Top Artists – Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Vaughan – Golden Hits (1954-58)

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Excellent sound throughout with each side rating a solid Double Plus (A++) or BETTER – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
Surprisingly dynamic on both sides – this pressing lets you hear The Divine One when she really was that good
This is Sarah in her prime, presenting the listener with an especially good overview of her best Mercury recordings from 1954-58

Wonderful space and most of the richness that makes these ’50s recordings (many by the legendary Robert Fine) so wonderfully natural.

Big, lively and highly resolving. A powerful low end too (which has to be Fine’s doing).

We’ve been fortunate to have a number of excellent sounding Sarah Vaughan records find their way onto our turntable over the course of the last few years, but this is our first official Sarah Vaughan shootout title to make it to the site.

Most of the reason for this unfortunate fact can be attributed to the lack of clean copies of her prime albums for Mercury sitting in our local record store bins. Her best albums are either missing or scratched. (Plenty of Pablos and Mainstreams, sure, but we have never been all that impressed with either label’s recordings of vocalists.)

This Greatest Hits album apparently stayed in print long enough to produce the supply necessary for one of our shootouts, and the result is we now have some wonderful Sarah Vaughan performances with superb sound to share with our customers. (more…)

Sarah Vaughan – After Hours on Emus

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With outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last, this copy of After Hours put the living, breathing Divine One right between our speakers
With simple arrangements, featuring Mundell Lowe’s guitar and George Duvivier’s double bass, Vaughan’s soulful voice can take center stage
This copy was pressed on exceptionally quiet vinyl – it plays as quietly as any copy we have ever heard
“…a quiet and intimate affair, with Vaughan more subtle than she sometimes was… some fine jazz singing.”

This early Emus Stereo pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records cannot even 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, this is the record for you. It’s what Vintage Records are known for — this sound.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds. (more…)

Sarah Vaughan Sassy – A Hall of Shame Pressing from Speakers Corner

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Sonic Grade: F

A Hall of Shame Pressing, recorded in 1956 and remastered, badly, in 1999.

The Speakers Corner version of this record is awful. It’s bright and GRAINY. If you want a good Sarah record, try the album just called Sarah Vaughan that Speakers Corner put out in 2004.

Check out our Heavy Vinyl Scorecard to read all about the latest winners and losers.

Sarah Vaughan – A Winner from Speakers Corner

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Sonic Grade: B

A TOP TITLE from Speakers Corner on 180 gram. This is an outstanding Sarah Vaughan album with very good sound and top players like Clifford Brown on trumpet, Paul Quinichette on tenor sax and Herbie Mann on flute.

Check out our Heavy Vinyl Scorecard to read all about the latest winners and losers.

[We haven’t played a copy of this record in years, but back in the day we liked it, so let’s call it a “B” with the caveat that the older the review, the more likely we are to have changed our minds.]

“The Jazz World, instrumentally and vocally, may be said to be split into two camps. There are the followers and the followed; the imitators and the inimitable. True, there are many who have managed to graduate out of the first class into the second (didn’t Dizzy Gillespie once sound just like Roy Eldridge?), but in the case of Sarah Vaughan it can safely be assumed that this talent has been sui generis from the very beginning; that the Newark neighbors who heard her first infant cries in 1924 could tell immediately when it was Vaughan who was wailing.”

“It is doubtful whether anyone, including Sarah herself, is likely to be able to find any more completely satisfying representation of her work, or any more appropriate musical setting, than are offered in this LP. These sides are sure to rank among the foremost achievements of her decade as a recording artist.” – from the original liner notes

TRACK LISTING

Lullaby of Birdland
April in Paris
He’s My Guy
Jim
You’re Not The Kind
Embraceable You
I’m Glad There Is You
September Song
It’s Crazy
Lullaby Of Birdland

Sarah Vaughan – Dreamy – ’60s and ’80s Work Well Together

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Superb Shootout Winning sound on side one, rating a Triple Plus (A+++) – side two rated a solid Double Plus (A++)
Forget the honky originals – our killer reissues of this 1960 All Tube Recording are rich and relaxed, just the way they should be
Pretty darn quiet throughout — Mint Minus to Mint Minus Minus – good luck finding a copy in the bins that plays this quiet
“Trumpeter Harry “Sweets” Edison contributes some soft, melodic trumpet but the focus is very much on the singer during such numbers as “The More I See You,” “Star Eyes,” “My Ideal,” and “Crazy He Calls Me.”” – All Music

The original release for Dreamy is on Roulette, a label we have often found to have problems in the sound department (not to mention notoriously bad vinyl). The originals we’ve played over the years have much too much honk and hardness in the midrange to be taken seriously, at least by us anyway, and certainly not at these prices. When we stumbled upon these good Emus reissues, the skies opened up and the sun shone down upon Sarah’s wonderful 1960 album of ballads as it had never done before. (more…)