ProStudioMasters.com

The award-winning independent jazz label Resonance Records teams up with 2xHD to unearth another hitherto unheard gem with the release of the recording by master pianist Monty Alexander, Love You Madly: Live at Bubba’s. Accompanying Alexander on this spirited live date are bassist Paul Berner (Lionel Hampton Orchestra), drummer Duffy Jackson (Milt Jackson, Benny Carter), and percussionist Robert Thomas, Jr. (Weather Report, Jaco Pastorius, Carlos Santana).

Drawn from Alexander’s personal collection, the vigorous, imaginative performances on Love You Madly were recorded at the titular Fort Lauderdale, FL, nightclub on Aug. 6, 1982. The recording engineer was the late Mack Emerman, legendary founder of Miami’s Criteria Recording Studios, the state-of-the-art facility where the Bee Gees, Eric Clapton, the Allman Brothers Band, and Aretha Franklin, among many others, had cut some of their biggest pop hits.

The Kingston, Jamaica-born keyboardist had lived in Miami since his family moved there in 1961, and had known Emerman, a jazz buff who had played trumpet in his alma mater Duke University’s big band, for many years.

Alexander recalls in a new interview with Resonance co-president and “Jazz Detective” Zev Feldman, “Mack just had this idea, ‘Hey, can I come and record you? I’ll bring the truck.’ He already had a remote truck [unit]. So he brought the truck and he put the mic on the bass and the drums, and the whole thing, and, son of a gun, this tape, which he gave to me, was all a gift.”