Top Artists – Benny Golson

Miles Davis – Green Haze (‘The Musings of Miles’ and ‘Miles’)

More of the Music of Miles Davis

  • Boasting excellent Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on all FOUR sides, these vintage Mono pressings are doing just about everything right – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Spacious, sweet and positively dripping with ambience – talk about Tubey Magic, the liquidity of the sound here is positively uncanny
  • This Prestige Two-Fer simply combines two complete Miles Davis titles recorded by Rudy Van Gelder in 1955 – ‘The Musings of Miles’ and ‘Miles’
  • The 1976 transfers of tape to disc by David Turner are superb in all respects – this is remastering done right
  • 4 stars: “… it is for the excellent rhythm sections and the playing of Miles Davis that this two-fer is highly recommended.”
  • If you’re a fan of Miles, this All Tube MONO Recording from 1955 belongs in your collection.

This is vintage analog at its best, so full-bodied and relaxed you’ll wonder how it ever came to be that anyone seriously contemplated trying to improve it. (more…)

Wynton Kelly Trio & Sextet – Kelly Blue

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

  • Wynton Kelly’s hard-to-find second album, here with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides of this vintage OJC pressing
  • A superb pressing, with lovely richness and warmth, good space, separation between the instruments, and real immediacy throughout
  • Kelly brings in jazz greats Nat Adderley, Bobby Jaspar, and Benny Golson, as well as several of his bandmates from Miles Davis’s sextet, including Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb
  • There are some bad marks (as is sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs) on “Old Clothes,” but once you hear just how incredible sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and just be swept away by the music
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Kelly was renowned as an accompanist, but as he shows on a set including three of his originals and four familiar standards… A fine example of his talents.”
  • “Wynton Kelly demonstrates once again why he has been a major influence in the history of jazz piano.”

Jack Higgins was the engineer for these sessions. He recorded Chet Baker’s brilliant Chet album the same year, as well as many other albums for Riverside in New York in the 50s and 60s.

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Horace Silver – Song For My Father

More Horace Silver

More Blue Note Albums

  • This Van Gelder-mastered Blue Note reissue pressing (one of only a handful of copies to hit the site in years) boasts solid grades from start to finish
  • Tubey Magic is the key to the sound of the better pressings, and we guarantee this one has the kind of Tubey Magic that no modern pressing of the last 40 years can offer the audiophile community
  • Energetic, clear and spacious, as well as relaxed and full-bodied (thanks, RVG!) – this pressing was a step up over most other copies we played
  • An incredibly tough album to find with the right sound and decent surfaces, but the music makes it worth all the time and trouble we spent finding this outstanding copy
  • 5 stars: “Horace Silver’s signature LP and the peak of a discography already studded with classics. Silver was always a master at balancing jumping rhythms with complex harmonies for a unique blend of earthiness and sophistication, and Song for My Father has perhaps the most sophisticated air of all his albums…”

The leading edge transients on the horns here are excellent, with the pinched quality you hear on some tracks kept to a minimum. The whole of the ensemble is transparently clear.

The drums on this record have a wonderful quality: they actually sound like hollowed out, three-dimensional objects that are being struck in order to make them resonate — which is kind of what they are — the opposite of the cardboard drums you hear on bad rock records. (We hear a lot of drums on old rock records that sound like somebody is slapping a corrugated shipping carton with a mallet. You lose a lot of points if you’re a record with that sound.)

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Art Blakey – Moanin’

More Art Blakey

  • With two seriously good Double Plus (A++) sides, this vintage Blue Note stereo reissue will be very hard to beat
  • Remarkably spacious and three-dimensional, as well as relaxed and full-bodied – this pressing was a noticeable step up over most of the copies we played
  • If you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of this wonderful session from 1958 – recorded by none other than Rudy Van Gelder – this pressing will bring that sound into your listening room like no other copy you’ve heard
  • 5 stars: “Moanin’ includes some of the greatest music Blakey produced in the studio with arguably his very best band. Certainly a complete and wholly satisfying album, [it] ranks with the very best of Blakey and what modern jazz offered in the late ’50s and beyond.”

