Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Bill Evans Available Now

During our most recent shootout for Waltz for Debby, we took the opportunity to play the early OJC that first came out in the 80s. We found the OJC pressings with the stampers identified below had good, not great sound.

I remember playing the Analogue Productions version from 1992, mastered by Doug Sax, and being shocked at how overly rich, murky, thick and unnatural it sounded. I knew the AP Way Out West was bad. Was every title that Analogue Productions remastered going to sound like it was being played by 50’s JBL speakers powered by Mac 30s?

This was the sound audiophiles had always wanted? This was the sound that made them think they were listening to the master tape? (To prove that bad ideas never die — that sooner or later they return in a different guise — there is a Mr. Hutchison who makes records that sound very similar to those Chad was making in the early 90s. The more things change…)

Back to the OJC of Waltz for Debby. A local fellow who had requested my 1990s catalog, the one in which I say the OJCs just kill the new AP Heavy Vinyl pressings, came over and bought some OJCs, the ones I thought sounded very good, which were the only ones we carried. They were all of  ten bucks each.

He promptly went home, played them and called me to tell me just how awful his AP vinyl of the album sounded and how much better his OJC was in comparison, at less than half the price. I’m sure I said something along the lines of “Tell me something I don’t know!” My credibility established beyond all doubt, he and I soon became fast friends.

I never reviewed the Waltz for Debby on AP, but I wrote reviews for three other AP titles: Way Out West, Chet, and Jazz Giant. Spoiler alert: I thought all three were unbelievably awful.

The G1A/B1 OJC pressing we played suffered these problems:

• It’s opaque but not too opaque
• It’s small and a bit dull

The A1/B1 was:

• Small and veiled
• A bit opaque

Keep in mind that the person judging the records did not know what pressing was playing. Bottom line: you could do worse, but you sure could do a whole lot better.

Here is how we described a recent Hot Stamper pressing:

• Exceptionally spacious and three-dimensional, as well as relaxed and full-bodied.
• This is not an original (those are terrible sounding), not a later reissue (also bad), and not the original OJC (which is decent on the best copies that have been cleaned – probably no better than passable otherwise).
• No, this is a modern pressing that — finally! — has the sound we have been trying to find for the album for more than twenty years.
• Normally this is information we might not choose to share, as anyone can buy a modern OJC, but the fact that so many different OJC versions exist — I counted six different pressings with the catalog number OJC-210 — means you probably would spend a lot more money finding a good sounding OJC pressing than the price we are charging.
• However, if you do find a great sounding OJC, be sure to drop us a line and let us know that stamper numbers — we would be curious to know if anyone was actually able to succeed with such an effort.
• If you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of this wonderful session from 1961, recorded live at the Village Vanguard in New York, our Hot Stamper pressings will let you do that.