More of the Music of Stan Getz /More of the Music of Gerry Mulligan
This is an album that we were probably wrong about in 2021 when the following Hot Stamper two-pak pressing went up for sale on the site. (The pressings we liked at the time are long gone by now.) Here is what we wrote back then:
Mulligan and Getz’s 1957 collaboration arrives on the site with this superb 2-pack offering Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound on both sides – just shy of our Shootout Winner
Full, rich, and spacious with tons of Tubey Magic and, better yet, not the least bit dry, hard or transistory
Practically impossible to find in stereo with audiophile playing surfaces – it took two different pressings to get two good sides, and they are very good indeed
The reissues we discovered in 2025 trounced the originals (in both stereo and mono) as well as the early reissues (on the Verve T Label) we played in our shootout, as you can see from the stamper sheet notes below:
Our mistaken judgment is simply the result of ignorance. In 2021 we simply had no idea just how good this recording could sound on vintage vinyl. We hadn’t done our homework properly, and because of that we came up with the wrong answer.
We only discovered the right pressings, with the right stampers, pressed in the right era, and mastered by the right guy, sometime in 2024 or so. We bought a bunch of those and in 2025 did the shootout with all kinds of copies, just to keep everybody honest.
That was the year much better sounding reissue copies that look like the one you see on the left came along. As we noted in the listing:
- Leave it to Better Records to figure out a complicated title with a long history such as this one – originals, reissues, monos, stereos, we had to play them all to find a copy that sounds as good as this one does.
- Full, rich, and spacious with an abundance of Tubey Magic and, better yet, not the least bit dry, hard or transistory.
Some quick notes:
Bowtie Label Stereo
- Veiled and dry
- Tons of reverb
- 1.5+ at best (a good, not great Hot Stamper grade)
Our understanding is that Steve Hoffman chose to use the mono tapes as the source material for his DCC Gold CD because he felt there was too much reverb on the stereo tape. We heard too much reverb too.
What tapes our wonderful sounding reissues are made from we have no way of knowing. They do not suffer from too much reverb, that much we can tell you. The best pressings we offer sound great, and quite a bit better than any Gold CD will. However, if money is tight, the Gold CD is not a bad way to go for this music.
T Label Stereo
- Dry, some squawk
- 1+, what we would call passable sound
Mono Early Pressings
- Rich but hot horns
- 1.5+ at best
Lessons Learned
In this case, the conventional wisdom that the stereo originals would be the best sounding turned out to be incorrect.
Our lengthy commentary about conventional wisdom seeks to make the case that, although the most common record collecting approaches are more often right than wrong, there is simply no way to know what approach — original versus reissue, import versus domestic, mono versus stereo — will work the best for any given title.
Rather than post one exception after another — easily done, since we know of hundreds of them — we are happy to admit that the standard record collecting rules of thumb work well for most records, with the definition of “most” being “more than half the time.”
That leaves a lot of room for misses, and if those misses happen to be favorite albums of yours, tough luck. Unless…
Unless you learn how to test records properly.
Fortunately for readers of this blog, the methods you need to know are explained in full, free of charge.
Owning the highest quality pressings of your favorite music requires that you make a serious commitment of time and money.
If you really want to find great sounding pressings, you will have to do the kind of work we do, and that means buying, cleaning, playing and evaluating a big batch of copies of the same album.
It may be expensive and a huge amount of work, but our experience tells us there is simply no other way to do it.
The Players
- Gerry Mulligan – baritone saxophone, tenor saxophone
- Stan Getz – tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone
- Lou Levy – piano
- Ray Brown – bass
- Stan Levey – drums
Amazon 5 Star Rave Review
Just as Stan Getz and Gerry Mulligan have enjoyed another terrific and truly rewarding year in 1957, they decided to take time to record a highly anticipated duet album for the Verve production label under the bold guidance of producer- impresario Norman Granz as they prepared for what would be highly described as “A Getz-Mulligan Meeting”.
Produced by Granz, Getz And Mulligan In Hi-Fi captures the two saxophone giants as they showcase a world class duet which provided them with a superb rhythm section featuring Lou Levy, proud member of The Stan Getz Quartet at the piano who play with impeccable style and well- conceived ideas that swing with unique vitality, while Ray Brown’s bass solidify the combo’s edge.
– RH