Hot Stamper Pressing of the Music of Ry Cooder Available Now
The best copies realistically convey the live in the studio quality of the sound. This is a tight ensemble working at the top of their game, no surprise there — Ry surrounds himself with nothing but the best.
But the better copies have such amazingly transparent sound you can’t help feeling as though you really are in the presence of live human beings. You really get the sense of actual fingers plucking those guitar strings. You hear mouths blowing air through horns and woodwinds.
These are sounds that most recordings pretend to capture, and like hypnotist’s subjects, we go along for the ride. This recording has the potential to actually bring forth that living, breathing musician sound, no imagination required.
As is sometimes the case, there is one and only one set of stampers that consistently wins our shootouts for this album. Click on this link to see other titles with one set of stamper numbers that always come out on top
Exotic Instrumentation
The instrumentation here goes far beyond your average rock or jazz record. However, rounding up a panoply of relatively exotic instruments for an album in and of itself doesn’t make a project especially noteworthy. It’s been done.
Thankfully Cooder’s up to more than that. Using an ensemble of seriously talented musicians, as well as studio engineers who really understand how to capture the qualities of these disparate instruments, with Jazz, Ry Cooder succeeds in giving the audiophile public a full course spread of new and unusual sounds, all the while staying true to the popular songs from days gone by he knows so well.
Case in point: check out the mandobanjo on “Face To Face That I Shall Meet Him,” handled superbly by the one and only David Lindley, a man who has played practically every stringed instrument ever invented. That’s a sound you don’t hear every day.
Tuba — Ya Gotta Love It!
On the same track the listener is treated to a wonderful sounding tuba (one of the toughest instruments to record, by the way) handling a sizable portion of the rhythmic chores. It’s punchy, huge, and powerful, yet it manages to add uniquely subtle shadings to the mix, never for a moment calling attention to itself. These instrumental choices are not evidence of Ry Cooder showing off his legendary musical knowledge.
This is the authentic Ry Cooder, using his musical knowledge to bring these songs back to life for an audience that barely knew they existed in the first place.
Further Reading
- Basic concepts every music lover should understand
- Playback accuracy is key to helping you find better records
- Robert Brook has lots of good advice for dedicated audiophiles
