Columbia/Epic

Columbia and Epic are labels we love.

The Gerry Mulligan Quartet – What Is There To Say?

More of the Music of Gerry Mulligan

  • With STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides, this early 6-Eye Stereo LP is doing practically everything right
  • The sound here is tubier, more transparent, more dynamic, with more of that “jumpin’ out of the speakers” quality that only The Real Thing ever has
  • With explosive dynamics and rich, full-bodied, Tubey Magical sax sound, it’s hard to imagine any reissue, vintage or otherwise, can hold a candle to the sound of this amazing record
  • Recorded at Columbia’s famous 30th Street studios, here is a record that sounds like Kind of Blue, Ah Um and Time Out, for the simple reason that all were recorded in the same studio using the same equipment (and perhaps even the same engineers)
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 5 stars: “The last of the pianoless quartet albums that Gerry Mulligan recorded in the 1950s is one of the best … every selection is memorable…”

Clean and Clear Yet Rich and Sweet

This copy managed to find the perfect balance of these attributes; you want to find that rare copy that keeps what is good about a Tubey Magical analog recording from The Golden Age of ’50s Jazz but manages to avoid the pitfalls so common to them: compression, opacity and blubber. To be sure, the fault is not with the recording (I guess; again, not having heard the master tape) but with the typical pressing. Bad vinyl, bad mastering, who knows why so many copies sound so thick, dead and dull?

The Big Room

Huge amounts of ambience fill out the space the extends from wall to wall (and all the way to the back wall of the studio), leaving plenty of room around each of the players.

Full-bodied sound, open and spacious, bursting with life and energy — these are the hallmarks of our Truly Hot Stampers.

If your stereo is cookin’ these days, this record will surely be an unqualified Sonic Treat. We guarantee that no heavy vinyl pressing, of this or any other album, has the kind of analog magic found here. Or your money back.

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Thelonious Monk – Underground

More of the Music of Thelonious Monk

  • Boasting two KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides or close to them, this vintage reissue pressing could not be beat
  • Charlie Rouse – featured on many of the tracks here – is particularly wonderful on sax. His saxophone is full-bodied and natural with breathy texture and just the right amount of honk
  • So many copies just sound like an old jazz record, but this one lets you feel like you are right there as the music happens
  • As is sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs, there are marks that play – those on “Easy Street” are especially bad – but if you can tough those out, this copy is going to blow your mind
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The instantly recognizable stride piano lines are delivered with the same urgency and precision that they possessed over two decades earlier…”

This is an outstanding Monk album from 1968. Thanks to Columbia’s state of the art engineering — still using tubes I’d wager, based on the sound — the recording really comes to life, or at least it does on a copy that sounds as good as this one does.

Monk’s piano has powerful dynamics and real weight, just like a real piano.

So many copies just sound like an old jazz record, but this one lets you feel like you are right there as the music happens. What more could you ask for?

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Miles Davis – Quiet Nights

More of the Music of Miles Davis

  • This oh-so-spacious Miles Davis / Gil Evans classic boasts STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout this original black print Stereo 360 pressing
  • Rich, warm, smooth and clear throughout, this 30th Street Studios recording is another engineering triumph from the legendary Fred Plaut
  • Produced by Teo Macero, the album is the fourth and final collaboration between Davis and Evans
  • This is a lot of money for a somewhat noisy copy with some audible marks, but the sound is so awesome and quiet pressings of the album so hard to come by that we hope someone will take a chance on it and get the thrill we did from hearing it sound right for once
  • In the Saturday Review, Quiet Nights received praise for Davis’s “wonderful

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It’s A Beautiful Day – Self-Titled

More Psych Rock

  • This Columbia Stereo 360 pressing (only the second copy to hit the site in over four years) boasts solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER from top to bottom – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • If this price seems high, keep in mind that the top copy from our most recent shootout went for $1200
  • Add to that the fact that in our previous shootout from 2021 there were few records that did not have scratches that played or noisy vinyl
  • One of our favorite 60s Psych Rock albums, a true Demo Disc for three-dimensional space, and a Desert Island Disc for musical originality
  • Full and rich, detailed and transparent, this copy is doing just about everything we could ask it to do
  • We’ve been working on this title for more than ten years, during which time we must have returned nine out of ten copies that came our way
  • 4 stars: “It’s a Beautiful Day remains as a timepiece and evidence of how sophisticated rock & roll had become in the fertile environs of the San Francisco music scene.”

