Jazz Collection

Here are more than 100 well recorded jazz albums which should be part of any audiophile’s jazz collection.

John Coltrane / Coltrane Plays the Blues – Our Shootout Winner from 2009

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ONE OF THE VERY BEST COPIES WE’VE EVER HEARD of this phenomenal album! This is PURE GOLD for the jazz-loving audiophile. I can count the number of jazz records we’ve played this year in a league with this one both sonically and musically on one hand. Both sides here are AMAZINGLY GOOD — exceptionally rich and full-bodied with superb transparency. Coltrane’s sax sounds OUT OF THIS WORLD with the lots of that airy, breathy quality that we just love here. The immediacy is OFF THE CHARTS!

We finally found enough clean copies of this album to do a proper shootout, and this Atlantic ’70s era copy blew us away with TWO SUPERB SIDES. The only time we’ve heard better sound for this album was on a flukish original — nearly every early pressing suffers badly from tubby bass, grain and smearing, so this copy should beat the pants off of most of ’em. Most of these later pressings are pretty bad too; it takes a LOT of copies to find one that’s nearly as good as this one. That’s why it has been two full years since you’ve seen a Hot Stamper copy hit the site!

The overall sound is open and spacious with lots of ambience and room around the instruments. The piano sounds Right On The Money with lots of weight, allowing you to really appreciate the percussive qualities of the instrument. We heard far more dynamics on this copy than elsewhere, which really conveys a sense of the group’s emotional performance. The bass is punchy and well-defined, the saxes have clear leading edge transients, and the drums sound just right. Coltrane fans are going to flip out over this one — guaranteed.

The very best originals might be just a bit better, but you’d have to pick up a ton of them to find a great one and that would set you back a whole lotta dough. We’ve played a ton of early pressings and found exactly one killer copy to date.

The typical Red and Green label pressing of this album lacks a measure of life and energy, not to mention some extension on the top end. The older Green and Blue label copies tend to be a bit smeared and lack some of the body of the later reissues. The reason this copy has such transparency and such an extended top end compared to other copies is obviously due, to some degree, to better cutting equipment.

I’ve NEVER heard a better recorded John Coltrane album in my life.

Not only that, but the music is every bit as good as the sound. Not only is Coltrane really playing his heart out, but the band is every bit as amazing, with very strong contributions from McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums, and Steve Davis on bass.

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John Coltrane / Blue Train – Our Shootout Winner from 2011

This Blue Note pressing has THE BEST SIDE TWO we’ve ever heard or expect to hear! It does EVERYTHING right, giving you the kind of Blue Train sound that most jazz fans have dreamed of forever but certainly have never heard before. The sound is absolutely KILLER, sounding dramatically more like live music than any copy we’ve played. It’s full-bodied and rich with tons of energy, YOU ARE THERE immediacy and wonderful clarity. There’s also a ton of tubey magic and an unbelievably strong bottom end, making this the kind of record that’s going to BLOW YOU AWAY. I bet you never believed Blue Train could sound like this — heck, we sure didn’t! (more…)

Miles Davis – Birth of the Cool

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More of Our Best Jazz Trumpet Recordings

  • An incredible pressing of this Groundbreaking Jazz Classic, with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on the first side and Double Plus (A++) on the second
  • This vintage mono pressing will show you just how well-recorded these 1949-50 sessions were 
  • It’s the records they made from these tapes (more often from the dubs of them) that have given everybody the wrong idea about these wonderful sounding recordings
  • 5 stars: “So dubbed because these three sessions are where the sound known as cool jazz essentially formed, Birth of the Cool remains one of the defining, pivotal moments in jazz. This is where the elasticity of bop was married with skillful, big-band arrangements and a relaxed, subdued mood that made it all seem easy, even at its most intricate.”

If for any reason you are not happy with the sound or condition of the album we are of course happy to take it back for a full refund, including the domestic return postage.

We’ve been trying to find copies of this classic music from 1949-1950 that really delivered the audiophile goods, but it took us years to track down the right pressings from the right era with the right stampers. We went through Monos, Stereos, Originals, Reissues of every kind… basically everything we could get our hands on.

It sure wasn’t easy and it sure wasn’t cheap, but after about ten years of digging we’re pretty sure we’ve got The Birth of the Cool’s number. This copy is proof positive. We guarantee you have never heard a version of this music that sounds remotely as good as this very record. (more…)

Oscar Peterson – We Get Requests

This is the way it must have sounded inside the RCA Studios in New York way back in 1964, not the club shown on the cover. The legendary RCA engineer Bob Simpson was behind the board. 

If you have full-range speakers one of the qualities you may recognize in the sound of the piano is WARMTH. The piano is not hard, brittle or tinkly. It’s more like a real piano and less like a recorded one. This is what good “live” recordings tend to do well. There isn’t time to mess with the sound. Often the mix is live, so messing around after the fact is just not an option.

Bad mastering can ruin the sound, and often does, along with worn out stampers and bad vinyl and five gram needles that scrape off the high frequencies. But a few — far too few — copies survive all such hazards. They manage to capture these wonderful musical performances on their molecules of vinyl, showing us a sound we never expected. 

Both Sides

Right away you hear a solid, full-bodied piano and snare drum, a sure sign of great sound to come. These sides were simply richer and fuller than the other copies we played. That rich tonality is key to getting the music to work, to allow all the instrumental elements to balance. The natural top doesn’t hurt either.

Great space and immediacy, powerful driving energy — these sides were up there with the best Peterson albums we played.

