Shamek Farrah - First Impressions (Indie Exclusive Vinyl)

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Indie Exclusive Record Store Day Black Friday 2026 180g Tip-On Jacket Three Previously Unreleased Songs Limited Edition Album-Art Print
Release Date Nov 27, 2026
Pre-order Regular price $51.00
Pre-order Release Date: Nov 27, 2026
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Product details

  • Label Strata-east Records
  • Format Vinyl, 2 LP, Album
  • Format details Indie Exclusive Record Store Day Black Friday 2026 180g Tip-On Jacket Three Previously Unreleased Songs Limited Edition Album-Art Print
  • Media 2 x Vinyl
  • Release date Nov 27, 2026
  • Originally released 1974
  • Region US
  • Genres Jazz
  • UPC 708857122615
Releases Nov 27, 2026

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Indie Exclusive 180g 2LP In Tip-On Jacket With Three Previously Unreleased Songs

This edition of First Impressions is a Record Store Day Black Friday 2026 release for independent record stores, issued by Strata-East Records as a 180-gram double LP. The audio is cut directly from the original analog tapes, mastered by Kevin Gray and pressed at RTI. It adds three previously unreleased songs to the four-track album and comes in a deluxe tip-on jacket with never-before-seen photographs, new liner notes written by Shamek Farrah himself, and a limited edition album-art print.

Farrah, an alto saxophonist born Anthony Domacase in New York City and raised in Spanish Harlem, began studying the instrument with Garvin Bushell at 12. He signed with Strata-East, the label founded by Charles Tolliver and Stanley Cowell, in late 1972 at the age of 25, and First Impressions, issued in 1974 as SES-7412, was his first album as a leader. It was recorded and mixed at Sound Ideas Studio in New York, with Geoff Daking and George Klabin as recording engineers, and produced by Farrah through Janfar Productions. His second and last Strata-East album as a leader, The World of the Children with pianist Sonelius Smith, followed in 1977.

The band is Farrah on alto saxophone, Norman Person on trumpet, Sonelius Smith on piano, Milton Suggs on bass, Ron Warwell on drums, Calvert "Bo" Satter-White on congas and Kenny Harper on percussion. AllMusic's review placed the record among the label's spiritually intense new jazz, noting its Eastern influences and its awareness of the street. Original copies have long been scarce on the collector market, and Farrah's recordings appeared on Soul Jazz Records' 1992 compilation Soul Jazz Loves Strata-East. The album was remastered from the original tapes and issued digitally for the first time on April 25, 2025, as part of the Strata-East reissue program with Mack Avenue Music Group.

Tracklist

  1. Meterologicly Tuned
  2. Watch What Happens Now
  3. Umoja Suite
  4. First Impressions

Plus three previously unreleased songs.

*** Indie Exclusive ***

UPC: 708857122615
Label: Strata-east Records
Release Date: 11.27.26
Format: Vinyl