Top Artists – Shelly Manne (drummer)

Sonny Rollins – Alternate Takes

  • You’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this vintage Contemporary pressing
  • One of our favorite Sonny Rollins records for sound – both sides here are incredibly big, full-bodied and Tubey Magical
  • 4 1/2 stars: “This LP contains alternate versions of selections from two famous Sonny Rollins albums: Way out West and Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders. These ‘new’ renditions… hold their own against the classic versions. [T]he music is hard-swinging and frequently superb.”
  • If you’re a 50s and 60s jazz fan, this Must Own compilation of recordings originally released in 1958 surely belongs in your collection

The album is made up of alternate takes from the Way Out West and Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders sessions, and as such there is a bit of sonic variation between these tracks and the ones on the actual albums. The best-sounding songs here, particularly the material from Way Out West, can sound amazing.

All Tube in ’58

The best copies are rich and tubey; many pressings were thin and modern sounding, and for that they would lose a lot of points. We want this record to sound like something Roy DuNann recorded with an All Tube chain in 1958, and the best copies give you that sound, without the surface noise and groove damage the originals doubtless suffer from.

Some copies have much more space; some are more present, putting the musicians right in the room with you; some are more transparent, resolving the musical information much better than others, letting you “see” everyone in the studio clearly. Some have more rhythmic drive than others. On some the musicians seem more involved and energetic than they do on the average pressing.

The copies that do all these things better than other copies are the ones that win our shootouts.

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Getting the Balance Right on Mean to Me

Hot Stamper Pressings of Pop and Jazz Vocals Available Now

Mean to Me is a favorite test track for side one, with real Demo Disc quality sound. We credit it with helping us dramatically improve our playback.

Roy DuNann at Contemporary was able to get all his brass players together in one room, sounding right as a group as well as individual voices.

The piano, bass, and drums that accompany them are perfectly woven into the fabric of the arrangement.

What makes this song so good is that when the brass really starts to let loose later in the song, with the right equipment and the right room, you can get the kind of sound that’s so powerful you could practically swear it’s live.

Helen was recorded in a booth for this album, and her voice is slightly veiled relative to the other musicians playing in the much larger room that of course would be required for so many players.

When you get the brass correct, the trick is to get her voice to become as transparent and palpable as possible without screwing up the tonality of the brass instruments.

The natural inclination is to brighten up the sound to make her voice more clear.

But you will quickly be made painfully aware that brighter is not better when the brass gets too “hot” and starts to tear your head off.

The balance between voice and brass is key to the proper reproduction of this album.

Once you have achieved that balance, tweak for transparency while guarding against too much upper midrange or top end. Which also means watch out for audiophile wires that may have fooled you into thinking they were more resolving when actually they were just peakier in some portion of the frequency range.

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Tom Waits – Small Change

More of the Music of Tom Waits

  • You’ll find an INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one of this vintage Asylum pressing
  • Recorded live to 2-track by audio legend Bones Howe in 1976, no wonder the sound is so big, full-bodied, clean and clear
  • A tough record to find in the bins these days – Tom Waits still has plenty of die-hard fans here in L.A. and nobody wants to part with their copy
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Small Change proves to be the archetypal album of his 70s work. A jazz trio comprising tenor sax player Lew Tabackin, bassist Jim Hughart and drummer Shelly Manne, plus an occasional string section, back Waits and his piano on songs steeped in whiskey and atmosphere…”

According to Wikipedia, when asked in an interview by Mojo magazine in 1999 if he shared many fans’ view that Small Change was the crowning moment of his “beatnik-glory-meets-Hollywood-noir period” (i.e. from 1973 to 1980), Waits replied:

Well, gee. I’d say there’s probably more songs off that record that I continued to play on the road, and that endured. Some songs you may write and record but you never sing them again. Others you sing ’em every night and try and figure out what they mean. “Tom Traubert’s Blues” was certainly one of those songs I continued to sing, and in fact, close my show with.

This is a wonderful album, considered by many to be Waits’s masterpiece. He’s backed with a real jazz combo here, including Lew Tabackin on sax and the great Shelley Manne on drums.

