More Contemporary Label Jazz Recordings
- A vintage copy of Pepper’s 1960 release with stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound from first note to last, just shy of our Shootout Winner – remarkably quiet vinyl too
- Our most recent shootout involved 14 pressings, from the Black Label originals to the last of the vintage OJCs (of which there are two versions, neither one making the cut)
- We love the amazingly natural, uncolored, un-hyped sound Roy DuNann and Howard Holzer were able to achieve at Contemporary back in the day
- You will hear, as we did playing this very copy, that there’s simply nothing between you and the musicians
- Note that even the best of the early Black Label pressings are not remotely in the same league as the pressings that win our shootouts
- 4 1/2 stars: “Pepper utilizes Davis’ sidemen on this 1960 near-classic… as usual, Pepper brings something very personal and unique to his playing; he sounds like no one else.”
This album, and this copy in particular, deliver some serious Art Pepper Contemporary Magic. We’re big fans of Pepper and this label, and we love the sound Roy DuNann and Howard Holzer were able to get out of these guys. On the better pressings, such as this one, there’s just nothing between you and the music. You will have a very hard time finding a much better sounding jazz record than either side of this copy, anywhere.
Superb sound from Contemporary — better than just about any other Pepper disc they recorded IMHO. We played a bunch of copies and few can compare to this one.
Pepper is backed by the Miles Davis rhythm section here. Conte Candoli joins Art on trumpet on a few tracks, which turn out to be the best. If you’ve enjoyed some of our Contemporary Hot Stampers in the past, you’re gonna flip out over this one.
For us audiophiles both the sound and the music here are wonderful. If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good 1960 All Tube Analog sound can be, this killer copy will do the trick.
This pressing is super spacious, sweet and positively dripping with ambience. Talk about Tubey Magic, the liquidity of the sound here is positively uncanny. This is vintage analog at its best, so full-bodied and relaxed you’ll wonder how it ever came to be that anyone seriously contemplated trying to improve it.
This is the sound of Tubey Magic. No recordings will ever be made like this again, and no CD will ever capture what is in the grooves of this record. There is of course a CD of this album, but those of us who possess a working turntable and a good collection of vintage vinyl could care less.
What The Best Sides Of Gettin’ Together 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 1960
- 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 space of the studio
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.
What We’re Listening For On Gettin’ Together
- 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 common to most LPs.
- Tight, note-like bass with clear fingering — which ties in with good transient information, as well as 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 players.
- Then: presence and immediacy. The musicians aren’t “back there” somewhere, way behind the speakers. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt — Howard Holzer and Roy DuNann in this case — would have put them.
- Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.
Side One
Whims of Chambers
Bijou the Poodle
Why Are We Afraid?
Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise
Side Two
Rhythm-a-Ning
Diane
Gettin’ Together
AMG 4 1/2 Star Review
As a sort of follow-up to Art Pepper’s matchup with Miles Davis’ trio in the 1957 classic Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section, Pepper utilizes Davis’ sidemen on this 1960 near-classic. In addition to pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb, trumpeter Conte Candoli makes the group a quintet on four of the eight numbers. This time around, rather than emphasizing standards, Pepper performs just three (“Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise,” Thelonious Monk’s “Rhythm-A-Ning,” and “The Way You Look Tonight”) and includes three originals of his own: “Diane,” “Bijou the Poodle,” and “Gettin’ Together.” The music is all very straight-ahead and bop-oriented, but as usual, Pepper brings something very personal and unique to his playing; he sounds like no one else.