Hot Stamper Pressings of Pop and Jazz Vocals Available Now
UPDATE 2026
This review was written in the 90s when the record came out. At the time we liked it and were happy to sell it. The originals and early pressings are almost impossible to find in audiophile playing condition — we know, we’ve tried — so this is probably one of those rare situations in which we recommend a Heavy Vinyl pressing as the best available option, all things considered.
I think that is the first time I have ever written such a sentence. We have more than seventy others we recommend, assuming you can find them for cheap. Whatever you do, do not ever pay premium or collector prices for any Heavy Vinyl pressing. They almost all fall well short of the standards set by the best vintage LPs.
We know of two that are competitive with the best of the best. Two out of the more than four hundred we’ve played. When it comes to the modern remastered LP, the odds are stacked against you.
Sonic Grade: B
A TOP TITLE from Speakers Corner on 180 gram. This is an outstanding Sarah Vaughan album with very good sound and top players like Clifford Brown on trumpet, Paul Quinichette on tenor sax and Herbie Mann on flute.
We haven’t played a copy of this record in years, but back in the day we liked it, so let’s call it a “B” with the caveat that the older the review, the more likely we are to have changed our minds.
The Jazz World, instrumentally and vocally, may be said to be split into two camps. There are the followers and the followed; the imitators and the inimitable. True, there are many who have managed to graduate out of the first class into the second (didn’t Dizzy Gillespie once sound just like Roy Eldridge?), but in the case of Sarah Vaughan it can safely be assumed that this talent has been sui generis from the very beginning; that the Newark neighbors who heard her first infant cries in 1924 could tell immediately when it was Vaughan who was wailing.
It is doubtful whether anyone, including Sarah herself, is likely to be able to find any more completely satisfying representation of her work, or any more appropriate musical setting, than are offered in this LP. These sides are sure to rank among the foremost achievements of her decade as a recording artist.
from the original liner notes
TRACK LISTING
Lullaby of Birdland
April in Paris
He’s My Guy
Jim
You’re Not The Kind
Embraceable You
I’m Glad There Is You
September Song
It’s Crazy
Lullaby Of Birdland
Further Reading
- Record collecting for audiophiles from A to Z
- A sample of the astonishingly bad sounding Heavy Vinyl pressings we’ve played since 2024
- Saving the world from bad sound? Or producing product for the mid-fi record collector market?