Vocals, Female

Sarah Vaughan – After Hours At The London House

  • Vaughan’s 1959 live album finally arrives on the site with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • No other copy could touch this pressing for warmth, richness, and, most especially, vocal intimacy and in-the-room presence
  • The multiple takes Sarah Vaughan does on Thanks for the Memory here blows my mind to this very day – pull it up on youtube and hear it for yourself
  • “… the producers invited a small group of friends and well-wishers to another Chicago club, London House, for an after-hours session. Vaughan expanded her trio with a quartet of Count Basie titans, including trumpeter Thad Jones and tenor Frank Wess, and… decided to record a set that, in true after-hours fashion, was completely improvised.”
  • Don’t waste your money on the mono pressings — the sound is third rate at best
  • Leave those monos in the bins for the jazz guys with Garrard turntables and speakers that sit on milk crates
  • Additionally, the original pressings we played were not remotely competitive with the best Hot Stamper reissues we are offering here

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Carmen McRae – The Great American Songbook

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Reviews of Some of Our Favorite Albums by Female Vocalists

  • Carmen McRae’s superb live double album from 1972 arrives on the site with stunning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on FOUR sides
  • Everything sounds immediate and unprocessed – no other copy in our shootout had this kind of natural, analog sound, putting a living, breathing Carmen McRae right between your speakers
  • Recorded at Dante’s Jazz Club right here in Los Angeles, the lively banter between songs reveals the lady’s charm and wit
  • 5 stars: “Joined by pianist Rowles, guitarist Joe Pass, bassist Chuck Domanico, and drummer Chuck Flores, McRae had what was at the time a rare opportunity to record a live, spontaneous, jazz-oriented set. She sounds quite enthusiastic about both her accompaniment and the strong repertoire…'”

In the early seventies, when I was first becoming seriously interested in audiophile-quality equipment, this was a famous Demo Disc at some high-end audio salons. (Five years later I would have speakers larger and more expensive in real dollars than the speakers I now own. At a tender age I acquired Stereophile’s cost no object, state-of-the-art speaker system from the mid-’70s, the Fulton J. I was the youngest person ever to own a pair of the behemoths, a record that has never and will never be broken I suspect.

The other monster speaker from that time was the Infinity Servo-Static 1A, which I auditioned before buying the Fultons. During the audition the electrostatic drivers kept blowing if the level got up too high, so that was the end of that. Who wants a speaker that can’t play at realistic sound levels?)

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Helen Humes – Swingin’ With Humes – Our Shootout Winner from 2008

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SUPERB SOUND AND MUSIC! We’ve been finding great copies of Helen’s Songs I Like To Sing! for some time, but this is the first knockout copy we’ve ever found of this great title from 1961. Both sides have A+++ sound, As Good As It Gets (AGAIG).  

Whoever takes this one home is in for a treat. Make sure your electricity is really cookin’, turn down the lights, and turn up the volume — Helen and her top-notch backing band will be RIGHT THERE IN THE ROOM WITH YOU! The other copies we played sounded pretty good, but this one is MAGICAL.

Both sides have mindblowing clarity and transparency — something that you wouldn’t likely find on an earlier pressing — matched with the kind of tubey magic that’s almost always missing from OJC pressings. (more…)

Ella Fitzgerald – Sings The George Gershwin Song Book

White Hot sound on side two of this original copy – shockingly good. Ella sounds rich, Tubey Magical and breathy — this is a real Demo Disc. Side one is very good as well, nicely warm and rich by track two. Nelson Riddle’s arrangements are especially interesting and artful throughout. 

It is our opinion that the mono takes all the fun out of the Nelson Riddle’s deliberately wide, spacious orchestral presentation surrounding Ella. Which is too bad: the mono pressings are five times as common as the stereo ones. (more…)

Rosemary Clooney – Rosie Solves The Swingin’ Riddle!

