- Insanely good sound throughout, just shy of our shootout winner with nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound – quiet vinyl too
- We love the amazingly natural, uncolored, un-hyped sound Roy DuNann and Howard Holzer were able to achieve at Contemporary back in the day
- You will hear as we did playing this very copy that there’s simply nothing between you and the musicians
- “Pepper utilizes Davis’ sidemen on this 1960 near-classic… as usual, Pepper brings something very personal and unique to his playing; he sounds like no one else.” – 4 1/2 Stars, All Music
This album, and this copy in particular, deliver some serious Art Pepper Contemporary Magic. We’re big fans of Pepper and this label, and we love the sound Roy DuNann and Howard Holzer were able to get out of these guys. On the best pressings, such as this one, there’s just nothing between you and the music. You will have a very hard time finding a much better sounding jazz record than either side of this copy, anywhere.
Superb sound from Contemporary — better than just about any other Pepper disc they recorded IMHO. We played a bunch of copies and few can compare to this one!
Pepper is backed by the Miles Davis rhythm section here. Conte Candoli joins Art on trumpet on a few tracks, which turn out to be the best. If you’ve enjoyed some of our Contemporary Hot Stampers in the past, you’re gonna flip out over this one!
For us audiophiles both the sound and the music here are wonderful. If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good 1960 All Tube Analog sound can be, this killer copy will do the trick.
This pressing is super spacious, sweet and positively dripping with ambience. Talk about Tubey Magic, the liquidity of the sound here is positively uncanny. This is vintage analog at its best, so full-bodied and relaxed you’ll wonder how it ever came to be that anyone seriously contemplated trying to improve it.
This IS the sound of Tubey Magic. No recordings will ever be made like this again, and no CD will ever capture what is in the grooves of this record. There is of course a CD of this album, but those of us who possess a working turntable and a good collection of vintage vinyl could care less.
What do the better Hot Stamper pressings like this one give you?
- Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
- The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
- Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks for the horns and drums, not the smear and thickness so common to most LPs.
- Tight, note-like bass with clear fingering — which ties in with good transient information, as well as the issue of frequency extension further down.
- Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the players.
- Then: presence and immediacy. The musicians aren’t “back there” somewhere, way behind the speakers. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt — Holzer or DuNann — would have put them.
- Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.
TRACK LISTING
Side One
Whims of Chambers
Bijou the Poodle
Why Are We Afraid?
Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise
Side Two
Rhythm-a-Ning
Diane
Gettin’ Together
AMG 4 1/2 Star Review
As a sort of follow-up to Art Pepper’s matchup with Miles Davis’ trio in the 1957 classic Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section, Pepper utilizes Davis’ sidemen on this 1960 near-classic. In addition to pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb, trumpeter Conte Candoli makes the group a quintet on four of the eight numbers. This time around, rather than emphasizing standards, Pepper performs just three (“Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise,” Thelonious Monk’s “Rhythm-A-Ning,” and “The Way You Look Tonight”) and includes three originals of his own: “Diane,” “Bijou the Poodle,” and “Gettin’ Together.” The music is all very straight-ahead and bop-oriented, but as usual, Pepper brings something very personal and unique to his playing; he sounds like no one else.