Vital Vinyl Series 180g Vinyl LP Reissue!

Verve and Impulse! Records launch the new Vital Vinyl series with UMe, celebrating essential jazz LPs from the enduring catalogues of the two iconic labels. Throughout 2019, Verve and Impulse! will be making no fewer than 40 key albums from the 1950s, '60s and '70s available again on 180-gram vinyl. Each will feature their original cover artwork, track listings and liner notes. Some of these albums will become available for the first time in years, while others that are already in print will now be perennially available.

In the spring of 1961 the US. Government was instrumental in changing the face of modern jazz. It was when guitarist Charlie Byrd was sent on a diplomatic tour of South America; the US State Department's idea that exporting culture was a positive political tool. In this case, however, it was more a case of what Byrd was about to import to America, Jazz Samba. Upon his return Byrd met Stan Getz at the Showboat Lounge in Washington DC and later, at his home, played him some bossa nova records by João Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim that he had bought in Brazil. The next step was to convince Creed Taylor who had taken over the running of Verve Records from Norman Granz that making a Latin influenced record was a good idea.

Taylor anxious to make his mark saw merit in the idea and in October 1961 Getz and Byrd did some initial jazz samba recordings, but these remained unissued. However, on the day before Valentine's in 1962 Charlie's guitar and bass playing brother, Gene Byrd, Keter Betts on bass, drummer, Buddy Deppenschmidt and Bill Reinchenbach on percussion joined Charlie and Getz at All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, DC to take advantage of the excellent acoustics. Betts and Deppenschmidt had been to South America with Byrd so they were well versed in the sound and most importantly the rhythms of Brazil. As Creed Taylor said shortly afterwards, "It was Charlie Byrd's idea and none of us expected it to be this big."

The tracks they recorded were released as Jazz Samba in April 1962 and in the middle of September it entered Billboard's pop album chart and in March 1963 it hit No. 1; and while it spent just a week at the top it spent a total of 70 weeks on the best seller list, this truly was a groundbreaking record. It made bossa nova the coolest music on earth. In November 1962, one of the tracks on the album, "Desafinado" also made No. 15 on the singles chart which did much to help sell the album. Together, these two records were not only the catalyst for a craze but also extremely lucrative for Verve Records.