Prestige

Gene Ammons – Angel Eyes

  • This original Prestige stereo LP has Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from beginning to end – fairly quiet vinyl for an original pressing
  • Both sides here are doing justice to Rudy Van Gelder’s live-in-the-studio sound – they were bigger, richer, more Tubey Magical, with more space, more energy, more everything that makes a vintage analog pressing the thrill we know it can be
  • For half the album “Ammons is heard in 1962 with pianist Mal Waldron, bassist Wendell Marshall, and drummer Ed Thigpen playing with great warmth on the ballads “You Go to My Head” and “It’s the Talk of the Town.” The latter set was one of Ammons’ final ones before serving a long prison sentence (drug-related), yet his interpretations are full of optimism. Recommended.”

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Big Joe Williams – Blues For 9 Strings

 

  • Blues for 9 Strings, featuring the great Willie Dixon on bass, makes its Hot Stamper debut with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides
  • Tubier, more present, more alive, with more of that “jumpin’ out of the speakers” quality that only The Real Thing (an old record) ever has
  • Big Joe Williams was an incredible blues musician: a gifted songwriter, a powerhouse vocalist, and an exceptionally idiosyncratic guitarist… When appearing at The Fickle Pickle, Williams played an electric nine-string guitar through a small ramshackle amp with a pie plate nailed to it and a beer can dangling against that. The total effect of this incredible apparatus produced the most buzzing, sizzling, African-sounding music one would likely ever hear.”

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Illinois Jacquet – The Blues; That’s Me!

More Saxophone Jazz

More Wynton Kelly

  • Jacquet’s superb 1969 release finally arrives on the site with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER throughout
  • Rich, smooth, sweet, and natural, with the saxophone’s bite and squawk captured correctly, this is the kind of sound we love here at Better Records
  • Jacquet is one of the creators of the big, soulful tenor sax sound – I know of no one who plays it better
  • 5 stars: “Tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet is heard in top form throughout this quintet set with pianist Wynton Kelly, guitarist Tiny Grimes, bassist Buster Williams, and drummer Oliver Jackson. The music, which falls between swing, bop and early R&B, is generally quite exciting…”

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Richard “Groove” Holmes – Spicy

  • An incredible sounding copy with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout
  • “The intensity which launched Groove’s cover of “Misty” into such a huge hit is thoroughly in evidence throughout this smoking set and Holmes is firmly in his element during this poppy, but cooking session. A welcome addition to a great organist’s too-thin catalog.” – All About Jazz

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John Coltrane – The Last Trane

  • Coltrane’s wonderful 1966 release finally makes its Hot Stamper debut with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on side one and and outstanding Double Plus (A++) side two – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • A superb album compiled from three mono recording sessions from 1957 and 1958, featuring brilliant accompaniment by Donald Byrd and Red Garland, among others
  • The recording is huge and lively in the long and storied tradition of Rudy Van Gelder’s Coltrane sessions from the fifties
  • The original Blue Trident Prestige mono pressings are clearly superior to anything that came after them, and that is of course what we are offering here

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Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis & Johnny Griffin – Live At Mintons

  • The First Set makes it to the site with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too 
  • Three-dimensional space and ambience, with Tubey Magic by the boatload – this is guaranteed to be one of the better sounding live jazz records you’ve heard
  • Rudy Van Gelder was masterful at this is the kind of spacious, low-distortion, dynamic, energetic sound
  • “Griffin and Davis, competitive tenors with different sounds, battle each other… Exciting music that deserves to be made more widely available.” [And here is a wonderful copy ripe for the taking.]

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Eric Dolphy – Caribé

  • KILLER sound on both sides of this later Prestige pressing with each earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades
  • Not knowing much about the album, we were shocked at how well recorded Caribé is – RVG in 1960 is hard to beat for ENERGY and the sense of immediacy you get from being right in the room with these exciting musicians
  • “This record is the equivalent of throwing a stick of dynamite into a sedate, well-ordered dinner party, having the dynamite go off with a bang, and somehow leaving everything in its place. Such is the volatile Eric Dolphy, a serious wailer on the alto sax and even more idiosyncratic and radical on the bass clarinet, who barges into the lair of Juan Amalbert’s Latin Jazz Quintet and doesn’t perturb them in the least… fascinating without a doubt.”

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Bob Brookmeyer – The Dual Role of Bob Brookmeyer

 

  • This superb 1956 mono album makes its Hot Stamper debut with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it from start to finish
  • We have never seen the original, but our retitled pressing here from 1964 will show you just how big, solid and musical this session by Rudy Van Gelder can sound
  • If you can tolerate the somewhat noisier surfaces on side two you are in for some amazing Bob Brookmeyer music with top quality sound
  • “Bob Brookmeyer plays valve trombone and piano on two songs apiece with his 1955 quartet, a group also including guitarist Jimmy Raney, bassist Teddy Kotick and drummer Mel Lewis… the music is pleasing and reasonably creative.”

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Miles Davis / Steamin’ – A Thousand Bucks and Worth Every Penny (When It Sounds Like This)

More of the Music of Miles Davis

  • Insanely good sound throughout for this extremely rare original Prestige Yellow and Black label pressing with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • This early Mono pressing takes the sound of the recording to a place we never thought it could go – never have we heard an album from these famous sessions sound as good as this very LP
  • An original in pristine condition, with this kind of sound, is a record that is very unlikely to pass our way again
  • 5 stars: “The end results are consistently astonishing. At the center of Steamin’, as with most outings by this band, are the group improvisations which consist of solo upon solo of arguably the sweetest and otherwise most swinging interactions known to have existed between musicians.”

WOW — this Prestige Yellow Label Mono pressing has some of the most realistic, natural Miles Davis sound we’ve ever heard! Both sides earned A+++ grades and play Mint Minus to Mint Minus Minus, truly exceptional for a vintage pressing such as this one. You will have an incredibly difficult time finding a copy that can hold its own with this one. (more…)

Gene Ammons / Goodbye – Reviewed in 2010

More of the Music of Gene Ammons

More Recordings by Rudy Van Gelder

If you want to know why Gene Ammons is considered one of the greats, skip the jam that starts out side one and go right to the ballad Alone Again (Naturally). Nobody played with more emotion than Gene Ammons. 

This is an Older Jazz Review.

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