Masterpieces of Jazz

Jazz Masterpieces

Shelly Manne and His Friends – My Fair Lady on the Yellow Label

More of the Music of Shelly Manne

  • My Fair Lady returns to the site for only the second time in two years, here with solid Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • The piano sounds lifelike right from the start – a beautiful instrument in a natural space, tonally correct from top to bottom
  • Here is the proof that this is a Demo Disc quality recording for Contemporary, which is saying a lot, considering how many great recordings this label can claim
  • Recorded entirely in one session, this album was the first jazz recording using only songs from a Broadway musical
  • 5 stars: “This trio set by Shelly Manne & His Friends… was a surprise best-seller and is now considered a classic…The result is a very appealing set that is easily recommended.”

This vintage Contemporary stereo LP has Demo Disc quality sound.

How can you beat a Roy DuNann piano trio recording? The timbre of the instruments is so spot-on it makes all the hard work and money you’ve put into your stereo more than pay off.

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Shelly Manne & His Friends – Bells Are Ringing

More of the Music of Shelly Manne

  • An early Contemporary pressing with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on both sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Side two was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be amazed at how big and rich and tubey the sound is
  • This copy makes it clear that this is a Demo Disc quality recording for Contemporary, and that’s saying a lot
  • It’s also our favorite jazz piano performance by Andre Previn on record
  • Only a handful of copies of this title have made it on the site in the last few years – finding them in audiophile condition is getting harder (and more expensive) than ever these days
  • “Previn’s piano is the lead voice and his virtuosity, good taste, melodic improvising, and solid sense of swing are chiefly responsible for the music’s success.”

I have a very long history with this album, going back decades. My friend Robert Pincus first turned me on to the CD, which, happily for all concerned, was mastered beautifully. We used it to test and tweak all the stereos in my friends’ systems.

Playing the original stereo record, which I assumed must never have been reissued due to its rarity (I have since learned otherwise), all I could hear on my ’90s all tube system was blurred mids, lack of transient attack, sloppy bass, lack of space and transparency, and other shortcomings too numerous to mention that I simply attributed at the time to vintage jazz vinyl.

Well, things have certainly changed. I have virtually none of the equipment I had back then, and I hear none of the problems with this copy that I heard back then on pressing I owned. This is clearly a different LP (I sold off the old one years ago) but I have to think that much of the change in the sound was a change in cleaning, equipment, tweaks and room treatments, all the stuff we prattle on about endlessly on the site.

In other words, if you have a highly-resolving modern system and a good room, you should be knocked out by the sound of this record. I sure was.

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Dave Brubeck Quartet – Time Further Out on 360

More Dave Brubeck

Reviews and Commentaries for Time Further Out

  • Excellent sound throughout this black print 360 Stereo pressing, with both sides earning Double Plus (A++) grades – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • It’s bigger, richer, more Tubey Magical, and has more extension on both ends of the spectrum than most other copies we played
  • This copy demonstrates the big-as-life Fred Plaut Columbia Sound at its best – better even than Time Out(!)
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The selections, which range in time signatures from 5/4 to 9/8, are handled with apparent ease (or at least not too much difficulty) by pianist Brubeck, altoist Paul Desmond, bassist Eugene Wright, and drummer Joe Morello on this near-classic.”

Time Further Out is consistently more varied and, dare we say, more musically interesting than Time Out.

If you want to hear big drums in a big room, these Brubeck recordings will show you that sound better than practically any record we know of. These vintage recordings are full-bodied, spacious, three-dimensional, rich, sweet and warm in the best tradition of an All Tube Analog recording.

