More Donald Byrd
- Two rare Donald Byrd albums in one, here with superb Double Plus (A++) grades on all FOUR sides
- The Tubey Magic is fully intact, making these two albums sound just the way a pair of classic All Tube 1956 Rudy Van Gelder jazz albums should
- Composed of two superb LPs – 2 Trumpets and The Young Bloods – these wonderful MONO pressings capture some of Byrd’s best music and with top quality sound
- “Art and Donald are in fine form, and if there is any competition it serves only to increase the musical yield.”
- “… These blowing sessions (typical of Prestige’s albums of the 1950s) have their enjoyable moments with Farmer and Woods taking overall solo honors.”
This reissue is spacious, open, transparent, rich and sweet. It’s yet another remarkable disc from the Golden Age of Vacuum Tube Recording Technology, with the added benefit of mastering using the more modern cutting equipment of the ’70s in this case. We are of course here referring to the good modern mastering of 40+ years ago, not the generally opaque, veiled and lifeless mastering so common today.
The combination of old and new works wonders on this title as you will surely hear for yourself on both of these superb sides.
We were impressed with the fact that these pressings excel in so many areas of reproduction. What was odd about it — odd to most audiophiles but not necessarily to us — was just how rich and Tubey Magical the reissue can be on the right pressing.
This leads me to think that most of the natural, full-bodied, lively, clear, rich sound of the recording was still on the tape decades later, and that all that was needed to get that vintage sound on to a record was simply to thread up the tape on the right machine and hit play.
The fact that practically nobody seems to be able to make a record nowadays that sounds remotely this good tells me that I’m wrong to think that such an approach tends to work, if our experience with hundreds of mediocre Heavy Vinyl reissues is relevant.
What the Best Sides of House of Byrd 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 1956
- 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.
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 House of Byrd
- 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 punchy 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.
The Players
Sides One and Two
- Trumpet – Art Farmer, Donald Byrd
- Alto Saxophone – Jackie McLean
- Bass – Doug Watkins
- Drums – Arthur Taylor
- Piano – Barry Harris
Sides Three and Four
- Trumpet – Donald Byrd
- Alto Saxophone – Phil Woods
- Bass – Teddy Kotick
- Drums – Charlie Persip
- Piano – Al Haig
Side One
Round Midnight
Dig
Side Two
The Third
Contour
When Your Lover Has Gone
Side Three
Dewey Square
Dupeltook
Once More
Side Four
House of Chan
In Walked George
Lover Man
AMG Review for House of Byrd
This two-LP set combines together the music from Two Trumpets and The Young Bloods. The former session has both Donald Byrd and Art Farmer on trumpets in a sextet with altoist Jackie McLean and pianist Barry Harris.
…These blowing sessions (typical of Prestige’s albums of the 1950s) have their enjoyable moments with Farmer and Woods taking overall solo honors.
Rave Review for Two Trumpets
Art and Donald are in fine form, and if there is any competition it serves only to increase the musical yield. Jackie Mclean adds just the right note of astringency and variety of tone. Barrie Harris provides solid foundations for the improvisations while Doug Watkins and Art Taylor maintain impeccable pace. An excellent bop session and two trumpets is just the right number when its Farmer and Byrd.
-londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com
4 Star AMG Review for The Young Bloods
For this early hard bop date, altoist Phil Woods and trumpeter Donald Byrd were co-leaders. In fact, the music had at one point earlier on been released with Byrd getting first billing.
Since the spirited altoist contributed four of the six tunes (including “House of Chan” and “In Walked George”) and consistently takes solo honors, it is only right that the date finally appeared under Woods’ name. With pianist Al Haig(who did not record that extensively during this period), bassist Teddy Kotick, and drummer Charlie Persip offering stimulating accompaniment, this is an easily recommended release (despite its brief LP length) for straight-ahead jazz collectors.