Ready or Not

Canada never had a visionary jazz label comparable to Blue Note or MPS however, CBC Radio-Canada was equipped and ready to document the independent jazz boom of the 60s and 70s. Ready or Not, You're about to be dazzled by an exciting set of innovative modern jazz so rare that much of it is unknown even in Canada where it was recorded. That's right this strikingly fresh-sounding collection of modal movers, spiritual swingers and Latin-flavoured cookers represents an important but little-known chapter in Canadian music history.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation sought out the finest jazz musicians in Canada and recorded them improvising live in a small combo setting for national broadcast. A few vinyl LPs of each session were pressed up and made available to the public but most this incredible music has remained in the CBC - Radio Canada archive gathering dust for more than 30 years. Infrequent CBC airplay was the only real promotion for the jazz recordings in the RCI series and the LPs -- Manufactured in small quantities and rarely re-pressed -- weren't distributed to conventional record retailers. Instead they were sold by mail order through the CBC and made available at select gift shops in CBC office buildings across the country which made this already under exposed music that much more difficult to obtain. So while the artists involved were given the freedom to record their work as they saw fit, the downside was that relatively few people ever got to hear it.

Do Right Music went straight to the source and secured the rights from CBC to re-release these incredible lost recordings. Compiled by Do Right label boss John Kong with archive research provided by deep digging Toronto music journalist Tim Perlich, each track has been selected with discriminating fans of moving modern jazz music and the dancefloor in mind. All tracks are transferred from the original masters, and re-mastered to give us the contemporary feel. Ready or Not has already stirred up enormous interest within the collector scene as can be seen in the rising eBay bidding for extremely rare copies of the original CBC vinyl pressings.