Top Artists – Dave Brubeck

Bossa Nova USA – Who Are We to Talk?

Another Record We’ve Discovered with (Potentially) Excellent Sound

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Who knew? Not us and not anybody else it seems. We are not aware that any of the audiophile cognoscenti have ever taken this recording seriously, but that just goes to show how uninformed — or perhaps more likely underinformed — they’ve always been.

Gems such as this sit undiscovered even after thousands of pages of audiophile record reviews have been written. Then, along come a handful of guys in Thousand Oaks, California many years later, 52 to be exact, and reveal to the world a heretofore all but unknown yet nonetheless amazing Brubeck record.

And they back up everything they say with actual records that sound as good as they say they will.

But wait just a minute. We sold an early pressing ourselves back in 2010 for $30 as a “nice sounding” record, nothing more, so who are we to talk?

Which simply goes to show that the decade we spent perfecting the Record Shootout has finally paid off for Bossa Nova U.S.A. Now we can clean them better, play them better, hear them better, and, with a big stack to work with, find one that sounds as good as this one does.

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Dave Brubeck – Gone With The Wind

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  • Excellent sound throughout for this original Six-Eye stereo pressing with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades and playing about as quietly as an original ever does  
  • This exceptionally well-recorded album surprised us with its huge, rich, natural sound – if you want to show your friends just how good a 1959 All Tube Recorded and Mastered album can sound, this title should do the trick nicely
  • “The album as a whole is filled with wonderful surprises and contains some of the best that the cool jazz style has to offer… Gone With the Wind is strongly recommended not only for the seasoned jazz fan, but also for first-time listeners who wish to be thoroughly captivated.”

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Dave Brubeck / Countdown – Time In Outer Space

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  • A KILLER 6-Eye original stereo pressing of this wonderful recording, with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on the first side and Double Plus (A++) sound on the second
  • Both sides are incredibly Tubey Magical as befits a Brubeck recording from 1962 produced by Teo Macero
  • Superb All Tube sound courtesy of the extraordinary engineering skills of Fred Plaut
  • 4 Stars: “One of Dave Brubeck’s more adventurous albums… Highly recommended along with Brubeck’s other Time recordings.”

Need a refresher course in Tubey Magic after playing too many modern recordings or remasterings? These vintage Brubeck recordings 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.

In addition to the fine qualities outlined above, there was also barely a trace of smear on the piano, which is unusual in our experience for a vintage All Tube recording from 1962, although no one ever seems to talk about smeary pianos in the audiophile world (except for us of course).

Getting The Balance Right

Clean and clear yet rich and sweet, this copy managed to find the perfect balance of these attributes so essential to the sound of vintage jazz recordings. You want to find that rare copy that keeps what is good about a Tubey Magical analog recording from The Golden Age of Jazz while managing to avoid the pitfalls so common to them: smear, lack of top end extension, opacity and blubber.

To be sure, the fault is not with the recording (I assume, not having heard the master tape) but with the typical mediocre pressing. Bad vinyl, bad mastering, who knows why so many copies sound so smeary, thick, dull and veiled?

This copy has no such problems. Full-bodied sound, open and spacious, bursting with life and energy — these are the hallmarks of our Truly Hot Stampers. If your stereo is cookin’ these days this record will be an unparalleled Sonic Treat. We guarantee that no heavy vinyl pressing of any Brubeck album has the kind of analog magic found on one of our Hot Stampers.

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The Dave Brubeck Trio – Brubeck-Tjader

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  • Cal Tjader’s recording debut arrives with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout
  • Compiled from two 10″ discs recorded in mono in 1956, this LP may not be true stereo, but it sounds great to us
  • If you have a mono switch you can hear the single channel version at will, but we actually preferred the better space and width in stereo
  • “Many of the most celebrated Brubeck devices can be heard on these selections: the almost violent shifts from lush lyricism to jagged block chord configurations; the curiously paradoxical intertwining of traditional song materials and advanced (for 1949, at any rate) musical ideas; the dynamic pyramids of sound that begin rather casually and grow to almost unnerving heights…”

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Dave Brubeck – Adventures In Time

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This is a Minty looking Columbia Red Label Double LP with EXCELLENT sound and quiet vinyl. The tracks compiled here are live and studio versions of Brubeck and his quartet playing material composed in some non-traditional time signatures, such as the hit track Take Five (in 5/4).

We aren’t completely sure which tracks here are live versions and which are studio versions, but everything we played sounded great. There’s a version of Blue Rondo a la Turk that clocks in at over 12 minutes!

If you haven’t explored much of the music of Brubeck past Time Out, this would be an excellent addition to your collection.

