Album Notes

Imagine a young Calvin Newborn, migrating from Beale Street to the Big Apple in the mid-1950s: Guitar in hand, he pounded the big city pavement from Birdland to Broadway, earning the nickname "UpCity" from none other than Miles Davis, who was more than impressed with the Memphis musician.

Over the last five decades, Calvin - the brother of jazz virtuoso Phineas Newborn - has bounced from Memphis to New York and back again, anchoring sessions for Hank Crawford, Earl Hines, B.B. King, Jimmy Forrest, Wild Bill Davis, Hank Crawford, and everyone in between.

UpCity reflects the diversity of Calvin's jazz style: The album was cut at dual sessions in Memphis and New York (with trumpeter Bill Mobley, saxman Bill Easley, drummer Tony Reedus, and pianist Charles Thomas) during the late 1990s, then originally self-released on Calvin's own label, Omnifarious Music. Today, Yellow Dog Records is proud to issue this jazz classic, praised by the late James Williams, Cadence Magazine, and more, nationally for the first time.


"Newborn's guitar phrasing, equally tough and tender, is supreme. He can coax satiny Wes Montgomery licks out of a ballad, swing a blues or relish an R&B groove all in his edgy style. This [music] wasn't learned, it was lived in." -The Commercial Appeal

"Despite his imaginative approach to his instrument, Calvin Newborn has never fully received the attention he's due, and has spent a lifetime in the shadow of his brother's legacy." -Cadence