DONALDSON, LOU - SUNNY SIDE UP (LP)

This pressing of Sunny Side Up belongs to Blue Note's Classic Vinyl Series: an all-analog stereo reissue mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes and pressed on 180-gram black vinyl at Optimal. It is a single LP carrying the original seven-track sequence over two sides, in a jacket that reproduces the original stereo cover, catalog number 84036 in the Blue Note oval. Lou Donaldson recorded the session at the Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, across two dates, February 5 and February 28, 1960, with Alfred Lion producing. Bill Hardman plays trumpet, Horace Parlan piano and Al Harewood drums. The bass chair is split between Sam Jones and Laymon Jackson, who covers four of the seven tracks, and Hardman sits out "The Truth." The program sets band originals against standards. Parlan wrote "Blues for J.P.," Hardman wrote "Politely," and Donaldson brought "The Truth" and "Goose Grease"; the rest come from the Gershwins, Cahn and Styne, and Romberg and Hammerstein. Blue Note first issued the album as BLP 4036 in mono and BST 84036 in stereo. In his AllMusic review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine hears it as "closer to hard bop than the straight-ahead bop" of Donaldson's 1950s Blue Note records.