Gary Bartz NTU Troop - I've Known Rivers and Other Bodies (Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf Series)

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Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf Series 180 Gram 2LP, Black Vinyl All-analog (AAA) mastering by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio Pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing Gatefold tip-on jacket
Release Date Nov 13, 2026
Pre-order Regular price $46.00
Pre-order Release Date: Nov 13, 2026
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Product details

  • Label Craft Recordings
  • Format 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, 180 Gram
  • Format details Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf Series 180 Gram 2LP, Black Vinyl All-analog (AAA) mastering by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio Pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing Gatefold tip-on jacket
  • Media 2 x Vinyl
  • Release date Nov 13, 2026
  • Originally released 1973
  • Region US
  • Genres Jazz
  • Catalog number CR00972
  • UPC 888072760479
Releases Nov 13, 2026

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Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf Series 180 Gram 2LP in a Gatefold Tip-On Jacket

This is the Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf edition of I've Known Rivers and Other Bodies, issued through Craft Recordings in 2026 as part of the imprint's tenth-anniversary program. The label's announcement calls it the album's first return to vinyl in more than 50 years. Kevin Gray cut the lacquers from the original analog tapes, all-analog (AAA), at Cohearent Audio. Fidelity Record Pressing pressed the two 180-gram LPs, and they are housed in a gatefold tip-on jacket that keeps the Prestige logo of the first issue and carries catalog number CR00972.

The double album was recorded live at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland on July 7, 1973, and Prestige released it later that year. The quartet is Gary Bartz on soprano and alto saxophone and vocals, Hubert Eaves on acoustic and electric piano, Stafford James on bass and Howard King on drums. Over more than seventy minutes the band moves between original compositions and long stretches of improvisation, and the back cover credits Bartz as arranger and producer. "Bertha Baptist" is a Stafford James composition.

The title track sets lines from Langston Hughes' poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," sung by Bartz with the trio behind him. The National Endowment for the Arts, which named Bartz a 2024 NEA Jazz Master, describes the album as based on Hughes' poetry and counts it among his first classics.

Bartz was born in Baltimore and joined Miles Davis's band in 1970, playing the Isle of Wight Festival that year; he has since won two Grammy Awards. He named NTU Troop after the Bantu word for "essence," and the group drew soul, funk, African folk music, hard bop and avant-garde jazz into one band. This Montreux set arrived in the middle of the run of NTU Troop records that began with Harlem Bush Music.

Tracklist

Side A

  1. Nommo - The Majick Song
  2. Sifa Zote
  3. Jujuman

Side B

  1. Bertha Baptist
  2. Don't Fight That Feeling
  3. Mama's Soul

Side C

  1. I've Known Rivers
  2. The Warriors' Song
  3. Uhuru Sassa

Side D

  1. Dr. Follow's Dance
  2. Peace and Love

UPC: 888072760479
Label: Craft Recordings
Release Date: 11.13.26
Format: Vinyl