Jazz, Piano & Vibes

Oscar Peterson / The Trio – Live From Chicago

Reviews and Commentaries for the Recordings of Oscar Peterson

Tonally correct from top to bottom and as transparent as any vintage recording you’ve heard, the combination of clarity and Tubey Magic here is hard to beat
The Trio, including Ray Brown and Ed Thigpen, are in fine form on these live recordings from the London House in Chicago; if you want to hear one of the great jazz trios at the height of their powers, this is the ticket!
“…[Peterson] was generally in peak form during this era. He sticks to standards on this live [album] (a good example of the Trio’s playing), stretching out ‘Sometimes I’m Happy’ creatively for over 11 minutes and uplifting such songs as ‘In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning,’ ‘Chicago’ and ‘The Night We Called It a Day.'”
If you’re a fan of Oscar’s, this Top Title from 1961 belongs in your collection.
The complete list of titles from 1961 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

Peterson really puts on a great show. He’s made an awful lot of records during his career and most of them aren’t especially noteworthy. This album is clearly an exception to that rule. (If You Could See Me Now is another one.)

This pressing was a HUGE step up from the other copies we played in our recent shootout. This killer copy has the immediacy that puts you front and center at The London House for a great jazz show. Ray Brown is his usual incredible self on bass.

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Vince Guaraldi – Jazz Impressions Of Charlie Brown

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This superb pressing boasts Shootout-winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on side one and an excellent Double Plus (A++) side two
Guaraldi introduced the world to his unique, melodic, elegantly simple style with this very album – only a pressing this good does the timeless score justice
Not the quietest copy we’ve ever played, although finding one much quieter than this is simply not in the cards unless you’re willing to settle for much poorer sound quality
5 stars: “The most remarkable thing, besides the high quality of Guaraldi’s whimsically swinging tunes, is that he did not compromise his art one iota for the cartoon world; indeed, he sounds even more engaged, inventive, and lighthearted in his piano work here than ever.”

On both sides, but especially on this Shootout Winning side one, 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).

If you have full-range speakers, some qualities you may recognize in the sound of the piano on this recording are WEIGHT and WARMTH. The piano is not hard, brittle or tinkly. Instead, the best copies show you a wonderfully full-bodied, warm, rich, smooth piano, one which sounds remarkably like the ones we’ve all heard countless times in piano bars and restaurants.

In other words like a real piano, not a recorded one. This is what we look for in a good piano recording. 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 copies survive all such hazards. (Too few, hence our prices.) They manage to reproduce the full spectrum sound of the piano (and of course the wonderful performances of the musicians) on vintage vinyl, showing us the kind of sound we never expected from a ’60s Fantasy pressing such as this one.

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For Misty, Stick with the Real Japanese Pressings

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Hot Stamper Pressings of Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano Available Now

This is a highly recommended Three Blind Mice LP. We don’t like most Three Blind Mice albums, or jazz played by practically anyone who is not American. (Ever played Jazz at the Pawnshop? If so, did you enjoy your nap?)

But we like the music of Yamamoto well enough to recommend some of it. Midnight Sugar might actually be his most enjoyable album of them all.

The Heavy Vinyl versions are not as good, although the 45 RPM pressing probably comes the closest to the real Japanese pressing we review here.

Anything pressed at RTI is rarely better than second rate and should be avoided if at all possible.

We almost never like records Made In Japan that were not recorded in Japan. There are of course a few exceptions.

My First Time

This was the first Three Blind Mice recording I ever heard, over 20 [now close to 40] years ago. A fellow audiophile who went on to become a true audio guru for me (George Louis) played me this recording to demonstrate his stereo.

It had to be the most dynamic piano recording I had ever heard in my life.

Yamamoto likes to tinkle the keys very softly, and then really pound them. And the Three Blind Mice engineers were able to capture both the quiet tinkling because of the Japanese vinyl, and the full-on pounding because of the audiophile recording equipment they used. It was an ear-opening experience.

Over the course of the next year or two, I sold off my Fulton Premiers and my Audio Research Electronics, because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get Misty to sound like it did at George’s house.

I realized that it takes better equipment than those companies were making back then to get the sound of that record right, and that put me on, to quote Cat Stevens, ”the road to find out.”

