprised of standards and popular tunes of the day, offers a wide range of moods. Highlights include Cole Porter’s “I Love You,” the Jimmy Van Heusen /Johnny Burke hit “Like Someone In Love,” and one original—“Trane’s Slo Blues.” In his liner notes, GRAMMY® Award-winning writer Ashley Kahn points out that the Billy Strayhorn-penned title track—now a jazz standard—was an unusual choice at the time. In the late ‘50s, 'Lush Life' was “More of a specialty tune…known primarily by a coterie of jazz players and dedicated fans.” Kahn adds that “One could not with any confidence call it at a jam session, hoping that all the players would know the changes and the singer would have a handle on the lyric. Its harmony was complex and unusual, and it did not fit the 32-bar structure most songs followed. . . . How bold it must have been for a John Coltrane album to not only bear the title of Strayhorn’s off-center song, but feature a fourteen-minute interpretation as its centerpiece. This is truly a band version of “Lush Life”— arguably the first—that builds steadily in intensity and offers a variety of textures through its free-wheeling duration.”
Upon its release, Lush Life was a critical and commercial success, garnering a rare five-star review from Downbeat. The album continues to be counted as a standout recording in Coltrane’s all-too-short career. In recent years, AllMusic listed Lush Life “Among John Coltrane’s best endeavors on the Prestige label,” while All About Jazz praised that “The record documents Coltrane’s rapid growth over a short period of time while also showcasing how great a talent Coltrane was, even at this early stage.”
In his notes, Kahn affirms that the recording, “Serves to capture the already expansive nature of Coltrane’s approach in late ’57 and early ’58: the love of melody and that melancholy, searching spirit. The restless embellishing, and those sheets of sound just as they began to unfurl.”