Jackie McLean

One Step Beyond marks the moment Jackie McLean stepped outside the frame of hard bop. Inspired by Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, the alto saxophonist was looking for more freedom, though on his own terms and without giving up swing and structure. Recorded in the spring of 1963, this was the first of his albums to replace the piano with vibraphone, a choice that gave the music a more open, spacious sound.

Alfred Lion produced the session on April 30, 1963 at the Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, with Rudy Van Gelder recording. The vibraphonist is Bobby Hutcherson. Trombonist Grachan Moncur III, bassist Eddie Khan and drummer Tony Williams, then seventeen years old, complete the quintet. McLean wrote the liner notes himself. The album was released in early 1964.

There are four pieces, two each by McLean and Moncur, and the two horns share the front line throughout. McLean's Saturday and Sunday opens the album and runs over ten minutes. Moncur's Frankenstein completes the first side. On the second, McLean's short Blue Rondo precedes Moncur's Ghost Town, nearly fifteen minutes long and the most dramatic piece on the record. Without piano chords, Hutcherson's vibes leave open space around the two horns and the soloists.

The record remains rooted in hard bop, but the playing is more spacious and adventurous than on McLean's earlier Blue Note dates, leaning towards post-bop and free jazz. Thom Jurek at AllMusic found that it "still sounds fresh, vital, and full of grainy mystery". McLean would use the same formula, with Hutcherson in place of a pianist, on one more album. The cover is a Reid Miles design built around a Francis Wolff photograph.

This Blue Note Classic Vinyl edition is stereo and all-analogue, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.