Another Record We’ve Discovered with (Potentially) Excellent Sound…
and One We Will Probably Never Shootout Again
Some records never justified the time and money required to find Hot Stamper pressings of them in order to make it worth our while to do them again. This is one such album, and the link above will take you to many more.
This HOT STAMPER copy of the swingingest Christmas record ever made has SWINGING SOUND to match. It’s relaxed and musical, with lovely 3D openness.
Mostly gone is the dull, smeary blare of RVG’s horns, replaced by real leading edge transients and air going through brass, while mostly avoiding the grit and grain that all too often passes for detail. Good extension on both ends helps a lot. Harmonics up top keep the sound open and airy, and plenty of bottom end lets the solid rhythm section come through the mix like gangbusters.
If you like Bashin’, you will love this one. They could have called it Christmas Bashin’, but Christmas Cookin’ works too I guess.
It’s without a doubt the swingingest Christmas record I’ve ever heard! These guys know how to jazz up some classic Christmas tunes like nobody’s business. Not only that, but the sound is excellent. Listen to the tympani at the beginning of side one — you know you’re in for a treat when you hear sound (and music) like that. The arrangements are by Billy Byers or Al Cohn but clearly in the style of Oliver Nelson, and they are fabulous.
These are pretty hard to find in audiophile playing condition, so we only had a small group to shootout. With Rudy Van Gelder at the helm there’s no way to know if the sound could get any better. Some of his stuff is killer but most of it just plain sucks.
Having said that, this pressing has the kind of sound we hope to find — rich, sweet and low distortion. For a Verve pressing — notorious for some of the worst mastering in the world of jazz — that puts it way ahead of the pack.
RVG
What do we look for in an RVG recording? Presence and energy first and foremost; without those qualities jazz just becomes a bore. But compressor distortion and grit can ruin the party in a heartbeat with RVG at the helm, so we look for the most natural horn sound we can get, which may not be all that natural, but grading on a curve as we do, we’ll take what we can get.
If You Can Only Have One…
If you were going to play one Christmas album to listen to for pleasure, you couldn’t choose a better one than this. The album is a blast from start to finish.