Quite a few years ago I bought an Acoustic Sounds test pressing of You Get More Bounce With Curtis Counce and I have really enjoyed it. The test pressings used to be offered cheaper than the regular versions of the LP because they didn't have any cover art, so I bought them whenever I could to save a few dollars, but then they became 'trendy' and the price skyrocketed, so I don't buy them any more.
Bounce is really a great LP, and even my friend Stephaen who isn't really all that much into jazz bought a copy when he heard my test pressing back when.
When I saw that Bounce had been released as part of the Analogue Productions 45 RPM series I decided I better buy it before it's not available any more, because once they sell out you're pretty much out of luck. It's been spinning constantly on my VPI Classic turntable since it arrived, and I'll tell you what, this is the greatest version of this album ever pressed.
This little blurb isn't a review of the album per se, but I just wanted to let you know it's available in 45 RPM on the Analogue Productions label, which I think are the best versions of these LPs that have ever been produced. If you love this music you'll be kicking yourself if you don't get a copy. Here's the description of Bounce from the Acoustic Sounds website:
"In the 1950s, the Curtis Counce Group was the West Coast answer to the East Coast hard bop, epitomized by groups such as Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers and the Horace Silver Quintet. The brilliant pianist Carl Perkins, an early casualty of the jazz life, and who Miles Davis once identified as his favorite pianist, was at the core of this exceptional band. Harold Land, who was fresh from the Clifford Brown/ Max Roach band, and who has gone on in the nearly forty years since this album was recorded to international acclaim, and the vastly underrated trumpeter Jack Sheldon round out the front line. The fiery Frank Butler (who the legendary Count Basie drummer Jo Jones once called the greatest living jazz drummer) and Kansas City native, Curtis Counce, who had had recent stints with Stan Kenton, Maynard Ferguson, Art Pepper and Gerald Wilson formed the rock-solid rhythmic underpinnings that propelled the band. Characterized by the solid musical concept and sound quality normally associated with Contemporary, this album is sonically, musically, and historically outstanding."
