NEW LP
New sealed copy, 2023 Blue Note Classic Series reissue. Remastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearant Audio. Pressed by Optimal Media in Germany.
Empyrean Isles is the fourth studio album by American jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, released in 1964 through Blue Note Records. Recorded at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, the album features Hancock with Freddie Hubbard on cornet, Ron Carter on bass, and Tony Williams on drums.
The album consists of four Hancock compositions written over a two year period. Its best known piece, "Cantaloupe Island," became a jazz standard, while the remaining tracks explore hard bop and modal jazz through compact arrangements and extended improvisation. Hubbard's use of cornet gives the session a slightly different tonal character from his more typical trumpet recordings.
Empyrean Isles became one of the key albums in Hancock's early Blue Note period and helped establish him more firmly as a composer and bandleader in his own right.
TRACKLIST:
A1 One Finger Snap
A2 Oliloqui Valley
B1 Cantaloupe Island
B2 The Egg
