"Night Train" is an album by the Oscar Peterson Trio, released in 1963 by Verve Records. The album includes jazz, blues and R&B standards, as well as "Hymn to Freedom", one of Peterson's best known original compositions.
Album producer Norman Granz had sold the record label Verve, but remained Peterson's manager, and so supervised the Night Train recording session. The brief duration of many of the tracks has been attributed to a desire to have them played on commercial radio, which was reluctant to play any tracks longer than a few minutes.
The album was dedicated to Peterson’s father, who worked as a sleeping-car attendant for Canadian Pacific Railways.
Night Train’s only original Oscar Peterson composition, "Hymn to Freedom" was written on the spot in the studio to close the album, following Norman Granz' suggestion that the band include a song with a "definitive early-blues feel". Peterson named the new song "Hymn to Freedom" in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., and after Harriette Hamilton wrote accompanying lyrics a year later, it became an unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights Movement.
MUSICIANS
- Piano: Oscar Peterson
- Double Bass: Ray Brown
-
Drums: Ed Thigpen
SIDE A
- Night Train
- C Jam Blues
- Georgia On My Mind
- Bag's Groove
- Moten Swing
- Easy Does It
SIDE B
- Honey Dripper
- Things Ain't What They Used To Be
- I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good
- Band Call
- Hymn To Freedom
RECORDED TO TAPE
- Date of Recording: 1962 December 15 & 16
- Location: Los Angeles, CA
- Original tape numbers: Side A: 01-001392 / Side B: 01-001393
- Recording Engineer: Val Valentin
- Director of Engineering: Norman Granz
- Producer: Norman Granz
BOOKLET CONTENT LIST
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