Month: May 2020

Los Admiradores – Robert Fine Knocked This One Out of the Park

More Hot Stamper Pressings of Easy Listening Albums

More Recordings by Robert Fine

First things first: one of the main bongo players is none other than Ray Barretto himself. You jazz guys out there will know exactly who that is, a man whose reputation for brilliant rhythmic contributions to some of the greatest classic jazz albums of the ’60s is beyond dispute. One listen to Midnight Blue will do the trick. The man had a gift. And he is here joined by two other top players.

And of course the guitarist has to be the incomparable Tony Mottola, the man behind one of our favorite jazz guitar records of all time: Warm, Wild and Wonderful.

Soundfield, Timbre and Dynamics

The spaciousness of the studio is reproduced with uncanny fidelity, with both huge depth and width, but there is another dimension that this record is operating in that Bang, Baa-room and Harp, just to take one example, does not — the instruments are capable of jumping out of your speakers, seemingly right into your listening room.

The effect is astonishing. I have never heard these instruments sound more real than they do here. The timbre is perfection. The dynamics are startling.

Add to those clearly unattenuated dynamics, high and low frequencies that are also not attenuated, and microphones capable of deadly accuracy, and you have yourself a recording of virtually unparalleled fidelity. We’ve played these kinds of records by the score but I have rarely heard one that can do what this one is doing.

No Reverb? Say What?

In discussing Robert Fine’s approach to this recording in the lengthy liner notes ( a full two pages worth!), the author notes that Fine does not tolerate added reverb or echo of any kind. He feels it distorts and degrades the clarity and timbral accuracy of the instruments.

The crazy thing is, this album is swimming in reverberation. The space is enormous, the presentation as three-dimensional as any you have ever heard, with clearly audible reflections bouncing off the walls of the studio deep into the soundstage.

If the notes are to be believed, it’s all REAL. And I have no trouble taking Fine at his word. As the engineer behind some of the greatest orchestral recordings in the history of the world for Mercury, his bona fides are fully in order.

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Stanley Turrentine / Jubilee Shouts – Reviewed in 2005

More Stanley Turrentine

More Albums on Blue Note

Two Minty looking Blue Note LPs of two previously unreleased sessions featuring the great tenor saxophonist with Tommy Turrentine, Kenny Burrell, Horace Parlan, Sonny Clark and others.

If you want to hear Turrentine at his best, skip right to track two, the beautiful ballad Then I’ll Be Tired Of You, featuring his brother Tommy on trumpet. The music is powerful and the sound is excellent.

Pat Metheny Has a Few Thoughts about Kenny G

More of the Music of Pat Metheny

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Pat Metheny

Question:

Pat, could you tell us your opinion about Kenny G – it appears you were quoted as being less than enthusiastic about him and his music. I would say that most of the serious music listeners in the world would not find your opinion surprising or unlikely – but you were vocal about it for the first time. You are generally supportive of other musicians it seems.

Pat’s Answer:

Kenny G is not a musician I really had much of an opinion about at all until recently. There was not much about the way he played that interested me one way or the other either live or on records.

I first heard him a number of years ago playing as a sideman with Jeff Lorber when they opened a concert for my band. My impression was that he was someone who had spent a fair amount of time listening to the more pop oriented sax players of that time, like Grover Washington or David Sanborn, but was not really an advanced player, even in that style. He had major rhythmic problems and his harmonic and melodic vocabulary was extremely limited, mostly to pentatonic based and blues-lick derived patterns, and he basically exhibited only a rudimentary understanding of how to function as a professional soloist in an ensemble – Lorber was basically playing him off the bandstand in terms of actual music.

But he did show a knack for connecting to the basest impulses of the large crowd by deploying his two or three most effective licks (holding long notes and playing fast runs – never mind that there were lots of harmonic clams in them) at the key moments to elicit a powerful crowd reaction (over and over again). The other main thing I noticed was thathe also, as he does to this day, played horribly out of tune -consistently sharp.

Of course, I am aware of what he has played since, the success it has had, and the controversy that has surrounded him among musicians and serious listeners. This controversy seems to be largely fueled by the fact that he sells an enormous amount of records while not being anywhere near a really great player in relation to the standards that have been set on his instrument over the past sixty or seventy years. And honestly, there is no small amount of envy involved from musicians who see one of their fellow players doing so well financially, especially when so many of them who are far superior as improvisors and musicians in general have trouble just making a living. There must be hundreds, if not thousands of sax players around the world who are simply better improvising musicians than Kenny G on his chosen instruments. It would really surprise me if even he disagreed with that statement.

Having said that, it has gotten me to thinking lately why so many jazz musicians (myself included, given the right “bait” of a question, as I will explain later) and audiences have gone so far as to say that what he is playing is not even jazz at all. Stepping back for a minute, if we examine the way he plays, especially if one can remove the actual improvising from the often mundane background environment that it is delivered in, we see that his saxophone style is in fact clearly in the tradition of the kind of playing that most reasonably objective listeners WOULD normally quantify as being jazz. It’s just that as jazz or even as music in a general sense, with these standards in mind, it is simply not up to the level of playing that we historically associate with professional improvising musicians. So, lately I have been advocating that we go ahead and just include it under the word jazz – since pretty much of the rest of the world OUTSIDE of the jazz community does anyway – and let the chips fall where they may.

