Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, announces the label’s line-up of collectible vinyl releases created especially for Record Store Day 2022, celebrated at participating stores worldwide with RSD Drops on Saturday, June 18.
Record Store Day was conceived in 2007 at a gathering of independent record store owners and employees as a regular celebration of the unique culture surrounding nearly 1400 independently owned record stores in the U.S. and thousands of similar stores around the world. In the fifteen years since its inception, Record Store Day has grown into an international phenomenon, annually hosting the Largest Single Day Music Event in the World. This year, in commemoration of its 15th anniversary, RSD has named Taylor Swift as Global Ambassador for Record Store Day 2022.
As with previous pandemic-era RSD Drops, stores will handle sales and on-site procedures in keeping with common sense community standards. RSD recommends checking in with your local record stores –join their email lists, follow them on social media– so you’re as much in the loop as possible. Find your nearest participating RSD shop HERE.
Legacy Recordings – RSD Drops 2022 – June 18 Release:
Miles Davis – What It Is: Montreal 7/7/83(2×12″ Vinyl)
This double LP release showcases one of Miles Davis’ final great bands including John Scofield on guitar, Bill “The Other Bill Evans” Evans on saxophones, flute and electric piano, Darryl Jones on bass, Al Foster on drums and percussionist Mino Cinelu. Miles was back in amazing form (“incandescent and iridescent as ever” as Greg Tate noted) when he mounted the stage at the Theatre St-Denis during the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal in July 1983 and this 2LP 12″ vinyl pressing marks the first release of this revelatory performance.
The recording has been lovingly mixed and mastered and will be included on CD and digitally in the next edition of the Miles Davis Bootleg series (focusing on the 1981-1985 period) coming later in the year; but the Record Store Day pressing of What It Is: Montreal 7/7/83 is its exclusive release on vinyl. What It Is includes tracks from Star People, the Marcus Miller tune “Hopscotch,” and the song “Jean-Pierre” that appeared on 1982’s We Want Miles. Miles thought so well of these recordings of “What It Is” and “That’s What Happened” that he utilized them, in heavily edited form, for his 1984 release Decoy; What It Is presents these tracks for the first time in their complete form. Packaged in beautiful gatefold packaging, What It Is: Montreal 7/7/83 features liner notes penned by the incomparable music journalist Greg Tate in one of his final writing pieces.