Count Basie – On My Way & Shoutin’ Again

  • Incredible shootout winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it from start to finish – relatively quiet vinyl too
  • Both sides here are clear, present, and energetic, with plenty of Tubey Magic, befitting this All Tube Recording on Verve from 1962
  • “A solid and worthwhile album that has been out of print for far too long, this will be a welcome addition to any Basie lover’s collection, and comes highly recommended to anyone even mildly interested in excellent large-ensemble mainstream jazz.” 

For us audiophiles both the sound and the music here are wonderful. If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good 1962 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.

This is a wonderful example of the kind of record that makes record collecting FUN. Both sides of this very special pressing are huge, rich, tubey and clear. As soon as the band got going we knew that this was absolutely the right sound for this music. There was practically nothing that could beat it, in any area of reproduction.

What the best sides of this Swinging Big Band Jazz Album have to offer is clear for all to hear: 

  • The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
  • The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1962
  • Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied double bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
  • Natural tonality in the midrange — with the guitar and drums having the correct sound for this kind of recording
  • Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional space of the studio

No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

Basie on Verve — What We’re Listening For

Some general guidelines as to what we listen for when playing Basie’s Big Band recordings — what the better pressings get right and the lesser ones struggle with.

Transparency

What typically separates the killer copies from the merely good ones are two qualities that we often look for in the records we play: transparency and lack of smear. Transparency allows you to hear into the recording, reproducing the ambience and subtle musical cues and details that high-resolution analog is known for.

(Note that most Heavy Vinyl pressings being produced these days seem to be quite Transparency Challenged. Lots of important musical information — the kind we hear on even second-rate regular pressings — is simply nowhere to be found. That audiophiles as a whole — including those that pass themselves off as the champions of analog in the audio press — do not notice these failings does not speak well for either their equipment or their critical listening skills.)

Richness & Lack of Smear

Lack of smear is also important, especially on a recording with this many horns, where the reproduction of leading edge transients is critical to their sound. If the sharply different characters of the various horns (trumpet, trombone, and three kinds of saxes) smear together into an amorphous blob, as if the sound were being fed through ’50s vintage tube amps (for those of you who know that sound), half the fun goes right out of the music.

Richness is important — horns need to be full-bodied if they are to sound like the real thing — but so are speed and clarity, two qualities that insure that all the horns have the proper bite and timbre.

Tight Bass

A problem we noted on many copies in addition to smear and opacity was blurry bass. Most copies are rich and full-bodied, with plenty of bottom end. So far so good. However, when the bottom is not well-defined you don’t hear Freddie Green strumming along nearly as well as on the copies where the bass is tight and note-like.

Same with the baritone sax; it got lost in the murky depths of some of the copies we played. And of course the way we know that is when we drop the needle on a randomly chosen copy and suddenly there it is! We’re finally hearing the instrument clearly and correctly; who knew it could sound like that? Only on these very special copies are we given the opportunity to appreciate the baritone’s contribution to the music.

TRACK LISTING

Side One

I’m Shoutin’ Again
Ducky Bumps
The Long Night
Jump For Johnny
Ain’t That Right

Side Two

Together Again
Shanghaied
Skippin’ With Skitch
Eee Dee
Rose Bud

AMG Review

A solid and worthwhile album that has been out of print for far too long, this will be a welcome addition to any Basie lover’s collection, and comes highly recommended to anyone even mildly interested in excellent large-ensemble mainstream jazz.