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John Lewis – The Wonderful World Of Jazz

More John Lewis

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

  • This Atlantic reissue was doing just about everything right, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Bigger, richer, more Tubey Magical, with more extension on both ends of the spectrum and more depth, width and height than most other copies we played
  • An outstanding (and very hard-to-find) Jazz LP – a Better Records Top Recommendation from decades ago, and we are pleased to report that the music and the sound still hold up
  • 4 1/2 stars: “This is one of pianist John Lewis’ most rewarding albums outside of his work with the Modern Jazz Quartet. Three numbers (including a remake of ‘Two Degrees East, Three Degrees West’) showcase his piano in a quartet with guitarist Jim Hall, bassist George Duvivier, and drummer Connie Kay.”

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Benny Golson – Groovin’ with Golson

More Benny Golson

More Recordings by Rudy Van Gelder

  • Benny Golson makes his debut on the site with this STUNNING pressing of his 1959 release
  • These sides show off Rudy Van Gelder’s engineering chops to full effect – they’re big, full-bodied and lively, with good studio space around all the players
  • “In this ’59 session, he stretches out on some simple blues patterns and one standard ballad. It’s all done at a swinging tempo that allows Fuller to shine on trombone with near perfect solos; the underrated Ray Bryant adds his impeccable piano touch (he’s as great as Kelly or Clark); Paul Chambers was never better on bass than here, both as accompanist and soloist; and the irrepressible drummer, Art Blakey, makes the whole session sparkle. Backed by this band, Golson is as smooth as butter in tone, and as dazzling in his virtuosity as any tenor player of the times.”

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Horace Silver Quintet – Silver’s Serenade

  • Stunning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on both sides of this copy of The Horace Silver Quintet’s final album together
  • Only the second copy of Silver Serenade to ever hit the site, it is incredibly hard to find Silver’s records in stereo with the right stampers and good sound
  • Thanks to RVG, the sound here is wonderfully full-bodied, lively and musical with a relatively bottom end
  • 4 stars: “The band had made five previous recordings for the label, all of them successful. The program here is comprised of Silver compositions. The blowing is a meld of relaxed, soulful, and swinging hard bop, as evidenced in the title track… This is another excellent recording by the greatest Silver quintet.”

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Horace Silver Quintet – The Stylings of Silver

silver

  • With superb Triple Plus (A+++) grades on side two and Double Plus (A++) sound on side one, this is one of the best copies of Silver’s 1957 classic we’ve ever heard
  • The last copy to hit the site went up in 2016 – clean Horace Silver records in stereo with the right stampers and good sound are hard to find!
  • Rich and solid, this is the kind of sound that makes us sit up and take notice – Thanks RVG, we love your work (when it sounds like this)
  • “All of Silver’s Blue Note quintet recordings are consistently superb and swinging…”

I chanced upon a clean copy of this album in a store last year. When I got home with it I found I loved the music and I loved the sound. I then went about buying them up as fast as I could, returning something on the order of half the copies I was sent: some for scratches, some for the wrong labels, some for being mono — you never know what you’re going to get when you order records online!

Except from us of course. Unless something goes terribly wrong you will always get a good sounding, reasonably quiet record from us.

RVG in ’57

The best copies are just bigger, fuller and more present than others. The sound is natural and REAL, with exceptional space and see-through transparency, something that practically no heavy vinyl modern pressing we’ve ever played can reproduce.

Classic Records remastered the album, Music Matters remastered it, and there are plenty of copies of both out there. If you have either one, do yourself a favor and order up this Hot Stamper. We’re pretty sure you will be amazed at how much more musical involvement you will find on it, involvement that will be lacking when you go back to the Heavy Vinyl LP.

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Sarah Vaughan – Sassy Swings Again

  • Superb nearly White Hot Stamper sound on side one – big, rich and spacious
  • Side two earned a Super Hot grade for its full-bodied brass and Sarah’s breathy vocals
  • A great selection of Jazz, Pop and Blues standards for her last Mercury release from 1967
  • Allmusic 4 Stars “…[an] essential session from that most divine of jazz chanteuses.”

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