Month: August 2021

Joe Newman Quintet / Jive At Five – Killer Trumpet Jazz from 1960

More Joe Newman Quintet

  • Jive At Five arrives on the site with killer Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it from start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • This hard to find Prestige Swingville LP is big, spacious, swinging with energy and absolutely jumping out of the speakers
  • 4 stars: “…[this music] is very much in the Count Basie vein. That fact is not too surprising when one considers that the quintet includes three members of Basie’s men: trumpeter Joe Newman, tenor saxophonist Frank Wess and bassist Eddie Jones. Joined by the complementary pianist Tommy Flanagan and drummer Oliver Jackson, Newman and his friends swing their way through four vintage standards and a couple of the leader’s original blues…”
  • Yet Another Record We’ve Discovered with (Potentially) Excellent Sound
  • More of Our Best Jazz Trumpet Recordings

Jive at Five is one of my all-time favorite jazz trumpet albums. This Shootout Winning Prestige reissue might very well turn you into a big fan as well.

I highly recommended this album back in the day. Hearing it now as a much older man, having played thousands of jazz records in the ensuing decades, and thankfully being able to hear it on much better equipment than I had back then, I realize both the music and sound (can’t forget that!) have stood the test of time very well indeed.

This is what a good jazz trumpet album should sound like, miles from the squawky, muted microphone-distorted horn sound so many audiophiles seem to revere. I’m guessing you know who I’m referring to. Miles Davis was surely a genius and a brilliant innovator, but his horn sound starting in the sixties was never as relaxed, smooth and natural as it is on this wonderful Joe Newman Quintet album from 1960.

Joe was one of Basie’s long-time band members, a fiery soloist with an unerring sense of swing. This album ably demonstrates those qualities. The guy is passionate but he never gets lost in his own solos; he keeps the melodies and the swing front and center. (more…)

King Crimson – Lizard

More King Crimson

More Prog Rock

  • Stunning sound throughout for this vintage Island Sunray pressing with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or very close to them
  • Every bit the sonic equal of the first album – if colorful Big Production Jazzy Prog Rock (with mellotron!) is your thing, you can’t go wrong here
  • 4 stars: “Lizard is very consciously jazz-oriented — the influence of Miles Davis (particularly Sketches of Spain) being especially prominent — and very progressive, even compared with the two preceding albums.”

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Let’s Get It On – Our Shootout Winner from 2011

More of the Music of Marvin Gaye

AMAZING SOUND for one of the best soul albums of all time! This is the first Hot Stamper copy of Let’s Get It On to ever hit the site, and it is KILLER on side one, giving you better sound for the classic title track than you probably ever dreamed of! It’s not easy to find clean original copies, and even when you manage to track them down they often don’t sound all that hot. This side one takes the music to a whole new level — the vocals are smooth and sweet, the bottom end is punchy with real weight, and the vocals have the kind of presence that carries them out of the speakers and front and center into your listening room. Let’s get it on indeed!

If you’ve ever sat through a few copies of this album, I’m sure you know how plain the sound can be. We had a big stack of copies (it took us ages to pull so many together) and most of them left us cold. When I’m listening to music this important, I don’t want to miss a thing. I need the sound to fall into place and give me the kind of magic that the artist intended. This side one does EXACTLY that. We heard subtleties in the music that had completely escaped us before. It was a truly special experience to hear this music sound like this, and you’re a fan of this kind of stuff you will be BLOWN AWAY.

Side two is excellent as well, but not quite in a league with the first side. The sound is rich and full with good presence and energy. The transparency and clarity are both wonderful and the vocals sound great. The first side just performs a bit better in the extremes — punchier down low and silkier up top — but it won’t be easy to find a side two much better than this one. (more…)

Gordon Lightfoot – Sundown

More Gordon Lightfoot

More Folk Rock

  • Sundown finally makes its Hot Stamper debut with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish
  • The vocals are exceptionally breathy, smooth and sweet here – this recording is the very definition of Midrange Magic, thanks to the brilliant engineering of Lee Herschberg
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Lightfoot’s commercial peak came with this album, which topped the U.S. charts, containing both the number one title song and the Top Ten hit ‘Carefree Highway.'”