Bones Howe does a great job gettin the kind of beatnik-jazz sound out of these songs that they need. On a copy like this, the presence and clarity are absolutely stunning. The Association, The Mamas and the Papas, The Fifth Dimension, and of course Tom Waits — all their brilliant recordings are the result of Bones Howe’s estimable talents as producer and engineer.

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Analogue Productions Fails Spectacularly Right Out of the Gate with Jazz Giant

Hot Stamper Pressings of Contemporary Albums Available Now

You may remember what a disaster the Analogue Productions version of Jazz Giant from the 90s was.

Or maybe you agree with a certain writer that they were god’s gift to the record lovers of the world in need of higher quality pressings. We thought they were crap right from the get-go and were not the least bit shy about saying so,

I haven’t heard the new 45 RPM version and don’t intend to play one, but I seriously doubt that it sounds like our good Hot Stamper pressings. We have yet to hear a single Heavy Vinyl 45 that sounds any good to us, judged by the standards we set in our shootouts.

Actually, to run the risk of sounding even more pedantic than usual, the records themselves set the standards.

We simply grade them on the curve they establish for themselves.

We guarantee that none of their LPs can hold a candle to our vintage records or your money back. If you have one of the new pressings and don’t know what’s wrong with it, or don’t think that anything is wrong with it, try one of ours.

It will show you just how much better a real record can sound, with more space, more transparency, more energy, more presence, more drive, more ambience — more of everything that’s good about the sound of music on vinyl.

It is our contention that no one alive today makes records that sound as good as the vintage LPs we sell. Once you hear one of our Hot Stamper pressings, those Heavy Vinyl records you bought might not ever sound right to you again.

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Helen Humes / Songs I LIke to Sing – A Forgotten Jazz Vocal Classic

More Pop and Jazz Vocal Albums

  • With a STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one, this vintage Contemporary pressing was giving us the sound we were looking for on our all time favorite Big Band Vocal album – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Both of these sides are exceptionally Tubey Magical, yet incredibly clean and clear
  • Helen’s voice is perfection — breathy, full, and sweet; and the orchestra sounds just right — just listen to the nice bite of the brass
  • 5 stars: “One of the high points of Helen Humes’ career, this Contemporary set features superior songs, superb backup, and very suitable and swinging arrangements by Marty Paich. Humes’ versions of ‘If I Could Be With You,’ ‘You’re Driving Me Crazy,’ and ‘Million Dollar Secret,’ in particular, are definitive… This classic release is essential and shows just how appealing a singer Helen Humes could be.”

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The Yellow Label Reissues Can Sound Very Good, But Great? Not a Chance

Hot Stamper Pressings of Contemporary Jazz Albums Available Now

The earlier pressing on the site as of this writing is an amazingly well recorded album with many fine qualities:

Boasting seriously good grades from top to bottom, this vintage Contemporary pressing is doing just about everything right.

These sides are bigger and more open, with more bass and energy, than most others we played – the saxes and trumpets are immediate and lively.

Mr. Earl Hines himself showed up, a man who knows this music like nobody’s business – Leroy Vinnegar and Shelly Manne round out the quartet.

“Great musicians produce great results, and most of the LP’s tracks were done in one or two takes. The result is ‘a spontaneous, swinging record of what happened’ when Carter met Hines ‘for the first time. . . .'”

Our notes for the Yellow Label reissues point out that they are always more compressed, with some added upper midrange. The intro benefits from this but the peaks can get congested.

The earlier pressings, especially the originals on the Black Label, are the most likely to sound right, but they are tough to find in audiophile playing condition.

If you see a copy on the site with these grades — less than 2+ on both sides — it will proabably have a Yellow Label and some of the shortcomings we mention above.

Correct, In This Case

Some people like to search for relationships between the sound of the pressing and the label it has, but in our experience that is more often than not a fool’s errand once confirmation biases and other kinds of mistaken audiophile thinking are taken into account.

When the conventional wisdom turns out to be correct — in other words, when it comports with reality, at least for the six copies of this album that we played — we are happy to temporarily put aside our skepticism and learn the lessons playing a stack of copies of this title has taught us.

Why? Because the experimental evidence supports it.

