More of the Music of Al Kooper

More of the Music of Michael Bloomfield

Please excuse the copying and pasting from previous listings. When records are this good, we tend to say the same things about them, because they are doing all the things we want them to do.

From time to time a record comes our way that sounds absolutely amazing, “Way better than it used to sound” amazing. Progress in audio is a feature, not a bug, of record collecting and music reproduction at the most advanced levels.

If it’s the kind of record that sounds like the best copy of The Live Adventures of Bloomfield and Kooper from our most recent shootout, we might even let our enthusiasm for its superb fidelity get the better of us. That’s the effect a record as good as the copy we played can have. You just can’t stop yourself from saying one great thing after another about it.

Our over-the-top notes, like those you see below, attempt to convey what it’s like to experience the superb sound we were hearing.

But where is the harm in that? These are notes that no one outside of the staff are ever expected to see. They are helpful to us in writing our commentary and pricing the specific copy we auditioned, but they are practically never quoted in the listings.

The Live Adventures of Bloomfield and Kooper is an example of one of those recordings that comes along from time to time in order to show us sound that we’d almost forgotten was possible.

Oh yes, with the rare properly-cleaned, properly-mastered, properly-pressed vintage vinyl LP, played back on top quality equipment in a heavily treated, dedicated soundroom, we can assure you it is very possible indeed. Allow us to make the case with the Shootout Winning original pressing you see below.

The notes for side one read: 

• Big, Tubey and jumping out
• Breathy vocals
• Deep, sustained bass

Side two:

• Spacious
• Glowing and rich drums are weighty and 3-D
• No congestion
• Extending high and low
• Silky and present vocals

Side three:

• Weighty and rich
• No hardness
• Extending high and low

Side four:

• Rich and ? and space
• More dynamic and 3-D
• All around good weight

You know what’s unusual about these notes?

They’re the kind of notes we have never written for any Heavy Vinyl reissue, even for the one that won our shootout not long ago.

They are the kind of notes that make it clear to us what a sham the modern Heavy Vinyl pressing tends to be, even those that are done right.

No modern record we’ve ever played has ever had anything even approaching this kind of Big As Life sound, and we doubt one ever will.

Surprisingly, many of the most thrilling records we’ve ever played came from the same decade this record came from: the 60s.

Once you hear sound like this, you are not likely to forget it.

It sets a standard that the modern remastered record simply cannot meet.

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