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Rachmaninoff / Piano Concerto No. 2 – Katchen / Solti

More of the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff

  • An outstanding UK reissue pressing of this superb recording with solid Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides
  • I’ve known how good this reissue can sound for more than twenty years – it is guaranteed to beat any and every pressing you have of the work or your money back
  • Big, clear, rich, dynamic, transparent and energetic – HERE is the sound that simply does not exist except in the world of the properly cleaned, properly pressed vintage LP
  • On both of these sides you’ll hear rich strings, clear horns, a piano that is full-bodied and natural, with a solid low end (the kind you rarely hear on record but is nonetheless strikingly obvious in the presence of the real instrument)
  • “Is the pulse even, building in steady crescendo, or do those famous opening measures find some subtle phrase within? Most settle for the former; not so, Katchen and Solti – and that pretty much describes the attitude of these artists in this piece altogether: searching for and finding the phrase within the obvious.”

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War – The World Is A Ghetto

More of the Music of War

More Jazz / Rock Fusion Records with Hot Stampers

  • A STUNNING copy with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it throughout
  • Both of these sides are so open and three-dimensional, with tons of bass and driving rhythmic energy like no other
  • 4 stars: “‘The Cisco Kid’ and ‘The World Is a Ghetto’ understandably dominated the album’s exposure, but there’s much more to enjoy here, even decades on. Beyond the quality of the musicianship, the classy, forward-looking production has held up remarkably well…”

Engineered by the brilliant Chris Huston, this recording displays all his trademark gifts. His mixes feature lots of bass; huge, room-filling choruses that get loud without straining or becoming congested; and rhythmic energy that few pop recordings could lay claim to in 1972.

As for the choruses, allow me to paraphrase another listing, the from Commoner’s Crown.

This is one of the rare pop/rock albums that actually has actual, measurable, serious dynamic contrasts in its levels as it moves from the verses to the choruses of many songs. The first track on side two, Four Cornered Room, is a perfect example. Not only are the choruses noticeably louder than the verses, but later on in the song the choruses get REALLY LOUD, louder than the choruses of 99 out of 100 rock/pop records we audition. It sometimes takes a record like this to open your ears to how compressed practically everything else you own is

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Little Feat – Hoy-Hoy

More Roots Rock LPs

A Well Recorded Album that Should Be More Popular with Audiophiles

  • All four sides earned Double Plus (A++) grades for sound – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Our pick for the best sounding Little Feat album – it’s a monster, and a Must Own for any fan of the band
  • “Filled with live performances, obscurities, album tracks, and a new song apiece from Bill Payne and Paul Barrere, Hoy Hoy is a bit scattered, a bit incoherent, a little bewildering, and wholly delightful — a perfect summation of a group filled with quirks, character, and funk, traits which were as much a blessing as they were a curse.”

This is one of the all time TOP Little Feat albums and a longtime personal favorite, but it takes a pressing like this to bring it to life.

As we said last time around, there is not a rock album on the The Absolute Sound’s Super Disc List that can hold a candle to the real Rock and Roll Power of a pressing such as this. It’s really not fair to judge the Harry’s List by records like this, which have never been the man’s forte. We, on the other hand, know these kinds of records about as well as anyone, and to prove it we would love to send you this copy. The AMAZING sound is guaranteed to blow your mind.

What a Recording!

The recording quality of many of these songs is OUT OF THIS WORLD, as good as any rock record I can think of. Although Waiting For Columbus is arguably the best sounding live rock ‘n roll album ever made, some of the tracks on this album are every bit as good or BETTER. (And the promo EP is practically in a league of its own for sound!)

This is some of the best High-Production-Value rock music of the ’70s. The amount of effort that went into the recording of many of these tracks is comparable to that expended by the engineers and producers of bands like Supertramp, The Who, Jethro Tull, Ambrosia, Pink Floyd and far too many of our favorites to list. It seems that no effort or cost was spared in making the home listening experience as compelling as the recording technology of the day permitted.