And it wasn’t just the equipment that had to get better, a subject we address in our commentary Revolutionary Changes in Audio. An excerpt:

When I got started in audio in the early- to mid-70s, the following important elements of the modern stereo system did not exist:

Stand-alone phono stages.
Modern cabling and power cords.
Vibration controlling platforms for turntables and equipment.
Synchronous Drive Systems for turntable motors.
Carbon fiber mats for massive turntable platters.
Highly adjustable tonearms (for VTA, etc.) with extremely delicate adjustments and precision bearings.
Modern record cleaning machines and fluids.
And there wasn’t much in the way of innovative room treatments like the Hallographs we use.

A lot of things had to change in order for us to reproduce records at the level required to do our record shootouts and be confident about our findings, and we pursued every one of them about as far as time and money allowed.

For a further discussion of these issues, please click here.

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Bill Evans / Symbiosis – One of the Few MPS Pressings with (Potentially) Top Quality Sound

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An outstanding copy of Evans’ wonderful 1974 album accompanied by symphony orchestra with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER throughout
We dropped the needle on a copy years ago and heard wonderful audiophile sound right from the get-go
Bigger, richer, more Tubey Magical, with more extension on both ends of the spectrum and more depth, width and height than most other copies we played
We are not big fans of the MPS label — most of their stuff, especially the Oscar Peterson records they made, is not very good — but we sure liked this one
“… a special and unique entry in Evans’ huge catalog… Not your “typical” Bill Evans album–but that’s what makes SYMBIOSIS such a fine, gently challenging listen.”
If you’re a Bill Evans fan, this 1974 release might be a perfect fit for your collection.

On the best copies the strings have wonderful texture and sheen. If your system isn’t up to it (or you have a copy with a problem in this area), the strings might sound a little shrill and possibly grainy as well, but I’m here to tell you that the sound on the best copies is just fine with respect to string tone and timbre. You will need to look elsewhere for the problem. (more…)

Armstrong & Ellington / An Historic Recording Event

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Lively, dynamic, transparent, spacious and musical throughout – you won’t believe how good this Jazz Classic from 1961 sounds
We guarantee there is dramatically more richness, fullness and presence on this copy than anything you have ever heard, and that’s especially true if you made the mistake of buying whatever godawful Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently on the market (or the Classic Records pressing, which sounded fine at the time, but up against the real thing, forget it
“The music resulting from Thiele’s inspired experiment is outstanding and utterly essential. That means everybody ought to hear this album at least once, and many will want to hear it again and again all the way through, for this is one of the most intriguing confluences in all of recorded jazz. Armstrong blew his horn with authority and sang beautifully and robustly.”

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The Oscar Peterson Trio – Put On A Happy Face

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Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Oscar Peterson

INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on both sides of this original Verve stereo pressing
The transparency of a killer analog pressing such as this has the power to transport you to the front row of a small ’60s jazz club – what a thrill!
These live sessions produced four LPs worth of material, with The Trio and The Sound of the Trio being the most famous of the four
“The Oscar Peterson Trio’s 1961 live sessions at Chicago’s London House are considered among their finest recordings… Essential Jazz Classics.”
If you’re a fan of Live Jazz Piano Trio recordings, this is a Verve from 1966 that belongs in your collection.
The complete list of titles from 1966 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

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Mose Allison – Mose Alive!

Hot Stamper Pressings that Sound Their Best on the Right Early Pressing

Records We’ve Reviewed that Sound Their Best on the Right Early Pressings

An outstanding copy of this wonderful live album, with solid Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish
This copy is full-bodied and natural, with a nicely extended top end, plenty of space around the instruments, and relatively few of the problems that plague many of the pressings we played
“Allison was one of the finest songwriters in blues of the 20th and early 21st centuries.” – All Music Bio

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Horace Silver Quintet – The Tokyo Blues

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Spacious and three-dimensional, as well as relaxed and full-bodied – this pressing was a big step up over every other copy we played
4 stars: “Silver’s Tokyo-influenced compositions fit right in with the subtle cross-cultural but very American hard bop he’d been doing all along… [his] compositions have a light, airy feel, with plenty of space, and no one used that space better at these sessions than Cook, whose tenor sax lines are simply wonderful, adding a sturdy, reliable brightness.”
Another Must Own Title from 1962. Other recommended titles from 1962 can be found here.

If you know anything about Blue Note, you know that finding a copy that plays this quietly is rare. Add to that the excellent sound and music and you have yourself a real winner with this LP! (more…)