UPDATE 2025
Turns out the Black Label early pressings actually are the best sounding. In 2025 we discovered we were wrong when we said we were wrong back in 2015.
And as far as we can tell, unlike anyone reviewing records for audiophiles writing (or speaking) these days, we have no problem admitting to it. Admitting to our mistakes is significant for many reasons, but the two that immediately come to mind are these:
- It is a hallmark of progress in audio. Assuming your new findings are true, you are better at your job than you used to be.
- More importantly, it is the secret of our success. How can you learn anything when you already know it all?
We write about how regular shootouts are and always will be the best way to improve the sound quality of your collection.
What we don’t say much about is how any music-loving audiophile could ever find the time to do this work. Where would the time come from to do multiple shootouts over many years, or the time to find the records, or the money it takes to buy them these days, when ever record ever pressed seems to command a collector price.
God knows we’re no angels in this regard. We do it for the simple reason that it’s our job to do shootouts year in and year out for the same records again and again. There will never be a time when everyone who wants a better sounding Abbey Road already has a good-enough sounding Abbey Road. The best copies are never short of buyers. The prices may change but the demand only goes in one direction: up.
We are not in the position of having a choice and choosing to do the right thing.
Applying the lesson of Adam Smith’s invisible hand, we are set up to do what needs to be done in order to run a business devoted to pleasing our customers. Millions of other business owners could say exactly the same. If for some reason their businesses aren’t set up properly, or run properly, or don’t offer goods at a price their customers are willing to pay, as day folllows night they will surely not be in business for long.
The difference is that by doing right by the business we are in, selling superior sounding vintage pressings to audiophiles at premium prices, we learn things about records that others not running a business can possibly know. Not at the same scale at least. Having a full-time staff whose job is to clean and play records practically guarantees that we will learn more about records than any single person or group of persons not involved in an actual business could possibly know.
All of which guarantees that we have our bad ideas overturned by better ones from time to time, as was the case with Songs I Like to Sing, twice.
By 2025 it turned out that there was still more to the story of the album than we had understood back in 2015. With ten years’ worth of progress in audio, sometimes the best pressings and the runners-up will end up switching places, which is all to the good if what you care about is not so much being right, but being able to hear music with ever higher fidelity.
UPDATE 2015
The review below is from many, many years ago. These days the Black Label pressings are not competitive with the reissues we offer. Live and learn, right?
Our Old Review
This Contemporary Black Label Original LP has AMAZING SOUND ON BOTH SIDES! It has that classic tube-mastered sound — warmer, smoother, and sweeter than the later pressings, with more breath of life.
Overall the sound is well-balanced and tonally correct from top to bottom, which is rare for a black label Contemporary, as they are usually dull and bass-heavy.
I won’t buy them locally anymore unless they can be returned. I’ve got a box full of Contemporarys with bloated bass and no top end that I don’t know what to do with! Like most mediocre-to-bad sounding records around here, they just sit in a box taking up space. All our time and effort goes into putting good pressings on the site and in the emailings. It’s hard to get motivated to do anything with the leftovers. We paid plenty for them, so we don’t want to give them away. But they don’t sound good, so our customers won’t buy them. What to do, what to do? Ebay I guess, but that’s a long way down the road. It’s too more fun doing listings for good records these days to want to stop now. The average record is just average, and nothing is ever going to change that.
We shot this out against a variety of later pressings. The Black Label copies have a bit of echo added to the vocals and have the attributes listed above — warmth, sweetness, presence, and immediacy. The later pressings offer superior clarity and resolution. I wouldn’t say one is necessarily better than the other; it’s really a matter of taste.
This is one of my all time favorite jazz vocal albums. Marty Paich did the arrangements for this group of top musicians, which includes Art Pepper, Ben Webster, Barney Kessel, Shelly Manne, Jack Sheldon and Leroy Vinegar, just to name the ones whose work I know well.
This is my favorite Big Band Vocal album ever. It belongs in any serious record collection.
After years of playing and enjoying various pressings of this album, I made quite an enlightening discovery — the OJC pressing of this record was never remastered by the OJC people, but instead was a real Contemporary label mastering job. Now I know why the OJC of this record sounds so good.
Sometimes the OJC versions of Contemporary Records are excellent. Those tend to be the ones we sell. But most of the time the pressings that were mastered and put out by Contemporary in the mid ’70s until they were bought by Fantasy are superior.
Bernie Grundman was cutting a lot of records for Contemporary in those days. He was doing a great job because those are some wonderful sounding records.
Further Reading
- What makes you guys think you know it all?
- Discovering even better pressings is the most rewarding part of our job
- These are just some of the reasons you must do your own shootouts if you want better sound