Alive Jazz

These are records that really come to life on big speakers playing at loud levels.

They cannot be properly reproduced using small drivers, small speakers or screens, and they won’t sound the way they should unless the volume is up good and loud.

Weather Report – Heavy Weather

More of the Music of Weather Report

  • Both sides of this vintage copy have excellent sound for the band’s 1977 Masterpiece, earning top grades
  • “Birdland” on this pressing has some of the most dynamic, wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, jam-packed sound ever committed to vinyl
  • Joe Zawinul and Jaco Pastorius are both here and at the absolute peak of their creative powers – this is a work of genius
  • 5 stars: “‘Birdland’ is a remarkable bit of record-making, a unified, ever-developing piece of music that evokes, without in any way imitating, a joyous evening on 52nd St. with a big band.”
  • We’ve 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. Weather Report’s seventh (!) album is a good example of a record many audiophiles may not know all that well but do well to find the time to get to know better.
  • As is sometimes the case, there is one and only one set of stampers that consistently wins our shootouts for Heavy Weather.  Click on this link to see other titles with one set of stamper numbers that always come out on top

The hottest of the hot stamper pressings demonstrate that this is a truly amazing recording, with some of the most dynamic, wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling jam-packed sound ever committed to vinyl. The grit, grain and grunge of most pressings is nowhere to be found on these killer sides, and that alone puts them in a very special league indeed. (more…)

Jimmy Smith / Bashin’ – The Unpredictable Jimmy Smith

More of the Music of Jimmy Smith

  • This Big Band Jazz classic led by Jimmy Smith returns to the site for only the second time in four years, here with solid Double Plus (A++) grades from start to finish
  • If you own only one Jimmy Smith album, make it this one – with Oliver Nelson‘s arrangements ferociously blasting away, at good loud levels the first side here has the power to swing like you will not believe
  • 5 stars: “On the first half of the program, Smith was for the first time joined by a big band. Oliver Nelson provided the arrangements, trumpeter Joe Newman and altoist Phil Woods have a solo apiece, and “Walk on the Wild Side” became Smith’s biggest hit up to that point.”
  • It’s hard to imagine that any list of the Best Jazz Albums of 1962 would not have this record on it

This is tube mastering at its finest. Not many vintage tube-mastered records manage to balance all the sonic elements as correctly as this copy does.

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Helen Humes / Songs I LIke to Sing – A Forgotten Jazz Vocal Classic

More Pop and Jazz Vocal Albums

  • With a STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one, this vintage Contemporary pressing was giving us the sound we were looking for on our all time favorite Big Band Vocal album – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Both of these sides are exceptionally Tubey Magical, yet incredibly clean and clear
  • Helen’s voice is perfection — breathy, full, and sweet; and the orchestra sounds just right — just listen to the nice bite of the brass
  • 5 stars: “One of the high points of Helen Humes’ career, this Contemporary set features superior songs, superb backup, and very suitable and swinging arrangements by Marty Paich. Humes’ versions of ‘If I Could Be With You,’ ‘You’re Driving Me Crazy,’ and ‘Million Dollar Secret,’ in particular, are definitive… This classic release is essential and shows just how appealing a singer Helen Humes could be.”

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Caldera / Sky Islands

More Jazz Fusion

  • KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them bring Caldera’s amazing sophomore LP to life on this vintage Capitol pressing
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this killer copy in our notes: “huge and weighty drums and bass”…”fully extended from top to bottom”…”jumping out of the speakers”…”big low end”
  • Demo Disco sound – this copy was just bigger and richer than any other we played, with rock solid energy to beat them all
  • If you like percussion instruments of all size and shape jumping out of your speakers, this is the record for you
  • Not only is this a phenomenally well-recorded album, it’s also one of the best Jazz Fusion albums of all time, and easily takes top honors in the sub-category of Latin Jazz Fusion

This White Hot Stamper Caldera album has Demo Disc sound, big and bold, wall to wall and then some! Listen to the monster drum at the opening of “Sky Islands” — it’s not deep like the bass drum in an orchestra, but it’s solid, punchy and way up front in the mix where it really grabs your attention right from the get go. It’s the perfect introduction to a band that wants to get in your face and knock you over with the power and energy of their music. The immediacy of the recording is like standing at the front of the stage where the music is its loudest and clearest, exactly where I like to be.