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Thelonious Monk / Brilliant Corners

More Thelonious Monk

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

  • Boasting solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them from start to finish, this vintage MONO recording pressed on OJC vinyl was giving us the sound we were looking for on Monk’s 1957 release – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Rich, full-bodied and present yet still clear and spacious (particularly on side one) – we guarantee this copy sounds better than any pressing you’ve heard, and should beat the pricey originals hands down
  • With masterful horn playing from Sonny Rollins and Clark Terry, and a rhythm section that can actually keep up with Monk – made up of Max Roach, Oscar Pettiford and Paul Chambers – this is a Must Own for any music loving audiophile
  • 5 stars: “Brilliant Corners may well be considered the alpha and omega of post-World War II American jazz. No serious jazz collection should be without it.”
  • If you’re a fan of Mr. Monk, this All Tube Recording from 1957 belongs in your collection.
  • 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 the accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. Brilliant Corners is a good example of a record most audiophiles probably don’t know well but would benefit from getting to know better

If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good a 1957 All Tube Analog recording can be, this superb copy should be just the record for you. 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.

No recordings will ever be made like this again, and no CD will ever capture what is in the grooves of this record. There is of course a CD of the album, but those of us in possession of a working turntable could care less.

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Harry James & His Big Band – The King James Version

More Big Band Jazz Recordings

  • This early Sheffield pressing was doing practically everything right, with both sides earning KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this amazing copy in our notes: “tubey bass and brass”…”big and 3D”…”powerful and weighty low end”…”jumping out [of the speakers]”…”tubey and spacious horns”
  • These sides fulfill the promise of the direct to disc recording technology in a way that few – very, very few – direct to disc pressings can
  • Big Band energy and enthusiasm is key to the best pressings like this one, as well as some of the most natural sounding ambience of practically any copy in our most recent shootout
  • This one has almost everything going for it, with big bass, dynamics, clarity, top end extension and more – it’s a real Demo Disc, make no mistake about it

On the better pressings, the horns are so lively and high-rez, not to mention full-bodied, this could easily become a favorite big band album to demo or test with — or just to enjoy the hell out of.

Unlike most Direct to Disc recordings, this album actually contains real music worth listening to — but only when the pressing lets the energy of the musicians through, with actual fidelity to the sounds of the real instruments.

Brass without bite is boring. Drummers who are too delicate in their drumming will put you to sleep.

Many copies of this album will do exactly that, which is a real shame. During our shootout, the more we played the good copies, the more we appreciated the music these guys were making. They were swinging, a big group of top quality players totally in the groove.

When it’s played well, and the sound is as good as it is here, there’s nothing boring about these big band jazz classics. The music works. It swings.

If you like the kind of big band recordings Count Basie made — and who doesn’t — you should find much to like here.

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Gene Ammons – Blue Gene OJC-192

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Saxophone

  • Blue Gene returns to the site after a nearly two year hiatus, here with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from start to finish, and pressed on fairly quiet vinyl
  • One of the best sounding Ammons records we know of – it’s huge, rich and Tubey Magical, with a solid bottom end and bluesy jazz energy like no other
  • 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
  • The original pressings we’ve played were astonishingly bad — those of you who are interested can go to the blog in the coming weeks to read all about just how awful they can sound
  • “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 recording by Rudy Van Gelder on Prestige 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.

This IS the sound of Tubey Magic. No recordings will ever be made like this again, and no CD will ever capture what is in the grooves of this record. There is, of course, a CD of this album, but those of us who possess a working turntable and a good collection of vintage vinyl could care less.

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The Three / Self-Titled (45 RPM)

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

  • Amazing sound throughout this Japanese import pressing, with both sides earning KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them
  • The transients are uncannily lifelike – listen for the powerful kinetic energy produced when Shelly whacks the hell out of his cymbals
  • My favorite piano trio jazz album of all time — every one of the tracks is brilliantly arranged and performed
  • 4 stars: “One of Joe Sample’s finest sessions as a leader” – with Shelly Manne and Ray Brown, we would say it’s clearly his finest session, as a leader or simply as the piano player in a killer trio
  • Some of the other records we’ve discovered with top jazz piano sound can be found here
  • More amazing sounding piano recordings, of every kind of music, can be found here

If you want to hear the full six tunes recorded by The Three at that famous Hollywood session (which ran all day and long into the night, 4 AM to be exact), our 33 RPM pressings are your best bet.

If you want absolutely amazing, mind-blowing, you-are-there sound, a Hot Stamper 45 is the only way to go.

