Curtis Fuller’s ‘Vol. 3’ Added to Blue Note’s Tone Poet Reissue Series
The trombonist’s date for Blue Note is one of the final two releases in the label’s 2026 Tone Poet reissue roster.
Trombonist Curtis Fuller’s 1957 album Vol. 3 is the next classic jazz session to join Blue Note’s audiophile Tone Poet reissue series. One of the final two releases in the 2026 Tone Poet slate, Curtis Fuller, Vol. 3 arrives in tandem with Lee Morgan’s The Sixth Sense on December 4.
Vol. 3 marked only the third leader session Fuller had ever recorded for Blue Note. He had joined the label early in his time in New York, where he moved from Detroit in 1957 after finishing his service in the Vietnam War, where he played in an army band. Following an early contract with New York’s Prestige Records, Fuller joined Blue Note after record executive Alfred Lion heard him playing with Miles Davis and recruited him as a sideman for John Coltrane’s Blue Train and two Sonny Clark records: Dial “S” for Sonny and Sonny’s Crib. He eventually became a bandleader, leading four dates total for Blue Note over his time with the label.
Fuller recorded Vol. 3 at Van Gelder Studios with a band consisting of trumpeter Art Farmer, bassist George Tucker, drummer Louis Hayes, and Clark on Piano. The six-track release featured five original Fuller compositions and one cover, of Burton Lane and Alan Jay Lerner’s standard “It’s Too Late Now.” Lion stepped in as producer, and the one and only Rudy Van Gelder handled engineering and mastering the record.
The Blue Note Tone Poet reissue of Vol. 3 was produced by the Tone Poet himself, Joe Harley, and mastered from original analog tapes by Kevin Gray. Pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI, the stereo LP also comes packaged in a deluxe tip-on gatefold jacket. It joins the already robust Tone Poet collection, which reissued records from the likes of Hank Mobley, Bobby Hutcherson, Jackie McLean, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Smith, and Booker Ervin this year alone. Vol. 3 is the first album with Fuller leading to receive a Tone Poet reissue, although Fuller performs as a sideman on other entries in the catalog, including Lee Morgan’s 1957 album City Lights, which joined the collection back in February.
