Older Vocals

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…)

Ella Fitzgerald / Sings The Irving Berlin Song Book – Reviewed in 2005

This is a very nice looking Verve Strobe Label Double LP. The quality of the sound changes here not only from side to side but from track to track. We dropped the needle on various songs on each side and side three had the best sounding songs we heard. Every side had some great sounding songs, some with tubey magic and breathy vocals. How About Me and Cheek to Cheek on side two sound particularly good.  

AMG Review

These selections are perfectly suited for Fitzgerald’s voice and her romantic sensibility; they are happy, occasionally sad, and full of swinging rhythm. A few of these songs — “Cheek to Cheek,” “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” and “Blue Skies” — will be most familiar; others, “Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails,” “Russian Lullaby,” and “All By Myself” are as memorable but perhaps less known… For fans who have enjoyed other songbook recordings, this is a must-have; for those unfamiliar with Fitzgerald’s songbook work, this is an excellent place to start.

Helen Humes – ’Tain’t Nobody’s Biz-ness If I Do

Hot Stamper Pressings of Pop and Jazz Vocals Available Now

This EXCEPTIONALLY QUIET Contemporary Recording has wonderful sound on both sides. It’s got SHOCKINGLY DYNAMIC VOCALS — just listen to Miss Humes really belting it out on a great reading of Stardust! The sound is really rich and full with a BIG punchy bottom end. The clarity and transparency are superb, and you can really hear the leading edge transients on the various horns (Carter on trumpet, Rosolino on trombone).

You Can Depend On Me, the opening track, has an exceptionally weighty piano; it’s as if Andre Previn himself were pounding on a baby grand right there in your living room.

We don’t imagine that you are ever going to find a copy that sounds as good as this one.

All the usual suspects are here from the Contemporary corral: Benny Carter, Andre Previn, Leroy Vinnegar, Shelly Manne — providing big band back up for the lovely Miss Humes. We’re even bigger fans of Songs I Like To Sing, but the best moments here are every bit as wonderful.  

This is yet another stellar piece of wax from the best sounding jazz label of all time, Contemporary Records. Dynamic, rich, tonally correct, full of ambience — this record has it all.

Side One

You Can Depend on Me 
Trouble in Mind 
Among My Souvenirs 
Ain’t Misbehavin’ 
Stardust 
Bill Bailey

Side Two

When I Grow Too Old to Dream 
A Good Man Is Hard to Find 
Bill 
‘Tain’t Nobody’s Bizness If I Do 
I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good) 
When the Saints Go Marching In

AMG Review

Humes, 45 at the time, was at the peak of her powers, although she never really made a bad record. Accompanied by Benny Carter (on trumpet), trombonist Frank Rosolino, tenor saxophonist Teddy Edwards, pianist Andrew Previn, bassist Leroy Vinnegar, and either Shelly Manne or Mel Lewis on drums, the singer is typically enthusiastic, exuberant, and highly appealing on such numbers as “You Can Depend on Me,” “When I Grow Too Old to Dream,” and “”Tain’t Nobody’s Bizness If I Do.”

Looks familiar.