And after all, why he should be judged by any other standard, why he should be exempt from that that all other serious musicians on his instrument are judged by if they attempt to use their abilities in an improvisational context playing with a rhythm section as he does? He SHOULD be compared to John Coltrane or Wayne Shorter, for instance, on his abilities (or lack thereof) to play the soprano saxophone and his success (or lack thereof) at finding a way to deploy that instrument in an ensemble in order to accurately gauge his abilities and put them in the context of his instrument’s legacy and potential.

As a composer of even eighth note based music, he SHOULD be compared to Herbie Hancock, Horace Silver or even Grover Washington. Suffice it to say, on all above counts, at this point in his development, he wouldn’t fare well.

But, like I said at the top, this relatively benign view was all “until recently.”

Not long ago, Kenny G put out a recording where he overdubbed himself on top of a 30+ year old Louis Armstrong record, the track “What a Wonderful World”. With this single move, Kenny G became one of the few people on earth I can say that I really can’t use at all – as a man, for his incredible arrogance to even consider such a thing, and as a musician, for presuming to share the stage with the single most important figure in our music.

This type of musical necrophilia – the technique of overdubbing on the preexisting tracks of already dead performers – was weird when Natalie Cole did it with her dad on “Unforgettable” a few years ago, but it was her dad. When Tony Bennett did it with Billie Holiday it was bizarre, but we are talking about two of the greatest singers of the 20th century who were on roughly the same level of artistic accomplishment. When Larry Coryell presumed to overdub himself on top of a Wes Montgomery track, I lost a lot of the respect that I ever had for him – and I have to seriously question the fact that I did have respect for someone who could turn out to have such unbelievably bad taste and be that disrespectful to one of my personal heroes. (more…)

Glenn Frey – Soul Searchin’

  • With excellent Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last, this copy will be very hard to beat – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • We were shocked to find out that this album actually sounds very analog – rich, smooth, sweet and natural
  • Elliot Scheiner (Royal Scam, Aja, Nightfly) produced and also did some engineering – he is to be commended for his excellent work here
  • “Though I left Detroit and went to California to cut my teeth on country-rock, I’ve remained obsessed with the music of my adolescence, the great soul hits of the ’60s and early ’70s.”

The best copies are both rich and open, with the sound we tend to associate with the better ’70s recordings and rarely hear on records from the ’80s. But here’s a record from 1988 that sounds the way we like our records to sound – like analog. We don’t really know if it is or not, or mostly is or mostly isn’t, but we’ve never really cared about those sorts of things as long as the record sounds good.

It’s our one and only criterion. Any other criterion is a sign that you’re not really listening, you’re reading (more…)

Kenny Dorham / Cannonball Adderley – Blue Spring

More Cannonball Adderley

  • Dorham and Adderley’s 1959 collaboration finally arrives on the site with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on side two with an outstanding Double Plus (A++) side one 
  • This superb recording is huge and lively with startling dynamics and in-the-room-presence like nothing you’ve heard
  • The trumpet and saxophone are so full-bodied and Tubey Magical you won’t believe it – where is that sound today?
  • 4 stars: “The set features plenty of Dorham’s varied and sophisticated horn work and four of his top-drawer originals. The theme is spring… Essential listening for Dorham fans.”

To find a clean, 1959 Riverside pressing on the early Blue Label with vinyl any quieter and no groove damage whatsoever strikes us as practically impossible. This is the first pressing in audiophile playing quality we have ever seen, and we may never see its like again.

Jack Higgins was the engineer for these sessions. He recorded Chet Baker’s brilliant Chet album the same year, as well as another favorite of ours here at Better Records, Wynton Kelly’s wonderful (and very good sounding on ’80s OJC) Kelly Blue. (more…)

Frank Sinatra – The Voice

  • With superb Double Plus (A++) sound, this killer 6 Eye mono LP is full of the analog warmth and sweetness missing from the Classic reissue and probably anything else pressed in the last twenty five years – relatively quiet vinyl too
  • Featuring most of his best Columbia material, here is the Tubey Magical Midrange missing from the Classic reissue – theirs was not a bad record per se, but without the presence, breathiness and intimacy of the younger Sinatra’s vocals reproduced faithfully, boredom will likely set in before the first side comes to an end
  • 4 stars: “…the focus is on the ballads, and the dozen represented here constitute a bumper crop of classics, all resplendent in the singer’s richest, most overpowering intonation and most delicately nuanced work.”