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The Poll Winners – Exploring the Scene

More Contemporary Label Jazz Recordings

  • Exploring the Scene makes its Hot Stamper debut on this early Black Label Contemporary pressing with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from first note to last
  • Tubier, more transparent, and more dynamic than all the other copies we played, with plenty of that “jumpin’ out of the speakers” quality that only The Real Thing ever has
  • As a matter of fact, no other copy in our shootout earned a 3+ grade on either side
  • The right reissues can be very good sounding, but they don’t stand a chance in a shootout with the best early pressings
  • Roy DuNann always seems to get phenomenally good sound in the sessions he records – amazingly realistic drums in a big room; Tubey Magical guitar tone; deep, note-like string bass, and on and on
  • 4 stars: “The trio performs creative versions of such songs as ‘Little Susie,’ ‘So What,’ ‘Doodlin’,’ ‘This Here,’ and Ornette Coleman’s ‘The Blessing.'”

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Sonny Rollins – Sonny Rollins & the Contemporary Leaders

More of the Music of Sonny Rollins

  • INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound brings Rollins’s second and last Contemporary release to life on this vintage pressing
  • Both of these sides are textbook examples of the kind of rich, smooth, effortlessly natural Contemporary jazz sound that Roy DuNann‘s All Tube Recording Chain was known for in 1958
  • If all you know are the Heavy Vinyl reissues of Sonny’s Contemporary catalog, we think it’s safe to say that you have never begun to hear these albums sound the way they should
  • This is a lot of money for a somewhat noisy copy, but the sound is so awesome and quiet pressings of the album so hard to come by that we hope someone will take a chance on it and get the thrill we did from hearing it sound right for once
  • “The last of the classic Sonny Rollins albums prior to his unexpected three-year retirement features the great tenor with pianist Hampton Hawes, guitarist Barney Kessell, bassist Leroy Vinnegar and drummer Shelly Manne… Great music.”

This Contemporary Label LP has THE BIG SOUND we love here at Better Records — rich and full-bodied with live-in-your-listening-room immediacy. The bass is deep, rock-solid, and note-like. There’s plenty of clarity and extension up top, bringing Shelly Manne’s fantastic work on the cymbals to life.

This is no Heavy Vinyl slogfest. Just listen to the leading edge transients on Sonny’s sax.

The guitar is warm, rich, and sweet, and just swimming in ambience.

Sonny is backed here by a heavy-hitting lineup of Barney Kessel, Shelly Manne, Leroy Vinnegar and Hampton Hawes — all favorite players of ours here at Better Records.

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Jazz Giant and Tube Versus Transistor Tradeoffs

Hot Stamper Pressings of Contemporary Jazz Albums Available Now

In a commentary from more than ten years ago we weighed the tradeoffs in the sound of the originals versus the reissues.

This superb sounding original Black Label Contemporary pressing of Benny Carter’s swingin’ jazz quartet is the very definition of a top jazz stereo recording from the late ’50s recorded and mastered through an All Tube Chain.

There’s good extension on the top end for an early pressing, with TONS of what you would most expect: Tubey Magic and Richness. If that’s what you’re looking for, this copy has got it!

We prefer the later pressings in most ways, but this record does something that no later pressing we have ever played can do — get Benny’s trumpet to sound uncannily REAL.

If you want to demonstrate to your skeptical audiophile friends what no CD (or modern remastered record) can begin to do, play side two of this copy for them. They may be in for quite a shock.

The sound of the muted trumpet on side two is out of this world. 

It’s exactly the sonic signature of good tube equipment — making some elements of a recording sound shockingly real.

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Benny Carter – Jazz Giant

More of the Music of Benny Carter

  • Both sides of this superb Contemporary reissue earned excellent sonic grades
  • If you still think that Analogue Productions is remastering records properly, you have definitely never heard a real Contemporary that sounds as good as this one does
  • The music of this Jazz Giant comes alive on this copy, with space, size, clarity and richness that few other pressings can match
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Benny Carter had already been a major jazz musician for nearly 30 years when he recorded this particularly strong septet session for Contemporary … This timeless music is beyond the simple categories of ‘swing’ or ‘bop’ and should just be called ‘classic.'”

If you like the sound of Contemporary Records, you won’t find a better example than this. Midrange magic doesn’t get anymore magical.

It’s been several years since our last shootout, but we hope the lucky buyer of this copy realizes it was more than worth it. To find a copy of Jazz Giant that sounds as good as this one is a very special event indeed.

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