More Joao Gilberto
More Bossa Nova
- This vintage Atlantic stereo pressing boasts outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last – exceptionally QUIET vinyl too
- It’s big, lively, clear and present, with the kind of Tubey Magical richness we flip out for here at Better Records
- A difficult record to find with audiophile playing surfaces – we go years without seeing a clean copy in stereo
- Side two has the best condition grade we give out, Mint Minus – there may not be another record on the site with vinyl that quiet!
- “The two make an effective team, with Gilberto’s sometimes sentimental, sometimes impressionistic works effectively supported by Mann’s lithe flute solos.”
This vintage Atlantic pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely 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 Herbie Mann & Joao Gilberto With Antonio Carlos Jobim 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 1965
- 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 studio space
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.
What We’re Listening For On Herbie Mann & Joao Gilberto With Antonio Carlos Jobim
- 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 so common to these LPs.
- Tight, full-bodied bass — which ties in with good transient information, also 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 instruments.
- Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.
Vinyl Condition
Mint Minus Minus is about as quiet as any vintage pressing will play, and since only the right vintage pressings have any hope of sounding good on this album, that will most often be the playing condition of the copies we sell. (The copies that are even a bit noisier get listed on the site are seriously reduced prices or traded back in to the local record stores we shop at.)
Those of you looking for quiet vinyl will have to settle for the sound of other pressings and Heavy Vinyl reissues, purchased elsewhere of course as we have no interest in selling records that don’t have the vintage analog magic of these wonderful recordings.
If you want to make the trade-off between bad sound and quiet surfaces with whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing might be available, well, that’s certainly your prerogative, but we can’t imagine losing what’s good about this music — the size, the energy, the presence, the clarity, the weight — just to hear it with less background noise.
This record has the potential to sound its best on the right early pressing. Here are hundreds of others:
This record sounds best in stereo, not mono. Here are hundreds of others we prefer in stereo:
TRACK LISTING
Side One
Herbie Mann– Amor Em Paz
João Gilberto– Desafinado
João Gilberto– Bolinha De Papel
Herbie Mann– Insensatez
João Gilberto– Maria Ninguém
João Gilberto– O Barquinho
Side Two
João Gilberto– Samba De Minha Terra
João Gilberto– Rosa Morena
Herbie Mann– Consolação
Herbie Mann– One Note Samba (Vocals – Antonio Carlos Jobim)
João Gilberto– Bim Bom
Herbie Mann– Deve Ser Amor (Guitar – Baden Powell)
AMG Review
Nice, more light than emphatic Afro-Latin and jazz mixture by flutist Herbie Mann and composer/vocalist Joao Gilberto. The two make an effective team, with Gilberto’s sometimes sentimental, sometimes impressionistic works effectively supported by Mann’s lithe flute solos.