In our experience, these Mono early Columbia pressings (either on the 6 Eye label or earlier solid red) are the only ones with any hope of having the Midrange Magic that is fundamental to the sound of Frank’s early Columbia LPs, a midrange that is clearly missing from the Classic Records heavy vinyl pressing. The Classic is clean and clear and tonally correct — like a CD. Without the warmth and sweetness of analog and, in this case, tube mastering, the sound just isn’t “the real Frank.” (more…)

Ricky Nelson – Ricky Nelson on Sunset Vinyl

  • This killer copy of Ricky Nelson’s 1966 release for Liberty has stunning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it
  • We’ve had a devil of a time finding Ricky Nelson records with audiophile quality sound, but here’s one, and it won our shootout
  • Relaxed, rich and tubey, yet clear, this is the right sound for this music, and the vinyl is about as quiet as we can find
  • The sound has real resolution, clarity and transparency – this album may be a compilation, but it sure doesn’t sound like one

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John Lee Hooker – The Healer

  • The outstanding copy of The Healer boasts solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from first note to last
  • On the better pressings like this one you get something approaching the warmth and unforced clarity of analog we audiophiles crave
  • With Santana, Bonnie Raitt, Los Lobos, Canned Heat and others
  • Four Stars in Rolling Stone: “Brilliant, 100-proof blues… the spirit that animates this album is the ageless voice of John Lee Hooker and his boogie-man blues. He has conjured up a renewed world blues with the canniness of the hoodoo healers and root doctors who first gave birth to the Delta blues.”

These guys (and one gal!) are definitely LIVE in the studio. The amount of studio reverb may be a bit much for some, but we think it works for this music. (more…)

The Abbey Road Remix on Vinyl

Reviews and Commentaries for Abbey Road

More of the Music of The Beatles

BREAKING NEWS

We got a copy in, cleaned it and played it. Now we can report the results of our investigations.

The half-speed mastered remixed Abbey Road has to be one of the worst sounding Beatles records we have ever had the displeasure to play.

Hard to imagine you could make Abbey Road sound any worse. It’s absolutely disgraceful.

I will be writing more about its specific shortcomings down the road, but for now let this serve as a warning that you are throwing your money away if you buy this newly remixed LP.

UPDATE 11/2022

As of now, I have completely lost interest in detailing the abundant shortcomings of this awful record.

If this isn’t the perfect example of a Pass/Fail record, I don’t know what would be.

Some records are so wrong, or are so lacking in qualities that are crucial to their sound, qualities typically found in abundance on the right vintage pressings, that the supporters of these records are failing fundamentally at judging them. We call these record Pass-Fail.

Tea for the Tillerman on the new 45 maybe be substandard in every way, but it is not a Pass Fail pressing. It lacks one thing above all others, Tubey Magic, so if your system has an abundance of that quality, as many vintage tube systems do, the new pressing may be quite listenable and enjoyable. Those whose systems can play the record and not notice this important shortcoming are not exactly failing. They most likely have a system that is heavily colored and not very revealing, but it is a system that is not hopeless. A system that can play the MoFi of Aja without revealing to the listener how wrong it is is another level of bad entirely, and that is what would qualify as a failing system. My system in the ’80s played that record just fine. Looking back on it now, I realize it was doing more wrong than right.

One of our good customers recently moved his stereo into a new house.

Hey Tom,

Interestingly, the electricity and spatial characteristics are so much better in the new place that I’ve had a complete sea change regarding the MoFi Kind of Blue. If you recall, I previously found this oddly EQ’d and unrealistic, but also wasn’t as hell bent against it as you are (though I certainly have been against other crappy heavy vinyl from MoFi, Analog Productions, Blue Note, etc.). Well, now I can’t stand it. It sounds fucking atrocious. The difference between it and my humble hot stamper copy is night and day. Whole collection sounds better, and is awesome to rediscover again, but this one really stood out. Onwards and upwards!

Conrad,

That is indeed good news. That record is pass-fail for me. If anyone cannot tell how bad it is, that is a sign that something is very wrong somewhere. Glad you are hearing it as I am hearing it. It is indeed atrocious.

TP

Conrad followed up with these remarks:

The MoFi KoB never sounded right or real, but now it sounds downright puke. Will hang onto it and use as a test record for fun on other systems. As bad as it is, as I’ve said before, you have no idea how much worse their Junior Wells Hoodoo Man Blues is. My god; you’d suspect your system is broken, playing that. Bloated asphyxiated subaquatic delirium.

Cheers,

C

Well said!

Dizzy Gillespie – Dizzy Gillespie’s Big 4

Hot Stamper Pablo Recordings Available Now

More Reviews and Commentaries for Pablo Recordings

  • Dizzie Gillespie’s Big 4 makes its Hot Stamper debut here, with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER on both sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • The size, clarity, presence and energy of this obviously live-in-the-studio recording are off the charts – plenty of Tubey Magic to boot
  • AMG 4 1/2 stars – on a copy this natural, clean and clear, the spontaneous interplay among these four jazz luminaries is laid out for all to hear
  • “…one of [Gillespie’s] best ensemble performances… his playing is superb and he is in command of the material… the musicians play off each other well and do a great job of supporting Gillespie. A big 4, indeed.”

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