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A celebrated jazz guitarist, cornerstone of the Blue Note roster in the late ’50s and early ’60s and still-standing link to a thriving era in American jazz, Kenny Burrell will be celebrated this spring with a deluxe revisitation of his first live release.

On View At the Five Spot Café: The Complete Masters collects the original 1960 album, recorded in New York City with a killer quintet line-up, along with nine additional tracks from the same club dates – six of which are being released for the first time. Available on two CDs or three LPs – the latter an entry in the label’s ongoing Tone Poet reissue series – the expanded On View will be remastered by Kevin Gray from original analog masters recorded by Rudy Van Gelder. It’ll be packaged in a tri-fold tip-on jacket that comes with a booklet featuring unseen photos, liner notes by Syd Schwartz and an interview between Burrell (93 years old and counting!) and Blue Note’s president, producer/musician Don Was.

Burrell, a classically-trained guitarist who’d logged time with giants like Dizzy Gillespie (his first professional gig), Oscar Peterson, Billie Holiday and Tony Bennett, made his debut as a bandleader on Blue Note’s 1956 release Introducing Kenny Burrell. He’d cut two more LPs for the label by the start of the decade and several more for Prestige, but Blue Note was behind his first live recording as a bandleader. Working with hard bop saxophonist Tina Brooks, alternating pianists Bobby Timmons and Richard Hanna, bassist Ben Tucker and – most crucially – stellar drummer Art Blakey (who was given featured credit on the album sleeve), On View features the ensemble taking the night of August 25, 1959 running through standards by Dizzy (“Birk’s Works”), the Gershwins (“Oh Lady Be Good”) and Jimmy Smith (“Lover Man,” whose solo by Burrell was once named one of the greatest in jazz history by The Police’s guitarist Andy Summers). Of the bonus tracks compiled here, three were previously released on a 1980 odds-and-ends compilation only released in Japan; the others, heard here for the first time, include alternates of “Birk’s Works” and “Oh Lady Be Good” as well as another Gershwin favorite (“Love Walked In”) and several originals by Burrell himself, including the newly-released “The Take Off,” heard below.

Pre-order links for the sets, available April 11, are below, along with an album trailer. (As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.)

Kenny Burrell, On View At the Five Spot Café: The Complete Masters (Blue Note, 2025)

2CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
3LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

CD 1/LP 1 & LP 2, Side 3

1. Introduction by Kenny Burrell/Birks’ Works
2. Hallelujah
3. Lady Be Good
4. Lover Man
5. 36-23-36
6. Swingin’
7. If You Could See Me Now
8. Beef Stew Blues

CD 2/LP 2, Side 4 & LP 3

1. The Next Time You See Me, Things Won’t Be the Same
2. The Take Off
3. Birks’ Works (Alternate Take)
4. Lady Be Good (Alternate Take)
5. Love Walked In
6. 36-23-36/The Theme

CD 1, Tracks 1-5 released as Blue Note BLP 4021, 1960
CD 1, Tracks 6-8 released on Swingin’ – Blue Note GXF 3070 (JP), 1980
CD 2 previously unreleased