More Astrud Gilberto
More Bossa Nova
- This outstanding copy of Gilberto’s 1971 collaboration with Turrentine boasts solid Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish
- It’s rich, warm and natural with wonderful transparency, loads of ambience and – this is key – plenty of Tubey Magic
- Rudy Van Gelder did an outstanding job as usual engineering these 1971 sessions – his live-in-the-studio approach is tough to beat
- “The real treasures of this album though are the outstanding arrangements by Eumir Deodato, who once again proves he is the master of this type of music. Nearly every track is full of interesting, complex, yet beautiful instrumentation. He blends mellow low strings with lots of Fender Rhodes electric piano, plenty of electric and acoustic guitar, and a wide variety of Brazilian percussion instruments.”
This vintage CTI 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 Gilberto with Turrentine 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 1971
- 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 Gilberto with Turrentine
- 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: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren’t “back there” somewhere, lost in the mix. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt –– Rudy Van Gelder in this case — would put them.
- 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.
- Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.
TRACK LISTING
Side One
Wanting Things
Brazilian Tapestry
To A Flame
Soloist, Flute – Hubert LawsWritten-By – Stephen Stills
Solo El Fin (For All We Know)
Zazueira
Side Two
Ponteio
Travelling Light
Vera Cruz
Historia De Amor (Love Story)
Where There’s A Heartache
5 Star Amazon Customer Reviews
Bring This One to a Desert Island
I have been listening to this album since I was 3 years old when my father first brought this home from the record store in 1972. It is just incredible. Astrud’s voice and laid-back delivery are better here then on her earlier (and better-known) Verve albums.
The real treasures of this album though are the outstanding arrangements by Eumir Deodato, who once again proves he is the master of this type of music. Nearly every track is full of interesting, complex, yet beautiful instrumentation. He blends mellow low strings with lots of Fender Rhodes electric piano, plenty of electric and acoustic guitar, and a wide variety of Brazilian percussion instruments. It’s just a rich tapestry of sound that never fails to intrigue me, even though I’ve probably heard the album a hundred or more times.
Stanley Turrentine is all over this record, and his solos are soulful, strong, and melodic as always. If you can get past a couple of the Carpenters songs that are included, you’ll find it to be a timeless album. This is one you’ll want to listen to this one over and over.
Ignore the nitpickers – terrific
Pontificate away, the nitpickers – it’s all subjective and all opinion. Here’s mine: Terrific. Deodato does a great job and Gilberto is Gilberto – I’m not sure why this album is a problem child for some if the others aren’t. I mean you’ve got some of the best musicians ever on this thing, not only Turrentine. Makes one wonder if they look at the musician list – Hubert Laws, Ron Carter, Airto, Toots Thielemans – seriously.
[I]t sounds great and yes, the congas are there. If you like Astrud’s other albums, I’m not sure how you won’t like this one.