The music is so good that I personally would not want to live without the complete album. The Three is, in fact, my favorite piano trio jazz album of all time. Very one of those six tracks is brilliantly arranged and performed (if you have the right takes of course; more about that later).

This album checks off a number of important boxes for us here at Better Records:

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Swing Sessions – Recorded in a Real Concert Hall (Thank Goodness)

More Direct-to-Disc Recordings

Reviews and Commentaries for Direct to Disc Recordings

If you’re a fan of clarinet-led swing jazz, you’ll have a hard time finding a better record than this. The music is absolutely wonderful. Not only that, but it has DEMO DISC sound as well.

The Liner Notes

Direct-to-Disc Recording recorded live at Iruma City Auditorium, Saitama, Japan on April 21, 1978. Eiji Kitamura and His Allstars include Eiji on clarinet, Ichiro Masuda on vibraphone, Yoshitaka Akimitsu on piano, Yukio Ikezawa on bass, Hiroshi Sunaga on drums and Judy Anton provides vocals on “What a Little Moonlight Can Do.”

This album was recorded by the Direct-to-Disc recording method, to capture the natural reverberation of the 1,200 seat concert hall. Various kinds of recording equipment were brought in parts to the backstage of the hall for the recording then reassembled and adjusted. Two whole days were spent adjusting all the equipment. (more…)

Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto / Getz-Gilberto

More Bossa Nova

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Saxophone

  • A vintage Stereo Verve pressing of this Brazilian-flavored cool jazz classic with a KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to an excellent Double Plus (A++) side one
  • An impossibly difficult album to find in audiophile playing condition – we sunk a lot of time and dough into finding this copy, and it ain’t all that quiet, but it’s about as quiet as we can find them on vintage vinyl
  • If you want to hear this music right, the only way we know to do that is to get hold of as many copies as you can, clean them and play them and hope for the best, our business model in a nutshell
  • These sides have wonderful transparency and lovely presence – Astrud’s vocals sound breathy and Getz’s sax is full bodied, with fast transients
  • You may be surprised to learn that the right reissues of this album consistently win the shootouts, something we’ve know for many years
  • Not that it does us much good, as they are so hard to find that our last shootout was, I kid you not, 2012
  • 5 stars: “This music has nearly universal appeal; it’s one of those rare jazz records about which the purist elite and the buying public are in total agreement. Beyond essential.”
  • You may be surprised to learn that the right reissues of this album consistently win the shootouts, something we’ve know for many years
  • Not that it does us much good, as they are so hard to find that our last shootout was, I kid you not, 2012
  • If I were to compile a list of The Best Non-Classical Albums from 1964, this album would obviously have to be on it

We have been trying to find great sound (on reasonable surfaces) for this album for years — I kid you not — which is why this is one of only a very small handful of Hot Stamper versions to hit the site in, oh, about ten years.

We have fired up this shootout multiple times since 2012 and been left empty-handed each and every time until the last go-around. We have sunk an insane amount of dough into trying to get a few killer copies because we love the music so much, but we just haven’t had much to show for it. If you love this Brazilian-flavored cool jazz as much as we do, you might want to snap this one up because who knows when or if we’ll find another one.

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Dave Brubeck – Time Out

More of the Music of Dave Brubeck

  • This Six-Eye Stereo pressing boasts out of this world Demo Disc sound
  • Time Out captures the ambience and huge space of Columbia’s studio like practically no other record has (with a little reverb thrown in for good measure)
  • A knockout pressing of Brubeck’s astonishingly well recorded Jazz Classic, this is a record that belongs in every audiophile’s collection
  • Early stereo LPs in clean condition like this one are getting awfully tough to find nowadays…
  • “Buoyed by a hit single in Desmond’s ubiquitous Take Five, Time Out became an unexpectedly huge success, and still ranks as one of the most popular jazz albums ever. That’s a testament to Brubeck and Desmond’s abilities as composers, because Time Out is full of challenges both subtle and overt — it’s just that they’re not jarring.”
  • If you’re a fan of Brubeck and company, this 1959 album belongs in your collection, along with quite a few others from the classic jazz era

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