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The Three on Inner City – By Far the Best Way to Get All Six Tracks

More of the Music of The Three

  • A Demo Disc quality Inner City pressing of this wonderful recording with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it from start to finish
  • 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 those six 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

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), these 33 RPM pressings are the best 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; every one of those six tracks is brilliantly arranged and performed (if you have the right takes of course; more about that later).

More On The Subject Of Energy

This is a quality no one seems to be writing about, other than us of course, but what could possibly be more important? On this record, the more energetic copies took the players’ performances to a level beyond all expectations. It is positively shocking how lively and dynamic the best copies of this record are. I know of no other recording with this combination of sonic and musical energy. It is sui generis, in a league of its own.

Both sides are so transparent you can hear Shelly Manne vocalizing as he’s playing the drums. The drum solo on side two is killer here. So full of energy and so dynamic. Why aren’t more drum kits recorded this well? Check out the pictures inside the fold-open cover to see all the mics that were used on the drums. That’s where that wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling sound comes from.

The transients are uncannily lifelike, conveying the huge amounts of kinetic energy produced when Shelly whacks the hell out of his cymbals.

Ne Plus Ultra Piano Trio

This record is made from the “backup” tape for the session. East Wind released two versions of the famous direct to disc version at 33 RPM, and for those of you who bother to read the commentary, you know that take one of that pressing presents a completely different performance of the music than the one found on the Inner City on offer here.

There was a time when the best copies of a recording like this would go directly into my collection. If I wanted to impress someone, audiophile or otherwise, with the You-Are-There illusion that only Big Speakers in a dedicated room playing a live recording can create, this would be up near the top of the list. There is practically nothing like it on vinyl in my experience.

This is without a doubt my favorite piano trio record of all time. Joe Sample, Shelly Manne, and Ray Brown only made one album together, this one, recorded direct to disc right here in Los Angeles for Eastwind in the Seventies. Joe Sample for once in his life found himself in a real Class A trio, and happily for jazz fans around the world, he rose to the occasion. Actually, it was more like an epiphany, as this is the one piano trio album I put in a class by itself. All three of The Three are giving us the best they’ve got on that November day in 1975.

When it comes to small combo piano jazz, there is none better.

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Duke Ellington / Ellington Indigos on Six Eye from 1958

More Duke Ellington

More Records with Exceptionally Tubey Magical Sound

  • With solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER throughout, this wonderful late-50s pressing (the first copy to hit the site in close to four years) has the magic of analog in its grooves
  • Side one was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be amazed at how big and rich and tubey the sound is
  • Our 6-Eye Stereo Columbia here impressed us with its superbly well-recorded large group jazz, in the romantic style Ellington refined to an art form – never more sublime than on this very album
  • A near-perfect demonstration of just how good 1958 All Tube Analog sound can be – no modern record can hold a candle to a pressing as good as this one
  • If you like your jazz ballads performed with deep feeling, by a road-tested group of virtuoso players, this record is going to be hard to beat

If you like the sound of relaxed, tube-mastered jazz, you can’t do much better than Ellington Indigos. Many of the other 6-Eye copies we played suffered from blubbery bass and transient smearing, but the clarity and bass definition here are surprisingly good. The warmth and immediacy of this sound may just blow your mind.

We played a handful of later pressings that didn’t really do it for us. They offer improved clarity, but can’t deliver the tubey goodness that you’ll hear on the best early pressings. We won’t be bothering with them anymore. It’s tubes or nothing on this album.

The key for vintage super-tubey recordings is balancing clarity with richness. The easiest way to test for those two qualities on this album is to find a track with clear, lively, loud trumpets that also includes rich trombones and other low brass. On side one that track is “Where or When.” If your copy has clear, lively trumpets and rich, full-bodied, Tubey Magical low brass, it is definitely doing something right.

