Craft Recordings OJC Series Closes Out the Year With Seven New Reissues

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(Press release): Los Angeles, CA (August 27, 2025)—Craft Recordings is rounding out 2025 with seven reissues in the Original Jazz Classics series, which revisits celebrated, seminal, and rare jazz albums. The latest reissues include Hank Mobley’s Jazz Message #2, Wes Montgomery’s Boss Guitar, Art Pepper’s Surf Ride, Sonny Rollins’ Plus 4, Yusef Lateef’s Jazz Mood, and Red Garland Quartet’s Soul Junction and After Hours featuring Thad Jones, Frank Wess, Kenny Burrell and Mal Waldron. The Yusef Lateef, Hank Mobley and Art Pepper albums are the first Savoy titles to be included in this series.  All these albums are available for pre-order today, with releases rolling out between October 24 and December 5. 

The reissues feature lacquers cut from the original tapes (AAA) by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, 180-gram vinyl pressed at RTI, and tip-on jackets reproducing the original artwork. All titles will also be released digitally in 192/24 hi-res audio on the same date as each vinyl.

Read more on the latest OJC releases below.

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Yusef Lateef – Jazz Mood (Available October 24, 2025)

Setting the tenor for his career as a world music pioneer, Yusef Lateef mingles Islamic sounds with jazz aesthetic on this, his first album. After touring with Dizzy Gillespie, he went on to release this hard-bop masterpiece in 1957, backed by bassist Ernest Farrow (Alice Coltrane’s sibling) and trombonist Curtis Fuller.

Here, Lateef plays everything from tenor saxophone to the lute-like rabat (on the mercurial meditation, “Morning”) and the flute-like argol (on the bright, punctuated sonic excursion, “Metaphor”). Ultimately, his mingling of East and West feels as intriguing as it is effortless. Upon its release, DownBeat praised that “Almost without exception the tracks give a feeling of warmth, a mood of relaxation, and good feeling, an uncomplicated emotional propulsion.”

Hank Mobley – Jazz Message #2 (Available October 24, 2025)

This two-session release from the oft-underrated saxophonist is famous among jazzheads for touting an expansive dream team: Donald Byrd and then-teen Lee Morgan on trumpet, Barry Harris and Hank Jones on piano, bassist Doug Watkins (in both sessions), and Kenny Clarke and Art Taylor on drums. And yet the 1957 album, defying all odds, clocks in at just over 30 minutes.

That’s not for lack of highlights. With this lineup bolstering his every move, Hank Mobley’s hard bop pulses confidently through tracks such as the breathless “Doug’s Minor B’OK” and “Thad’s Blues.” Meanwhile, AllMusic professes, “The standout track is Mobley’s ‘Space Flight,’ a bright, uptempo bop number that has memorable solos.”

Art Pepper – Surf Ride (Available November 14, 2025)

A light-as-air, breezy-as-the-wind album, Surf Ride is an invigorating offering from Art Pepper, who by its release in 1957, had already been anointed by DownBeat magazine as one of the best alto saxophonists in jazz (just after Charlie Parker). It makes sense that the West Coast jazz icon would release an album that captures the free spirit of his home state.

“His playing was arguably always somewhat fierier than other saxophonists tagged with the ‘cool jazz’ label,” Jazzfuel writes. This includes the vivacious “Susie the Poodle,” not to mention the cool, boppy title track, which shows off the genuinely enthusiastic collaborator he had in pianist Hampton Hawes.

Sonny Rollins – Plus 4 (Available November 21, 2025)

Released in 1956, the same year trumpeter Clifford Brown and pianist Richard Powell died together in a car crash, Plus 4 is a life-affirming homage to their creative bond with tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins (who was, before that, a janitor) in the Brown/Max Roach Quintet. Their next-level synergy here is thrilling and at times just the right amount of off-kilter, notably in memorable tracks like “Valse Hot” and “Kiss and Run.”

“All this actuality and promise of the quintet is here, with Rollins playing the most sustainedly creative tenor I’ve heard on a record by him before,” DownBeat commented at the time. “His impressive rhythmic strength is there as always, but the conception has broadened and relaxed.”

Wes Montgomery – Boss Guitar (Available November 21, 2025)

Only Wes Montgomery, the GRAMMY winner whom everyone from Stevie Ray Vaughan to Jimi Hendrix has cited as an influence, could get away with this 1963 album title. “Boss Guitar,” AllMusic attests, “is among the bop-oriented Montgomery albums that should continue to be savored after all these years.”

Here, his original track “The Trick Bag” steals the show, a triumph of cadence, control, and velocity. Meanwhile, his limber cover of the standard “Besame Mucho” injects ease and perspective to one of Latin music’s most famous and formidable tracks. Although Montgomery would ultimately move on from bop, Boss Guitar demonstrates an undisputed mastery of the genre.

Thad Jones, Frank Wess, Kenny Burrell and Mal Waldron – After Hours (Available December 5, 2025)

Thad Jones, the trumpeter, was the de facto leader of this bop sextet. (The many marquee names included Mal Waldron on piano, Kenny Burrell on guitar, Frank Wess on flute and tenor saxophone, Paul Chambers on bass, and Art Taylor on drums.) “It is the assemblage of solos and conversations among the players that lends form and meaning,” Billboard noted in 1957, when the album came out.

Jones and Wess, alums of Count Basie’s band, tend to get the most flowers here. They shine on “Empty Street,” in particular, entwining instruments to gloriously boozy, bluesy effect — for more than 12 minutes. The track stands out as a gusty counterpart to the album’s other, more frenetic offerings. 

Red Garland Quintet – Soul Junction (Available December 5, 2025)

Recorded in November 1957 and released three years later, this long-favorite from pianist Red Garland features an enviable ensemble: John Coltrane (tenor sax), Donald Byrd (trumpet), Art Taylor (drums), and George Joyner (bass). It’s a solid example of future jazz legends uniquely and successfully dipping into blues. 

At this point, Garland was on top of his game, notably as a pianist for the Miles Davis Quintet. So, the finesse of Soul Junction should come as no surprise to those in the know. It is a strong offering right off the bat, with the exquisite 15-and-a-half-minute title track. An endurance exercise, it takes its time to show off Garland’s dexterous, yet just-restrained-enough ivory-tickling acumen. Coltrane, for his part, AllMusic writes, “is in excellent form, playing several stunning sheets of sound solos.”

Click here to pre-order these new titles, or click here to shop the complete OJC collection.