  • An outstanding copy with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on the second side and solid Double Plus (A++) sound on the first
  • These sides are rich, sweet and Tubey Magical with wonderfully breathy vocals and lots of space around all of the players
  • “The pair made the most of their first collaboration, devising a program of 12 standards that combined Riddle’s pugnacious yet intricate arrangements with Clooney’s warm, grand vocals to create a swing record with feeling… Vocalist fits together with orchestra like hand in glove…” – All Music

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Ella Fitzgerald / The Best of Ella Fitzgerald – Reviewed in 2005

Two Minty looking Deccalite Pink Label Promo LPs with reasonably good sound.

This is the best of Ella’s Decca material recorded between 1938 – 1955, the songs that made her a star.

For those of you who don’t know what Deccalite is, Deccalite is a material that Decca invented as an alternative to vinyl. It’s quieter than vinyl as a rule — and these pressings are extremely quiet — but it is not unbreakable. If you whack this record against a chair, it will shatter into pieces like an old 78. But most audiophiles takes good care of their records, so the risk of breaking an album like this is extremely small.

June Christy – The Intimate Miss Christy

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[This is an old review for the mono. We prefer the stereo pressings now. The mono pressings are much drier than the stereo pressings.]

Both sides of this 1963 All Tube Recorded and Mastered Mono record are just as rich and relaxed as you would expect. The balance is correct, which means the top is there as well as the bottom, with good vocal presence throughout.

We are HUGE fans of this album at Better Records, but it’s taken us a long time to pull together enough clean copies to make this shootout happen. We’re happy to say it worth all the trouble.

Get the volume just right and June will be standing between your speakers and putting on the performance of a lifetime. This is one of our favorite female vocal albums (along with Clap Hands, Julie Is her Name and a fair number of others) and this amazingly good copy will show you why – the sound and music are wonderful.

The Mono Is King [Not Anymore]

This early mono pressing is the only way to find the MIDRANGE MAGIC that’s missing from modern records. As good as the best of those pressings may be, this record is dramatically more REAL sounding. (more…)

Ella Fitzgerald – Ella At Duke’s Place

We have a very hard time doing the famous Ella Fitzgerald Songbooks due to the fact that so many pressings don’t sound good, and the ones that do sound good are usually noisy.

That’s why it came as a pleasant surprise that Ella At Duke’s Place had the potential for excellent sound and reasonably quiet vinyl on the best copies.

We hope to do more in the future but with the reissues from the ’70s being mostly awful and the originals being harder and harder to find we are not at all sanguine about our chance of success. (more…)

June Christy – Fair And Warmer!

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  • An incredible sounding copy with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from the first note to the last – reasonably quiet vinyl too
  • If you want to hear just how good an All Tube Capitol recording, in mono, from 1957 can sound, this record is guaranteed to do the trick
  • All the top West Coast Cool School jazz vets are here: Shelly Manne, Bud Shank, Bob Cooper, and the arrangements are by the wonderfully talented Pete Rugolo
  • “… the cool-toned singer is the main star. Highlights include a definitive “I Want to Be Happy,” “Imagination,” “When Sunny Gets Blue,” and “It’s Always You.” All of June Christy’s Capitol dates are well worth picking up.” 

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Sarah Vaughan – Send In The Clowns

  • This outstanding pressing, only the second copy to EVER hit the site, boasts outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • Huge and powerful, Basie’s horns are really blastin’ on this copy
  • Sassy’s remarkable vocal range and flexibility are on full display here, singing favorites including “I Got A Right To Sing The Blues,” “When Your Lover Has Gone,” and, of course, the title track 
  • “Sarah Vaughan is accompanied by her regular rhythm section of the early ’80s, guitarist Freddie Green, and the Count Basie horn sections on this enjoyable date… Sassy is in superb form…” – Allmusic

A wonderful recording by one of our favorite engineers, Dennis Sands, the man behind the amazing Basie album, Farmers Market Barbecue. (more…)