The sound was jumpin’ out of the speakers. There was not a trace of smear on the piano, which is unusual in our experience, although no one ever seems to talk about smeary pianos in the audiophile world (except for us of course).

Ray Brown’s bass is huge. With an extended top end the space of the studio and harmonics of the instruments are reproduced correctly.

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Sonny Rollins & Coleman Hawkins – Sonny Meets Hawk – Great in Mono

WONDERFUL SOUND AND MUSIC! It is ridiculously tough to find copies of this album with good sound and quiet surfaces, but this pressing is a MONSTER. We’re generally not big fans of Mono recordings, but for this music it is really doing the job. It gives you mindblowing presence to the brass and real weight to the bottom end. 

Side one is KILLER. I don’t know what you could do to this music to make it sound any better than it does here. It’s super transparent with BIG TIME immediacy. The brass is rich and full with lots of breath, and the bass is DEEP and TIGHT. Listen to how silky sweet the top end sounds; the cymbals are Right On The Money.

Side two is excellent as well, but lacks a slight degree of extension up top. The presence and immediacy are EXCELLENT. (more…)

Lee Morgan – The Rumproller

No copy we played against it nor any copy we can remember ever hearing sounded any better to us. Both musically and sonically, this is Blue Note at its best!  

There’s LIFE and PRESENCE the likes of which you almost never hear on ANY jazz record. The sound is rich and full, from the extended top end all the way down to the deepest bass.

The trumpet on this album is NEAR PERFECTION! It sounds just right to us — tonally correct with lots of texture and wonderful leading edge transients. The drums, played superbly by Billy Higgins, sound amazing as well. Just listen to the ride cymbal to hear how extended the top end is. The bottom end is Right On The Money as well — deep, punchy, and well-defined. (more…)

Sonny Rollins & Coleman Hawkins – Sonny Meets Hawk

  • With a Triple Plus (A+++) shootout winning side one and a Double Plus (A++) side two, this copy is practically as good as it gets
  • Exceptionally big, rich and Tubey Magical, here is the natural tonality that’s a hallmark of Living Stereo in 1963
  • Amazing music from two saxophone masters on one of the most exciting jazz records we’ve heard in some time
  • 4 stars: “Coleman Hawkins and Sonny Rollins each virtually defined the tenor saxophone for his respective generation. To hear the two of them interacting freely is a deliciously exciting experience. Hawkins is able to cut loose like never before. “

For us audiophiles both the sound and the music here are enchanting. If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good 1963 All Tube Analog sound can be, this copy will do the trick. (more…)

Milt Jackson – Plenty, Plenty Soul

  • An outstanding vintage stereo pressing with Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Forget whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of this wonderful session from 1957, this is the way to go
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The first side of Plenty, Plenty Soul, which features a nine-piece group, is highlighted by the contributions of the exuberant altoist Cannonball Adderley, while the flip side has a sextet that is not hurt by the solos of tenor-saxophonist Lucky Thompson. With pianist Horace Silver helping out on both sessions, these all-star dates still sound fresh and enthusiastic decades later.”

This vintage Atlantic stereo pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound. (more…)

Sonny Rollins – Rollins Plays For Bird

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Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings by Rudy Van Gelder

  • Stunning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it throughout – this is the first copy to hit the site in many years and it is as good a pressing as we have ever heard
  • These Blue Label Prestige stereo pressings from the ’60s put everything else we played to shame – this is the Real Sound of Sonny Rollins at his peak in 1957
  • It’s beyond difficult to find good sound for the music of Charlie Parker, but this Sonny Rollins Hot Stamper LP gives you just that for some of Bird’s most famous tunes, backed with excellent performances from the likes of Kenny Dorham and Max Roach

This album is Rollins at his BEST. Allmusic gives it Four Stars and the Users rate it even higher, Four and a Half. The album released before this one was the legendary Saxophone Colossus, an album we would love to do more shootouts for, if we could only find them.

When the sound is as good as it is here, that’s the kind of jazz record that makes us sit up and pay attention. This quintet features trumpeter Kenny Dorham, pianist Wade Legge, bassist George Morrow and drummer Max Roach.

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Chet Baker, Art Pepper, Phil Urso / Picture Of Heath – A Killer Copy from 2005

This is an exceptionally nice original Pacific Jazz Black Label Mono LP with SUPERB SOUND. Pure Pleasure just did a 180g reissue of this album, but the real thing is THE REAL THING! This copy has the PRESENCE, the DYNAMICS and the LIFE of real jazz. I can’t think of a more fun west coast jazz session that sounds as good outside of the best Contemporary records. This one gets a top recommendation. 

This is an older jazz review.

Most of the older reviews you see are for records that did not go through the shootout process, the revolutionary approach to finding better sounding pressings we developed in the early 2000s and have since turned into a fine art.

We found the records you see in these older listings by cleaning and playing a pressing or two of the album, which we then described and priced based on how good the sound and surfaces were. (For out Hot Stamper listings, the sonic grades and vinyl playgrades are listed separately.)

We were often wrong back in those days, something we have no reason to hide. Audio equipment and record cleaning technologies have come a long way since those darker days, a subject we discuss here.

Currently, 99% (or more!) of the records we sell are cleaned, then auditioned under rigorously controlled conditions, up against a number of other pressings. We award them sonic grades, and then condition check them for surface noise.

As you may imagine, this approach requires a great deal of time, effort and skill, which is why we currently have a highly trained staff of about ten. No individual or business without the aid of such a committed group could possibly dig as deep into the sound of records as we have, and it is unlikely that anyone besides us could ever come along to do the kind of work we do.

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