
More of the Music of Dave Brubeck
Reviews and Commentaries for Time Further Out
About five years ago we wrote:
The monos we played in our last two or three shootouts didn’t do much for us. They tended to be thin and hard sounding, and of course much of the space of the studio disappears completely. One side of one copy did well enough I suppose, but my advice would be to avoid them if you’re looking for top quality sound.
Years before we had discovered an outstanding mono copy and described it this way:
This Columbia Six-Eye pressing is THE BEST SOUNDING MONO COPY OF THIS ALBUM WE’VE EVER HEARD! The better Mono pressings of this album give you extra immediacy, more solidity to the drums, and energy like you wouldn’t believe. That makes the drum solo on side two sound OUT OF THIS WORLD. Most copies are congested and veiled, but not this one! The sound is spacious and transparent with wonderful presence. You will not believe how lively it is!
Both sides are rich and full-bodied with lots of sweetness and extension up top. The energy and transparency are wonderful. The bass is a bit tubby, but that’s what you get on these vintage Six Eye pressings. It’s worth it when there’s as much tubey magic as you get on this pressing.
Fast forward to 2023 and once again we manage to stumble upon a rare 6 Eye Mono pressing in our shootout that had the Time Further Out goods:
- With superb Double Plus (A++) sound throughout, this vintage 6-Eye Mono pressing will be very hard to beat – fairly quiet vinyl too
- It’s extremely unlikely that any mono pressing will win a shootout, but just to keep us on our toes, we like to put some monos of famous albums in our shootouts from time to time to see how they measure up
- This 2+ early pressing was the best of the bunch, and it’s guaranteed to beat the pants off any modern Heavy Vinyl pressing ever made
So there you have it. The right mono pressings can sound very good indeed.
Apparently, we was wrong to think we was wrong.
TRACK LISTING
Side One
It’s a Raggy Waltz
Bluette
Charles Matthew Hallelujah
Far More Blue
Side Two
Far More Drums
Maori Blues
Unsquare Dance
Bru’s Boogie Woogie
Blue Shadows in the Street
AMG Review
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.
Mono, Stereo, Reprocessed Stereo, We’ve Played Them All
On this Brubeck album, the mono and stereo pressings both have the potential to sound amazingly good.
Other records that sound their best one way or the other can be found using the links below.
Further Reading