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Journey – Infinity

More of the Music of Journey

  • Both sides of this vintage Columbia pressing have excellent sound for the band’s 1978 release, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • This copy was bigger and bolder than most others we played, with huge choruses that really come alive – just the way we like our Journey albums to sound
  • Spaciousness, richness and freedom from grit and grain are key to the better pressings, and here you will find all three
  • 4 stars: “Released in January of 1978, Infinity easily proved to be the band’s most cohesive work to date. Dead and buried were the jazz fusion overtones of previous offerings, and with the new songwriting combo of Perry/Neal Schon leading the march, the band set out to completely redefine their sound. Traditional pop arrangements were now adopted, cutting out the unnecessary musical fat, and allowing each bandmember to play to his strength: Perry’s soaring, whale of a voice, Schon’s scorching fret work, and Gregg Rolie’s subtle keyboard arrangements.”

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Willie Nelson – Without A Song

More of the Music of Willie Nelson

  • A Without A Song like you’ve never heard, with incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound throughout this vintage Columbia pressing – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • As he did so brilliantly on Stardust, here Willie brings his inimitable singing style to classics of love and loss taken from The Great American Songbook
  • Top quality arrangements – drop the needle on “Autumn Leaves” or “A Dreamer’s Holiday” to hear Booker T and his bandmates at their best
  • Top tracks include “Autumn Leaves,” “As Time Goes By,” “Harbor Lights” and, of course, “Without a Song”
  • The critics may not have been impressed, but music lovers sure were – Amazon buyers award the album more than 4 1/2 stars
  • Without a Song is a well recorded album of excellent music, one that we feel should be more popular with audiophiles

Once again Willie is backed by a top-notch backing band fronted by the one and only Booker T. Jones. Drop the needle on “Once In A While” and dig the uncanny presence of the vocal and astonishing clarity of the ensemble.

Much like Stardust, a Hot Stamper pressing of this record is a real treat for we audiophiles. This is some amazingly soulful music with midrange magic to spare.

There’s lots of air up top, giving the instruments plenty of room to breathe. The vocals are breathy and full-bodied; if Willie’s voice doesn’t sound a bit gravelly, you’re probably playing an overly smooth or lo-rez copy, and we take away a lot of points for both.

This copy gives you everything you could ask for from this music — tight bass, clearly audible guitar transients, generous amounts of warmth and sweetness, vocal immediacy and studio ambience like no other.

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Janis Joplin – Pearl

More Women Who Rock

  • An outstanding vintage Columbia pressing with solid Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides
  • Janis’s vocals sound tonally right on the money – smooth enough to let you crank this one up good and loud without the sound getting hard and edgy
  • 5 stars: “Janis Joplin’s second masterpiece (after Cheap Thrills), Pearl was designed as a showcase for her powerhouse vocals, stripping down the arrangements that had often previously cluttered her music or threatened to drown her out.”
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” but with less of an accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. Pearl is a good example of a record many audiophiles may not know well but should try to get to know better.

Most everything that we look for in a Hot Stamper Pearl is happening on this copy: presence to the vocals; weight to the piano; texture and definition to the bass; a Tubey Magical midrange; freedom from grit and grain and so forth.

It’s not a perfect record — no copy of Pearl will ever be — but it’s better in all the ways that make the music really work. That’s what a Hot Stamper is all about!

None of this is to say that you’ll put this one on your top shelf with your Ajas and your Tea for the Tillermans, but this copy has the kind of sound you’d never guess was possible if all you know is the average copy. (Which is simply to say, if you didn’t go through five or ten copies to find the one you now own, you are likely to have an average copy.)