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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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Freddie Hubbard – Red Clay

More of the Music of Freddie Hubbard

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  • A Red Clay like you’ve never heard, with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound throughout – fairly quiet vinyl for this Hubbard title too
  • All of the top copies from our last big shootout in 2022 featured an acetate issue that affected track 2 on side 1, but we’re happy to report no such problems this time around!
  • It’s one of our favorite CTI albums – Red Clay (the song and the album) is Hubbard’s soul jazz masterpiece, and it’s a record that belongs in every audiophile’s jazz collection
  • Lenny White drums up a storm on this album – on this copy he is playing right in the room with you
  • 5 stars: “This may be Freddie Hubbard’s finest moment as a leader, in that it embodies and utilizes all of his strengths as a composer, soloist, and frontman. [It] places the trumpeter in the company of giants such as saxophonist Joe Henderson, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Lenny White… This is a classic, hands down.”
  • If you’re a Hubbard fan, or perhaps a fan of early-’70s Soul Jazz, this title from 1970 is surely a Must Own.

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 more of an accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. Red Clay is a good example of a record most audiophiles may not know well but would benefit from getting to know better.

Hubbard was a master of funky jazz, and the song “Red Clay” is arguably the funkiest jazz track he ever committed to tape. At 12 minutes in length it is a transcendentally powerful experience — and the bigger your speakers and the louder you turn them up the more moving that experience is going to be!

The intro to “Red Clay” begins with a stylized free-form jam, sounding like a bop-jazz band of old, then takes form and solidifies into a groove of monstrous proportions. Ron Carter’s bass playing is stellar! It’s big and lively with tons of presence and energy.

Like many of our funky favorites, this one was eventually sampled for a popular hip-hop song. That may not mean much to you, but it definitely means that nice copies of this album get swiped up quickly by young DJs and producers.

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Ted Heath / Shall We Dance

More Big Band Jazz Recordings

  • This original London pressing boasts outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades from first note to last – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Both of these sides are huge, rich, weighty and dynamic like few records you have ever heard – it sets the Gold Standard for Tubey Magical Big Band sound
  • It’s simply bigger, more transparent, less distorted, more three-dimensional and more REAL than much of what we played
  • Credit Kingsway Hall, Kenneth Wilkinson, and the Decca “Tree” microphone setup as the three elements used to create the magic in these grooves

Years ago we wrote in another listing, “We had a copy of Heath’s Shall We Dance not long ago that had some of the biggest, richest, most powerful sound I have ever heard. Watch for Hot Stampers coming to the site soon.” Well, now they’re here, and this copy fulfills the promise of the album better than most others we played in our recent Shootout.

DEMO DISC SOUND barely begins to do this one justice. This is Audiophile Quality Big Band sound to beat them all. The American big bands rarely got the kind of sound that the Decca engineers were able to achieve on records like this. For one thing they didn’t have Kingsway Hall, Kenneth Wilkinson or the Decca “Tree” microphone setup.

Unlike some of the American big band leaders who were well past their prime by the advent of the two-channel era, Heath is able to play with all the energy and verve required for this style of music. He really does “swing in high stereo” on these big band dance tunes.

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Ornette Coleman / Ornette on Tenor – Demo Disc Jazz Sound

More Ornette Coleman

  • This is one of the BEST sounding jazz albums we have played in many months – it is ALIVE with energy and dynamic contrasts
  • We had a superb original Plum and Orange Mono pressing and as good as that one may be, this stereo pressing takes the music to another level entirely (on big speakers at loud levels of course)
  • Compare this pressing to anything ever recorded by Rudy Van Gelder and you may be in for quite a shock
  • Engineered by the team of Tom Dowd and Phil Iehle, the men behind some of Coltrane’s most iconic, best sounding albums for Atlantic
  • 5 stars in Downbeat – Allmusic notes: “It’s an understatement to say that Ornette Coleman’s stint with Atlantic altered the jazz world forever, and Ornette on Tenor was the last of his six LPs (not counting outtakes compilations) for the label, wrapping up one of the most controversial and free-thinking series of recordings in jazz history… far ahead of its time.

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