Blue Note Tone Poet Series Stereo 180g Vinyl LP With Gatefold Tip-On Jacket

This is the Tone Poet Series edition of Grass Roots, the stereo program cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio straight from the original analog master tapes. Joe Harley produced the reissue, RTI in Camarillo, California pressed it on 180g vinyl, and it ships in a gatefold tip-on jacket. Blue Note's own photographs of the package show the open gatefold lined with black-and-white portraits of Hill and each of his four sidemen, plus a printed insert.

The series began in 2019 as an idea of Blue Note president Don Was, who admired the audiophile Blue Note reissues Music Matters had produced and brought in Harley, the "Tone Poet" of the name, to choose and supervise the titles. Grass Roots joined the run on January 3, 2025, on the same street date as the Jazz Crusaders' Freedom Sound.

Hill recorded the five originals at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, on August 5, 1968, with Lee Morgan on trumpet, Booker Ervin on tenor saxophone, Ron Carter on bass and Freddie Waits on drums, and Francis Wolff producing. In the original liner notes Hill tied the title to getting back to basics and reaching as far into feeling as he could. Blue Note counts it among the most approachable records in his catalog, and AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave it four stars, pointing to melodies with real hooks that still leave the soloists room.

The album arrived after Black Fire, Judgment! and Point of Departure in a Blue Note association that ran from Hill's 1963 debut for the label to Time Lines in 2006. A 2000 CD reissue added an earlier sextet session with Woody Shaw; this LP keeps the original five-track running order across two sides.

Tracklist

Side A

1. Grass Roots
2. Venture Inward
3. Mira

Side B

1. Soul Special
2. Bayou Red

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Last updated: 2/6/26

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Last updated: 2/6/26