Donald Byrd - Live: Cookin' With Blue Note At Montreux LP

Blue Note, 2022

In July 1973, Blue Note Records assembled some of their finest stars and headed to Montreux, Switzerland to showcase the label at the Montreux Jazz Festival. 

One of those musicians was Donald Byrd who was riding high from his hit crossover fusion album Black Byrd, the first of his innovative and incredibly successful studio collaborations with producer Larry Mizell. But in a live setting, the band had a rawer, harder edge, as this searing set attests. Byrd led a 10-piece band that included Larry Mizell on synthesizers, Fonce Mizell on trumpet and vocals, Allan Barneson on tenor saxophone and flute, Nathan Davis on soprano and tenor saxophone, Kevin Toney on electric piano, Barney Perry on electric guitar, Henry Franklin on electric bass, Keith Killgo on drums, and Ray Armando on congas and percussion. The set list includes Larry Mizell’s tune “Black Byrd” along with otherwise unrecorded Byrd originals like “The East,” “Kwame,” and “Poco-Mania,” as well as an excellent cover of Stevie Wonder’s “You’ve Got It Bad Girl.”

Hidden in the Blue Note vaults until now, Live: Cookin’ with Blue Note at Montreux is released to coincide what would have been the legendary trumpeter’s 90th birthday—December 9, 2022. The vinyl release is all-analog and mastered by Kevin Gray.