The sides that had sound that jumped out of the speakers, with driving rhythmic energy, worked the best for us. They really brought this complex music to life and allowed us to enjoy the hell out of it. This is yet another definition of a Hot Stamper — it’s the copy where the music works as music. (more…)

Country Joe and The Fish – This Reissue Wins Our Shootouts

More Country Joe & The Fish

(not as shown)

  • You’ll find Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it – As Good As It Gets in our experience – on both sides of this copy of the band’s sophomore release
  • The best pressings with this label (you’ll find out when the record arrives!) are the biggest, most open, most clear, and the least compressed, which makes them especially energetic and fun
  • Finding clean copies of Country Joe’s albums is no walk in the park, but here’s one, and it sounds great too
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Country Joe & the Fish’s second album, “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die”, is quite similar to their first in its organ-heavy psychedelia with Eastern-influenced melodic lines…”

Some copies we played had more Tubey Magical sound, but that quality comes at a price. Those pressings tend to be crude, with gritty vocals and a noticeable lack of transparency and space.

In other words, they sound pretty much like an old record.

This pressing, on the other hand, gives you much more of what sounds to me like the Master Tape, with less of the bad mastering equipment and bad vinyl coming between you and the music.

We have added some moderately helpful Title Specific advice at the bottom of the listing for those of you want to find your own Hot Stamper pressing

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With The Beatles – Original Liner Notes

More With The Beatles

Original Liner Notes (!)

Fourteen freshly recorded titles – including many sure-fire stage-show favourites – are featured on the two generously filled sides of this record. The Beatles have repeated the successful formula which made their first ‘Please Please Me’ LP into the fastest-selling album of 1963. Again they have set eight of their own original compositions alongside a batch of personal choice pieces selected from the recording repertoires of the American R&B artists they admire most.

The first half of the session gets away to a rip-roarin’ start with John’s powerful treatment of IT WON’T BE LONG NOW. Two more Lennon/McCartney compositions follow with these two remarkably talented tunesmiths handling their own lyrics on ALL I’VE GOT TO DO and ALL MY LOVING. On the first slower number John takes the vocal lead with Paul supplying the harmony. On ALL MY LOVING Paul stands in the vocal spotlight with John and George chanting in the background. Listen to George’s superb, slightly Country and Western guitar solo, an intriguing feature of ALL MY LOVING.

DON’T BOTHER ME marks the disc debut of George Harrison as a composer. It is a fairly fast number with a haunting theme tune. Behind George’s double-tracked voice the rest of the fabulous foursome create some unusual instrumental effects. Paul beats out a lean, hollow-boned rhythm from the claves, John uses a tambourine and Ringo hits out at a loose-skinned Arabian bongo (don’t ask me where he picked that up!) to pound out the on-beat percussive drive.

On a fair number of previous recordings by The Beatles producer George Martin has joined the group to add suitable piano sounds to their instrumental arrangements. His keyboard contributions come a little later in this new programme but on LITTLE CHILD it is Paul McCartney who plays piano. John and Paul join forces for the vocal on this rocker and, whilst Paul was over-dubbing the piano bits. John was standing beside another microphone adding in some neatly-timed mouth-organ phrases.

Those who considered Paul’s interpretation of A Taste Of Honey to be a stand-out attraction of The Beatles’ first LP will be more than pleased to hear him assume the role of romantic balladeer again on TILL THERE WAS YOU, the near-standard hit from the show ‘The Music Man.’ (more…)

10cc Is Not in Love

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of 10cc Available Now

This was my first 10cc album, and I completely fell in love with it.

Played it all the time back in 1975, on the speakers you see pictured below, or the RTR-280DRs I had before then. Both are big and play loud and that’s what this album and especially this song needs to sound their best.

Une Nuit A Paris, the suite that opens side one, is just an amazing demo track. As you may have read elsewhere on the site, it’s the kind of sound that requires a big powerful stereo to reproduce. Even back in the mid-70s I had speakers as tall as me that weighed 300 pounds apiece (the Fulton J, shown below), so playing a record like this was just a thrill.

It still is. I still love it. And I recommend it highly for those who are fans of the band. If you don’t know who 10cc are, this album and this band will probably make no sense to you, but if you have an open mind and like “art rock” from the ’70s, you might just really get a kick out of this one.

More on the amazing album that this song is found on, The Original Soundtrack.

Further Reading

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