Herbie Hancock, The V.S.O.P. Quintet

Featuring: Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Freddie Hubbard, Tony Williams, Julian Priester, Bennie Maupin

condition (record/cover): NM / EX

Promotional copy. Gatefold sleeve. Insert and obi included.

Newport, 1976, and Herbie Hancock agrees to a retrospective concert that turns into something considerably more interesting than nostalgia. The second half reunites Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams for the first time in a decade, with Freddie Hubbard in the chair Miles declined to occupy, and the band plays the sixties book at a level of intensity that suggests they had all been waiting for the phone call. Hubbard is not Miles and does not try to be: he plays with a heat and a top end that nobody in that group had heard before. Two LPs, all of it worth hearing.

Japanese CBS/Sony pressing, double LP with gatefold. The record that launched a working band nobody had planned on.