Audio Master Plus Series Sampler: Vol. 1

  1. Shape Of Things That Are And Were – George Benson (from Shape of Things to Come) 
  2. Lamento – Antonio Carlos Jobim (from Wave)
  3. Autumn Leaves – Paul Desmond (from Summertime)
  4. Wind Song – Wes Montgomery (from Down Here On The Ground)
  5. New Orleans – Nat Adderley (from You, Baby)
  6. Killer Joe – Quincy Jones (from Walking In Space)  
  7. Israel (- K. & J.J. (from Israel)
  8. Jackie, All – George Benson (from Tell It Like It Is)
  9. California Nights – Wes Montgomery (from A Day In The Life)

Originally issued in October 1983 as A&M SP-6-3000

Audio Master Plus Series Sampler: Vol. 2

a. I Got A Woman – George Benson (from I Got A Woman And Some Blues)
b. Road Song – Wes Montgomery (from Road Song)1
c. Europa (Earth’s Cry Heaven’s Smile) – Gato Barbieri (from his 1976 A&M album Caliente!)
d. Circles – Paul Desmond (from From The Hot Afternoon)
e. Tres Pontas – Milton Nascimento (from Courage)
f. I Want You (She’s So Heavy) – George Benson (from The Other Side Of Abbey Road)  
g. Walkin’ – Quincy Jones (from Gula Matari)  
h. Tema Jazz – Antonio Carlos Jobim (from Tide) 
i. Love Is Stronger Far Than We  – Herbie Mann (from Glory of Love)

Originally issued in 1984 as A&M SP-6-3021

In October 1983, A&M embarked upon a series of reissues focusing on their jazz line. The first batch of reissues included nine releases that came from the Creed Taylor-produced A&M/CTI titles, waxed between 1967 and 1970. The reissues featured the original artwork and packaging, including gatefold covers. The LP sleeves were double -laminated for a high-gloss finish.

Each of the discs were half-speed mastered and pressed on a high-end audiophile compound formulated especially for A&M, while the cassette tape counterparts were presented on a special chromium dioxide tape.2 The process had already been used by the label for such popular records as The Go Gos’ Beauty and the Beat and Synchronicity, the 1983 hit record by The Police.

The jazz reissues were part of what the label dubbed the “Audio Masters Plus Series.” A compilation, featuring one title apiece from each of the nine first reissues, was issued in October 1983. A second compilation followed several months later, with eight A&M/CTI titles and one track from saxophonist Gato Barbieri’s 1976 A&M debut Caliente!, produced by label owner Herb Alpert. The original albums those tracks appeared on were also reissued.

While neither Creed Taylor nor Rudy Van Gelder had any role in these reissues or compilations, no one is identified in either of these capacities. The writer of the liner notes is unknown as well.

The catalog numbers for the compilations are in A&M’s 3000 series, indicating the label’s jazz line. But they fill apparent holes in the discographical numerology: Volume 1 is SP-6-3000 (as the first number used in the series was 3001, Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Wave) and Volume 2 is SP-6-3021, the number assigned to a Tamba 4 release that hadn’t been issued (it later appeared as California Soul, with an entirely different catalog number). The “6”that was added to the catalog numbers represented the budget $6.98 suggested retail price for the records.

About the covers: For the compilations, designer Mike Fink wisely mimicked Sam Antupit’s now iconic A&M/CTI design and even commissioned Pete Turner for the all-new photography. The first compilation features Turner’s “Horse in Clouds” (1971 – Nevada): “A rectangle within a rectangle,” wrote Turner. “It has a surreal quality. The horse has good motion, I’ve always liked the horse alone, but combining it with clouds seemed like a natural thing. Many times I don’t previsualize. I postvisualize.”3

The second compilation displays Turner’s “Plains and Spheres” (1981) – a.k.a. “Twin Planets” (1982)4 – an image that harks back to Turner’s interest in science fiction and his “Infinity Road” image on the Close Encounters of the Third Kind movie poster. “This image I made for myself. It’s an assemblage of a foreground, a background, and two spheres – basically a dreamscape of another world.”5 Both images are presented exactly as Pete Turner composed them.

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Endnotes:

  1. The Discogs Master Release listing for this record (accessed on May 1, 2026) incorrectly indicates that “Though the track list has A2 titled “Road Song” and the artwork promotes the Wes Montgomery 1968 solo album Road Song the version on this sampler is actually the simpler orchestrated version titled “OGD (Road Song)” found on the 1969 Jimmy Smith And Wes Montgomery duo album Further Adventures Of Jimmy And Wes.” During the 1983-84 period, when this sampler was pressed, there was no way that A&M would have had any access to the Verve edition of “OGD (Road Song).” PolyGram (now Universal Music), which at the time owned the Verve catalog, did not acquire the rights to the A&M catalog until 1989. This record’s version of “Road Song” is audibly the correct version from the A&M record. ↩︎
  2. Billboard, October 29, 1983, p. 4. ↩︎
  3. Turner, Pete Photographs (Hary N. Abrams, New York), 1986, p. 130. ↩︎
  4. This image was included (without commentary) as part of a feature on Turner in the October 1982 issue of American Photographer magazine (pp. 50-51) with the second title and date as listed here. ↩︎
  5. Turner, Pete, The Color of Jazz (Rizzolli, New York), 2006, p. 135. ↩︎