Title: The Best Of MPS Years Artist: George Duke Label: MPS Product Type: VINYL LP UPC: 4029759170273 Genre: Jazz Release Date: 2022-06-17 Number of Discs: 2 Additional Details: GATEFOLD LP JACKET
A curious happenstance in 1966 triggered the partnership between MPS head Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer and George Duke. Brunner-Schwer was in San Francisco to record the Art van Damme Quintet. After finishing the recording session one evening, he and his team strolled over to a club called the Jazz Workshop. Les McCann was supposed to be playing, but this particular day was his day off. Instead, a 20 year old pianist, still involved in his studies, was performing with his quartet. The music's freshness so enthralled the German that he set up a recording session on the spot. This encounter between Duke and Brunner-Schwer in sunny California was both accidental and noteworthy. It turned out to be the jazzy prologue to future events: five years later the American began his fusion-infused sessions for the man from Germany's Black Forest. The subsequent albums cut from those sessions still count as a fascinating and essential part of George Duke's life's-work and canon of the genre.