“The huge success of Paul Desmond’s “Take Five” (1960) was followed by many songs played in “odd” time signatures such as 7/4 and 9/8; the high-quality soloing of the musicians kept these experiments from sounding like gimmicks.”

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Dave Brubeck – Jazz Impressions Of Japan

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  • A KILLER sounding copy and the first to ever hit the site! Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it on both sides
  • These sides are incredibly clean, clear, spacious and full-bodied with tons of Tubey Magic and a solid bottom end
  • “Thirteen years into their tenure, the Dave Brubeck Quartet was still able to mine the creative vein for new means of expression… The sketches Brubeck and Desmond created all invoke the East, particularly the folk melodies of Japan directly, while still managing to use the Debussian impressionistic approach to jazz that kept them riding the charts and creating a body of music that, while playing into the exotica craze of the moment, was still jazz composed and played with integrity.” 

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Dave Brubeck – Bossa Nova USA

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  • With two seriously good Double Plus (A++) sides, this was one of the better copies we played in our recent shootout – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Clean, clear, spacious and present yet still super rich and full, this is Columbia All Tube Sound at its best
  • So rich, clear and resolving this copy in some respects best even the legendary Time Out
  • “With the popularization of bossa nova in the early ’60s, practically every recording artist had to have at least one bossa nova album. This effort by the Dave Brubeck Quartet is better than most due to the high quality of the compositions, of which the title cut is best-known.” – All Music

Believe me, we were as surprised to hear the stellar sound of this copy as you no doubt will be when you play it.

Who knew?

Not us and not anybody else it seems. We are not aware that any of the audiophile cognoscenti have ever taken this recording seriously, but that just goes to show how uninformed — or perhaps more likely underinformed — they have always been.

Gems such as this sit undiscovered even after thousands of pages of audiophile-oriented record reviews have been written. Then, along come a handful of guys in Thousand Oaks, California many years later, 52 to be exact, and reveal to the world a heretofore all but unknown yet nonetheless amazing Brubeck record.

And they actually back up everything they say with pressings that sound every bit as good as they say they will. Imagine that.

But wait just a minute. We sold an early pressing ourselves back in 2010 for $30 as a “nice sounding” record, nothing more, so who are we to talk?

Which simply goes to show that the decade we spent perfecting the Record Shootout has finally paid off for Bossa Nova U.S.A. Now we can clean them better, play them better, hear them better, and, with a big stack to work with, find one that sounds as good as this one does. (more…)

Time Out Is a Classic Case of Live and Learn

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Reviews and Commentaries for Time Out

Another example of We Was Wrong

When we did a shootout for this album way back in October of 2007, we took the opportunity to play the Classic Records 200 gram pressing. Maybe we got a bad one, who knows, but that record did not sound remotely as good as the real thing. (6 eye or 360, both can be quite good. Skip the Red Label ’70s reissues.)

The piano sounded thin and hard, which was quite unexpected given the fact that we used to consider the Classic LP one of their few winners and actually recommended it.

As we said in our shootout: “We dropped the needle on the Classic reissue to see how it stacked up against a serious pressing. Suffice it to say, the real Time Out magic isn’t going to be found on any heavy vinyl reissue!”

If I were in charge of the TAS Super Disc List, I would not have put this record on it.

Here are some others that we think do not qualify as Super Discs.

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Dave Brubeck Trio w/ Gerry Mulligan – Blues Roots

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A very different quartet appears on this record, with Mulligan’s baritone sax replacing Desmond’s alto and a whole new rhythm section behind both of these veteran leaders.

We’ve been surprised how good these mid- to late-’60s Brubeck recordings can sound. There’s still plenty of Tubey Magical richness on the best pressings of these records, a quality that is especially important when trying to reproduce the full-bodied sound of a baritone sax.  (more…)

The Dave Brubeck Quartet – Near Myth – Reviewed in 2011

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This original STEREO BLUE VINYL Fantasy pressing has Hot Stamper sound on both sides, with rich and musical Tubey Magical qualities appropriate to this early ’60s West Coast jazz. We’ve known about this album for close to twenty years, having played the surprisingly good sounding OJC pressing and recommended it back in the days when those kinds of records were still in print. 

As you can imagine there’s not much going on at the frequency extremes, high or low; we have yet to hear a Fantasy pressing from the era that boasts full bandwidth sound, but the middle sure can be awfully nice!

Side Two

A to A++, very good sound with more top and bottom than most. There are condition problems of course; colored Fantasy vinyl is rarely quieter. Most of the time these kinds of records are so beat they are completely unplayable. This one is the exception; it can be played and enjoyed.

Side One

A+, rich and musical but a bit veiled with some all-too-common tube smear.

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