Label: Blue Note

Reissued 10/10/2025

The Complete Blue Note 45 Sessions of Ike Quebec collects a phenomenal body of work produced between 1959-'62 by a key player in the Blue Note Story. The saxophonist had recorded a series of 78s for Alfred Lion in the 1940s and also served as a talent scout who encouraged Lion to record important figures of the emerging bebop scene including Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell. After a difficult period through the 1950s during which Quebec fell off the scene, Lion reconnected with his friend and began to reintroduce Quebec's music to jazz fans in 1959 with a series of 45 jukebox singles that were well received and revealed a formidable stylist very much at the top of his game. His full-throated yet utterly relaxed sound was ideally suited to a wide range of material from ballads to blues. The success of Quebec's comeback inspired Lion to keep going, capturing four sessions of material with a revolving cast of musicians that yielded classic tracks including "A Light Reprieve," "Blue Monday," and "What a Difference a Day Makes." Quebec would also go on to record several album sessions including the timeless soul jazz classics Heavy Soul, Blue & Sentimental, and Bossa Nova Soul Samba, capping a prolific end to a career that would be tragically cut short with his death from lung cancer at age 44 in 1963.

Track listing:

1. Light Reprieve
2. Buzzard Lope
3. Blue Monday
4. Zonky
5. Later for the Rock
6. Sweet and Lovely
7. Dear John
8. Blue Friday
9. Everything Happens to Me
10. Mardi Gras
11. What a Difference a Day Makes
12. For All We Know
13. Ill Wind
    
14. If I Could Be with You (One Hour Tonight)
15. I've Got the World on a String
16. Me 'N Mabe
17. Everything Happens to Me
18. How Long Has This Been Going on
19. With a Song in My Heart
20. Imagination
21. What Is There to Say?
22. There Is No Greater Love
23. All of Me
24. Intermezzo
25. But Not for Me
26. All the Way