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Leonard Cohen – Songs Of Leonard Cohen

More of the Music of Leonard Cohen

  • With incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades on both sides, this Stereo 360 copy of Cohen’s debut LP is practically as good as we have ever heard, right up there with our Shootout Winner
  • Intimate, breathy vocals are key to the better copies such as this one, and that of course goes for practically every singer-songwriter album we offer
  • Some of the man’s most memorable songs, including “Suzanne,” “Sisters of Mercy,” “So Long, Marianne” and “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs, but once you hear just how superb sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and pops and just be swept away by the music
  • 5 stars: “The ten songs on Songs of Leonard Cohen were certainly beautifully constructed, artful in a way few (if any) other lyricists would approach for some time, but what’s most striking about these songs isn’t Cohen’s technique, superb as it is, so much as his portraits of a world dominated by love and lust, rage and need, compassion and betrayal…few musicians have ever created a more remarkable or enduring debut.”

Get ready for some serious goosebumps! If this copy of Songs Of Leonard Cohen doesn’t give you chills, I don’t know what will.

We’ve played a ton of 360s and Red Labels, and copies that sound as good as this one are clearly the exception and not the rule.

The Red Label pressings from the 70s can be quite good if you know which are the good stampers and which to avoid, information that the average audiophile record lover would have a hard time coming by on his own.

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Bob Dylan / The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan

More of the Music of Bob Dylan

  • Dylan’s sophomore release is back on the site for only the second time in eighteen months, here with solid Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this vintage Stereo 360 pressing
  • Both of these sides are wonderfully full-bodied, natural and clear, with Dylan’s remarkably present voice front and center, exactly where it should be
  • It’s clear these classic songs have stood the test of time: “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Girl from the North Country,” “Masters of War,” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” “Don’t Think Twice,” “It’s All Right,” and many more
  • Finding early stereo LPs with audiophile sound and surfaces, and without marks that play, is getting awfully tough nowadays – this one has the sound, and the vinyl is about as quiet as we can find it, but marks are sometimes the nature of these beast with these vintage pressings
  • 5 stars: “This is rich, imaginative music, capturing the sound and spirit of America… Dylan, in many ways, recorded music that equaled this, but he never topped it.”
  • A Folk Classic from 1963 that should appeal to any fan of early Dylan
  • The complete list of titles from 1963 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” but with less accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. On the Border is a good example of a record most audiophiles don’t know well but should.

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan is clearly our favorite of the early Dylan albums for both music and sound. We’re picking up both mono and stereo copies when we see them clean (which is rare) and both the mono mix and the stereo mix can sound out of this world.

Hearing these great songs sound so intimate and lifelike on a top-quality pressing can be a sublime experience. We should know; we enjoyed the hell out of this very copy.

Having done this for so long, we understand and appreciate that rich, full, solid, Tubey Magical sound is key to the presentation of this primarily vocal music. We rate these qualities higher than others we might be listening for (e.g., bass definition, soundstage, depth, etc.). The music is not so much about the details in the recording, but rather in trying to recreate a solid, palpable, real Bob Dylan singing live in your listening room. The best copies have an uncanny way of doing just that.

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Miles Davis – Sketches of Spain on 6-Eye in Stereo

More of the Music of Miles Davis

  • With two solid Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, this 6-Eye Stereo pressing is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Sketches of Spain you’ve heard
  • Side one was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be amazed at how big and rich and tubey the sound is
  • Reasonably quiet vinyl for an early label pressing, few are this clean, and none come much quieter if our experience with dozens of them over the decades counts for anything
  • The better copies capture the realistic sound of Davis’s horn, the body, the breath and the bite (and the correct amount of squawk as well)
  • Balanced, clear and undistorted, this 30th Street recording shows just how good Columbia’s engineers (lead by the inestimable Fred Plaut) were back then
  • 5 stars: “Sketches of Spain is the most luxuriant and stridently romantic recording Davis ever made. To listen to it in the 21st century is still a spine-tingling experience…”
  • This pressing is clearly a Demo Disc for orchestral size and space

On the better pressings of this masterpiece, the sound is truly magical. (AMG has that dead right in their review.) It is lively but never strained. Davis’s horn has breath and bite, just like the real thing. What more can you ask for?

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