The Call.

Japan: Globe,, 1971. Rare Japanese sample pressing signed cleanly by Waldron in full in blue ball-point pen on the front cover. The Call features Waldron on electric piano, accompanied by Jimmy Jackson on electric organ, Eberhard Weber on bass and Fred Braceful on drums. Photos and stylish album design are by the great Japanese jazz photographer Katsuji Abe. This studio session from February 1971 was recorded in Ludwigsburg, Germany, and put out there in the same year on the short-lived JAPO label. Waldron had settled in Munich in 1967 and "helped launch the former bassist Manfred Eicher's ECM label there, with the intriguing semi-free session Free At Last" (John Fordham in The Guardian obituary 28 January 2003, retrieved 3 November 2020). Weber and Detroit-born Braceful had both played in Wolfgang Dauner's band; Jackson, like Braceful, had also settled in Germany. This is an oddly compelling album mixing fusion, modal and free improvisation, comprising two long cuts, "The Call" and "Thoughts", and comes from a period in Waldron's career that is little covered by the standard reference books. The general release of The Call included an obi band and liner notes in Japanese, which are not present here, and red labels to the discs; the present example has rather plain white labels and a slug in Japanese reading "sample"; the disc bears the stamped runout details as outlined by Discogs but with the addition of a pair of Japanese characters on side A. 12-inch vinyl LP (Globe SMJX-10125) new plain paper sleeve (original sleeve also present), original gatefold album cover. Some shelf wear, corners bumped, top edge split and with short closed-tear but remains very presentable; disc in excellent condition.