More Saxophone Jazz
More Recordings by Rudy Van Gelder
- Booker Ervin makes his long-awaited site debut with this 1968 release, boasting a Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two and an outstanding Double Plus (A++) side one – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
- The sound here is wonderful – big, lively, textured, open and clear with Tubey Magical richness that brings out the best in this jazzy hard bop sound
- Credit must go to Rudy Van Gelder once again for the huge space this superbly well-recorded quintet occupies
- 4 stars: “Every song on The In Between is an Ervin original designed to challenge the musicians… it’s edgy, volatile hard bop that comes from the mind as much as the soul… The result is a satisfying, cerebral set of adventurous hard bop that finds Booker Ervin at a creative peak.
This vintage Blue Note pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records rarely even BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.
If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.
What the best sides of The In Between have to offer is not hard 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 1968
- Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
- Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
- 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 qualities we discuss 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.
Copies with rich lower mids and nice extension up top did the best in our shootout, assuming they weren’t veiled or smeary of course. So many things can go wrong on a record! We know, we’ve heard them all.
Top end extension is critical to the sound of the best copies. Lots of old records (and new ones) have no real top end; consequently, the studio or stage will be missing much of its natural air and space, and instruments will lack their full complement of harmonic information.
Tube smear is common to most vintage pressings and this is no exception. The copies that tend to do the best in a shootout will have the least (or none), yet are full-bodied, tubey and rich.
What We’re Listening For on The In Between
- 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, not the smear and thickness 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, lost in the mix. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
- Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.
The Players
Booker Ervin – tenor saxophone, flute
Richard Williams – trumpet
Bobby Few – piano
Cevera Jeffries – bass
Lenny McBrowne – drums
TRACK LISTING
Side One
The In Between
The Muse
Mour
Side Two
Sweet Pea
Largo
Tyra
AMG 4 Star Review
Booker Ervin headed to Blue Note in 1968 for The In Between, a record that found him continuing in the vein of his later Prestige sessions. Supported by trumpeter Richard Williams, pianist Bobby Few, bassist Cevera Jeffries and drummer Lennie McBrowne, Ervin created an album that pushed the boundaries of hard bop.
Every song on The In Between is an Ervin original designed to challenge the musicians. The music rarely reaches avant-garde territory — instead, it’s edgy, volatile hard bop that comes from the mind as much as the soul. Appropriately, Ervin balances his full-bodied tone with a forceful, aggressive attack that even sounds restless on the slower numbers. The result is a satisfying, cerebral set of adventurous hard bop that finds Booker Ervin at a creative peak.