Genre – Jazz – Soul/Funk Jazz

Stanley Turrentine – Another Story

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More Albums on Blue Note

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  • Both sides of this later Blue Note pressing boast solid Double Plus (A++) sound
  • Rudy Van Gelder really knocked this one out of the park – the recording is as dynamic as they come, with horns that blast with real power and some serious snap to the drums
  • You will have a very hard time finding a better sounding funky Soul Jazz album than this copy of Another Story
  • 4 Stars on All Music; Turrentine on this date is joined by Thad Jones, Cedar Walton, Buster Williams, and Mickey Roker, serious jazz players one and all

This vintage Blue note 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…)

Grover Washington, Jr. – Mister Magic

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More 5 Star Albums

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  • Mister Magic makes its Hot Stamper debut on the new site with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it from start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • We guarantee the sound is dramatically bigger, richer, fuller, and livelier than any pressing you have ever heard
  • We’re big fans of Rudy Van Gelder’s work in the early- to mid-70s, and it’s records like this (and All the King’s Horses) that make our case
  • 5 stars: “This is one of Grover Washington, Jr.’s best-loved recordings and considered a classic of R&Bish jazz. . . Highly recommended.”

Most pressings are murky, overly smooth, and lack energy. Often they also suffer from serious congestion and veiling. Our job is to find you the copy that has none of those problems, and that is precisely what we have done with this Shootout Winner. You get tons of space and energy, along with balanced tonality and great presence.

Washington is backed by excellent players including Bob James, Phil Upchurch, Harvey Mason, Ralph MacDonald, Eric Gale and many more.

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The Crusaders / Chain Reaction – MoFi Reviewed

More of The Crusaders

More Jazz Fusion

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This is a Mobile Fidelity LP with relatively good sound. We did a mini-shootout many years ago and this copy apparently killed the competition. 

However…

When you play the MoFi against an actual honest-to-goodness properly mastered and pressed vintage LP – we call them Hot Stampers – the audiophile version of the album reeks of phony top end EQ, compression and sloppy bass.

Of course, what half-speed mastered record doesn’t?

FURTHER READING

The best place to start is here:

How come you guys don’t like Half-Speed Mastered records?

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The Crusaders – Chain Reaction

More of The Crusaders

More Jazz Fusion

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  • An outstanding copy of Chain Reaction with solid Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • The overall sound here is Tubey Magical, lively and funky, with the kind of rich, solid sound that will fill your listening room from wall to wall
  • If you own the Mobile Fidelity remaster, or some Heavy Vinyl LP, you are in for a real treat – this pressing will show you just how good the recording is
  • 4 1/2 stars: “One of the tastiest concoctions of the mid-’70s jazz-fusion era, Chain Reaction finds the Crusaders at the top of their form. The compositions are both accessible and memorable, and the playing is uniformly excellent.”

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Grover Washington – Winelight

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More Bill Withers

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  • Outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from beginning to end on this wonderful Elektra pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Both sides here are incredibly rich, full-bodied and musical with excellent bass — essential for this funky music
  • We’ve called this album a Demo Disc for Bass and any Hot Stamper copy will show you why
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Winelight is one of his finest albums, and not primarily because of the Bill Withers hit “Just the Two of Us.” It is the five instrumentals that find Washington (on soprano, alto, and tenor) really stretching out…”

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Herbie Hancock – Thrust

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  • Thrust makes its Hot Stamper debut here with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER on both sides – reasonably quiet vinyl too
  • This vintage pressing is well balanced, big and lively, with wonderful clarity in the mids and highs, as well the bass foundation critical to Hancock’s funky jazz
  • 4 stars: “… an earthy, funky, yet often harmonically and rhythmically sophisticated tour de force… Hancock continues to reach into the rapidly changing high-tech world for new sounds, most notably the metallic sheen of the then-new ARP string synthesizer which was already becoming a staple item on pop and jazz-rock records… This supertight jazz-funk quintet album still sounds invigorating a quarter of a century later. “

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Gene Ammons – Blue Gene – Soulful Jazz at Its Best

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  • This wonderful Prestige jazz classic boasts outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last – exceptionally quiet vinyl too 
  • One of the best sounding Ammons records we know of – it’s huge, rich and Tubey Magical, with a solid bottom end and energy to beat them all
  • Clean and clear and open are nice qualities to have, but rich and full are harder to come by on this record – this pressing has it all
  • “Some ballad performances in his oeuvre are a testament to an exceptional sense of intonation and melodic symmetry, powerful lyrical expressiveness, and mastery both of the blues and the bebop vernacular that can now be described as, in its own way, ‘classical.'”

For us audiophiles both the sound and the music here are wonderful. If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good a 1958 All Tube Analog Prestige recording by Rudy Van Gelder can sound, 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. (more…)

Grover Washington – Winelight – A Demo Disc for Bass (on the Right Copy)

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Another in our series of Demo Discs for Bass.

What’s unusual about this album — shocking really — is how MEATY the bottom end is. I don’t know of a pop jazz recording with beefier, more articulate or weightier bass. The only record I can think of in this genre of jazz with comparable bass is Mangione’s Children of Sanchez. We played some copies of that album recently and were just knocked out with how well recorded the bass is, just the way we were knocked out by the best copies of Grover Washington’s Winelight from a recent shootout. Both of these albums really set the standard for recording this kind of music.  (more…)

Miles Davis – Live-Evil

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  • A STUNNING copy of Davis’ superb 1971 release, with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on all four sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Exceptionally spacious and three-dimensional, as well as relaxed and full-bodied sound that blew away every other copy we played
  • A wonderful double album of both live and studio-recorded music, featuring numerous jazz greats, including Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett and Jack DeJohnette
  • Pitchfork’s Ryan Schreiber believed it was “easily the most accessible of Miles Davis’ late-’70s electric releases,” describing its music as “at once both sexually steamy and unsettling.” He said the live recordings “run the gamut from barroom brawl action-funk to sensual bedroom jazz magic, creating two hours of charged eccentricity you’ll never forget.”

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Steve Miller Band – Born 2 B Blue – Our Shootout Winner from 2011

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Steve Miller’s foray into Smooth Jazz Pop got him nowhere in the marketplace, but did result in my becoming a fan back in the late ’80s. Let’s be clear — this is not a record for everyone. If you don’t like at least some Smooth Jazz, you probably won’t like this album. It’s Steve Miller crossing over into that territory, and doing it better than anyone else I know (although that’s not saying much. I’m no expert by any stretch and don’t claim to be.) 

What it is is Steve Miller doing a batch of cool, classic songs in a hip, fun way. AMG has it right, “…his taste in material is quite nice…”

This is certainly nothing like Fly Like An Eagle. He already made that record; we don’t need him to make it again. (He actually made it twice as Book of Dreams is from the same sessions!) (more…)