‘Plus One’ by Oscar Peterson Trio And Clark Terry Gets Verve Acoustic Sounds Reissue
The album captures a moment when Peterson was increasingly expanding his studio collaborations while still maintaining the trio’s core identity.
Recorded on August 17 and 18, 1964, in New York and released on Verve that same year, Plus One joins the Oscar Peterson Trio with the singular voice of trumpeter and flugelhornist Clark Terry. At this point, Peterson’s trio with Ray Brown (bass) and Ed Thigpen (drums) had already established itself as one of the most impeccably unified ensembles in jazz. Terry’s addition — warm-toned, slyly inventive, and rhythmically buoyant — offers a fresh contrast to the trio’s polished interplay while fitting seamlessly within its refined framework. The album will be getting a vinyl reissue later this year, courtesy of Verve’s Acoustic Sounds series.
The session highlights Terry’s full musical personality: his crisp trumpet articulation, his plush flugelhorn sound, and most memorably, his signature “mumbles” scat style, heard most memorably on the aptly titled “Mumbles.” On pieces such as “Brotherhood of Man,” the ensemble plays with tight structural clarity, Terry’s horn sailing above Peterson’s crisp right-hand runs and Brown’s anchoring lines. The ballad “Jim” reveals the group’s sensitivity to space, tone, and texture, with Terry’s lyrical phrasing foregrounded against Peterson’s understated accompaniment.
Plus One captures a moment when Peterson was increasingly expanding his studio collaborations while still maintaining the trio’s core identity. The album remains a concise and elegant example of mid-1960s Verve: meticulously recorded, cohesively arranged, and shaped by the unmistakable rapport of four major jazz voices working with ease and mutual respect.
The Verve / Acoustic Sounds Series presents all-analog 180-gram vinyl reissues of essential albums from the Verve and Impulse! catalogs. Mastered from the original analog tapes by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound and pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Quality Record Pressings (QRP) in Kansas, each release pairs top-tier audio fidelity with meticulously reproduced tip-on jackets, offering faithful recreations of the original LPs for discerning listeners.
