More of the Music of Shelly Manne
- An early Contemporary pressing with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on both sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
- Side two was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be amazed at how big and rich and tubey the sound is
- This copy makes it clear that this is a Demo Disc quality recording for Contemporary, and that’s saying a lot
- It’s also our favorite jazz piano performance by Andre Previn on record
- Only a handful of copies of this title have made it on the site in the last few years – finding them in audiophile condition is getting harder (and more expensive) than ever these days
- “Previn’s piano is the lead voice and his virtuosity, good taste, melodic improvising, and solid sense of swing are chiefly responsible for the music’s success.”
I have a very long history with this album, going back decades. My friend Robert Pincus first turned me on to the CD, which, happily for all concerned, was mastered beautifully. We used it to test and tweak all the stereos in my friends’ systems.
Playing the original stereo record, which I assumed must never have been reissued due to its rarity (I have since learned otherwise), all I could hear on my ’90s all tube system was blurred mids, lack of transient attack, sloppy bass, lack of space and transparency, and other shortcomings too numerous to mention that I simply attributed at the time to vintage jazz vinyl.
Well, things have certainly changed. I have virtually none of the equipment I had back then, and I hear none of the problems with this copy that I heard back then on pressing I owned. This is clearly a different LP (I sold off the old one years ago) but I have to think that much of the change in the sound was a change in cleaning, equipment, tweaks and room treatments, all the stuff we prattle on about endlessly on the site.
In other words, if you have a highly-resolving modern system and a good room, you should be knocked out by the sound of this record. I sure was.
What The Best Sides Of Bells Are Ringing 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 1959
- 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.
Tambourine and Piano
The piano sounds lifelike right from the start, a beautiful instrument in a natural space, tonally correct from top to bottom. I can’t think of any recording off the top of my head that gets a better piano sound than this one.
Listen to the tambourine on the third track on side one. Shelly Manne messes about with lots of percussion instruments on this album and all of them are recorded to perfection.
Players and Personnel
- Bass – Red Mitchell
- Composed By – Jule Styne
- Drums – Shelly Manne
- Piano – André Previn
- Producer, Liner Notes – Lester Koenig
- Recorded By – Howard Holzer, Roy DuNann
Side One
I Met a Girl
Just in Time
Independent (On My Own)
The Party’s Over (Ballad Version)
It’s a Perfect Relationship
Side Two
Is It a Crime?
Better Than a Dream
Mu-Cha-Cha
Long Before I Knew You
The Party’s Over (Up-Tempo Version)
AMG Review
When Shelly Manne and His Friends (a trio starring pianist André Previn) had a surprise hit with their interpretations of melodies from My Fair Lady, it started a trend toward recording jazz versions of scores from plays.
For this LP, Manne’s trio (with Previn and bassist Red Mitchell) perform nine songs from the play Bells Are Ringing. Although seven of the pieces remained obscure, “The Party’s Over” (which is heard twice) and particularly “Just in Time” caught on.
As is always the case with this group, Previn’s piano is the lead voice and his virtuosity, good taste, melodic improvising, and solid sense of swing are chiefly responsible for the music’s success.
Further Reading