Top Arrangers / Performers – Marty Paich

Ray Charles and Betty Carter – DCC Heavy Vinyl Reviewed & Recommended

More Soul, Blues and R&B Albums with Hot Stampers

UPDATE

This listing is from 2010 or thereabouts. The vintage pressings that win our shootouts are noticeably better, but they are almost impossible to find with the right stampers in audiophile playing condition, so if you love this music, you could do worse than this DCC pressing.

Folks, I have to hand it to Steve Hoffman — this is the BEST SOUNDING DCC LP we have played in years.

We’ve been harshin’ on DCC for years now. Whenever we do a shootout for The Eagles or The Doors or Bonnie Raitt or Queen or you name it, the DCC pressing almost always gets a serious drubbing from our listening panel. Not so here. This one took TOP HONORS against the other copies we played and was head and shoulders better sounding in practically every way. [The right vintage pressings beat the DCC in more recent shootouts, but we can still recommend the DCC as a very good sounding pressing.]

Do all the copies of the DCC sound this good? I would bet money right now they don’t. Folks, I’m guessing this is a Hot Stamper. It was pressed just right and all the Hoffman magic is in these grooves. But that’s just a guess, and I could easily be wrong. If you have a few copies at home, shoot them out! What, you don’t have a bunch of these? Me neither, so no shootout will probably ever be done. This album is just too rare and pricey these days.

Bottom line: We know a good record when we hear one, and this is a very good record indeed! Bravo to Steve for a job well done. 

Ray Charles – Modern Sounds In Country & Western Music Volume Two

  • You’ll find incredible Triple Plus (A+++) sound on both sides of this stereo copy of Charles’ 1962 follow up to Modern Sounds In Country and Western Music 
  • Features Ray’s Big Band with the Raelettes on one side and the legendary Jack Halloran Singers on the other
  • Finally, here is the right sound for these acclaimed songs you know well, classics such as You Are My Sunshine; Your Cheating Heart; Oh, Lonesome Me, and nine more
  • 5 stars: “Vol. 2 defied the curse of the sequel and was just as much of an artistic triumph as its predecessor … the miracle is that Charles’ hurt, tortured, soulfully twisting voice transforms the backgrounds as well as the material; you believe what he’s singing.”

(more…)

Songs I Like to Sing – Our Black Label Copy from Way Back

Hot Stamper Pressings of Pop and Jazz Vocals Available Now

This review is from many, many years ago. These days the Black Label pressings are not competitive with the reissues we offer. Live and learn, right?

This Contemporary Black Label Original LP has AMAZING SOUND ON BOTH SIDES! It has that classic tube-mastered sound — warmer, smoother, and sweeter than the later pressings, with more breath of life.   

Overall the sound is well-balanced and tonally correct from top to bottom, which is rare for a black label Contemporary, as they are usually dull and bass-heavy.

I won’t buy them locally anymore unless they can be returned. I’ve got a box full of Contemporarys with bloated bass and no top end that I don’t know what to do with! Like most mediocre-to-bad sounding records around here, they just sit in a box taking up space. All our time and effort goes into putting good pressings on the site and in the emailings. It’s hard to get motivated to do anything with the leftovers. We paid plenty for them, so we don’t want to give them away. But they don’t sound good, so our customers won’t buy them. What to do, what to do? Ebay I guess, but that’s a long way down the road. It’s too more fun doing listings for good records these days to want to stop now. The average record is just average, and nothing is ever going to change that. (more…)

Modern Jazz Classics – Black Label Original with Very Good Sound from Long Ago

SURPRISINGLY GOOD SOUND AND QUIET VINYL ON THIS BLACK LABEL ORIGINAL! Clean early copies like these don’t grow on trees, and ones that actually sound good are even more difficult to find. The sound is full-bodied and energetic with more tubey magic than the average later copies. 

As tends to be the case with these Black Label copies, the bass could stand to be tighter. The later copies offer an extra degree of resolution, but we know some people prefer these early copies for their richness and sweetness (which, as we’ve written about extensively, comes at price).

If That’s What It Takes – Another MoFi Disaster

More of the Music of Michael McDonald

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Michael McDonald

Sonic Grade: F

The MoFi pressing of this album is a complete disaster — it’s even fatter, muddier and more compressed than the standard domestic copy, as improbable as that may seem.

It was mastered by Jack Hunt, a man we know to be responsible for some of the thickest, dullest, deadest MoFi recuts throughout their shameful catalog.

With mastering credits on this Michael McDonald album, Gerry Rafferty (058) and Blondie (050), you have to wonder how this guy kept getting work.  

Mel Torme With The Marty Paich Dek-tette

More of the Music of Mel Torme

  • A KILLER copy with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on the first side and solid Double Plus (A++) sound on the second; exceptionally quiet vinyl too!
  • Both sides here are incredibly rich and smooth with wonderfully breathy vocals and a solid bottom end
  • “Mel Tormé with the Marty Paich Dek-tette is a vocal masterpiece, an extremely satisfying record achieved only by a fusion of an excellent voice, an excellent band, and excellent material.” – All Music, 5 Stars

This vintage Bethlehem pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound. (more…)

The Hi-Lo’s – All Over The Place

Side two is nearly White Hot, with rich, natural vocal reproduction. This is the glorious sound of Columbia’s All Tube chain in 1960. Marty Paich (the genius) is back conducting the orchestra for this set of standards.

Need a refresher course in Tubey Magic after playing too many modern recordings or remasterings? These records are overflowing with it. Rich, smooth, sweet, full of ambience, dead-on correct tonality — everything that we listen for in a great record is here.

If you’re an audiophile, both the sound and the music are crazy fun. If you want to demonstrate just how good 1960 All Tube Analog sound can be, this is the record that will do it!

Side One

A++, by the second track the highs open up and the sound is superb throughout the rest of the side.

Listen to Autumn in New York for a taste of the huge, rich and natural sound that Columbia was famous for in 1960.

Side Two

A++ to A+++, even better. By track two the voices are breathy and clear with no noticeable tube smear.

Jesse Belvin – Mr. Easy

Zero distortion. zero smear, huge amounts of space and breathy rich vocals – what’s not to like? Marty Paich and Art Pepper lend a hand, and with Al Schmitt behind the board the sound is 1960 Living Stereo Tubey Magic at its finest.

If you know anything about this record you know that it is practically impossible to find in clean condition. The mono pressings are much more common but we did not care for their sound in the least.

We consider ourselves lucky to have found one with this kind of sound, because side one is getting everything so right we simply have no faults to make note of.

Notice especially how rich and textured the strings are on Marty Paich’s arrangements.

Side two was clearly not as good, hence the lower sonic grade. We could have called side two A++ but we felt that a more conservative approach might be a wiser choice in this case.

Al Schmitt

Al Schmitt recorded and mixed Mr. Easy for RCA back in 1960 and on side one of this very copy it should be clear to all that he knocked it out of the park.

We know his work well; he happens to have been at the controls for many albums with audiophile quality sound: Aja, Hatari, Breezin’, Late for the Sky, Toto IV, as well as some we can’t stand (the entire Diana Krall digital-echo-drenched catalog comes to mind).

The guy’s won 13 Grammy Awards, that ought to tell you something.