Top Artists – Stanley Turrentine

Stanley Turrentine – Another Story

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  • Rudy Van Gelder really knocked this one out of the park – the recording is as dynamic as they come, with horns that blast with real power and some serious snap to the drums
  • You will have a very hard time finding a better sounding funky Soul Jazz album than this copy of Another Story
  • 4 Stars on All Music; Turrentine on this date is joined by Thad Jones, Cedar Walton, Buster Williams, and Mickey Roker, serious jazz players one and all

This vintage Blue note 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…)

Horace Silver Quintet – Serenade To A Soul Sister

  • This copy was clearly cut with super-low distortion mastering equipment, and boy does it help the sound
  • Rudy Van Gelder did an outstanding job as usual engineering these 1968 quintet sessions, some of which include one of our favorite tenor men, Stanley Turrentine
  • 4 1/2 stars: “One of the last great Horace Silver albums for Blue Note, Serenade to a Soul Sister is also one of the pianist’s most infectiously cheerful, good-humored outings… it’s hard to argue with musical results as joyous and tightly performed as Serenade to a Soul Sister.”

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Jimmy Smith – Back at the Chicken Shack

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  • Back at the Chicken Shack makes its Hot Stamper debut here with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on this New York label mono pressing
  • Joining Jimmy Smith is one of our favorite bluesy sax players, Stanley Turrentine – just play Kenny Burrell’s Midnight Blue to hear him at this best, and Burrell is especially good here too
  • Credit must go to Rudy Van Gelder once again for the huge space this superbly well-recorded quartet occupies
  • 5 stars: “Recorded in 1960 with Kenny Burrell on guitar, Donald Bailey on drums, and Turrentine, the group reaches the peak of funky soul jazz that all other challengers of the genre would have to live up to.”

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Stanley Turrentine / Jubilee Shouts – Reviewed in 2005

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Two Minty looking Blue Note LPs of two previously unreleased sessions featuring the great tenor saxophonist with Tommy Turrentine, Kenny Burrell, Horace Parlan, Sonny Clark and others.

If you want to hear Turrentine at his best, skip right to track two, the beautiful ballad Then I’ll Be Tired Of You, featuring his brother Tommy on trumpet. The music is powerful and the sound is excellent.

This is an older jazz review.

Most of the older reviews you see are for records that did not go through the shootout process, the revolutionary approach to finding better sounding pressings we developed in the early 2000s and have since turned into a fine art.

We found the records you see in these older listings by cleaning and playing a pressing or two of the album, which we then described and priced based on how good the sound and surfaces were. (For out Hot Stamper listings, the sonic grades and vinyl playgrades are listed separately.)

We were often wrong back in those days, something we have no reason to hide. Audio equipment and record cleaning technologies have come a long way since those darker days, a subject we discuss here.

Currently, 99% (or more!) of the records we sell are cleaned, then auditioned under rigorously controlled conditions, up against a number of other pressings. We award them sonic grades, and then condition check them for surface noise.

As you may imagine, this approach requires a great deal of time, effort and skill, which is why we currently have a highly trained staff of about ten. No individual or business without the aid of such a committed group could possibly dig as deep into the sound of records as we have, and it is unlikely that anyone besides us could ever come along to do the kind of work we do.

The term “Hot Stampers” gets thrown around a lot these days, but to us it means only one thing: a record that has been through the shootout process and found to be of exceptionally high quality.

Not just a good sounding record. A record that was played in a shootout and did well.

The result of our labor is the scores of jazz titles seen here, every one of which is unique and guaranteed to be the best sounding copy of the album you have ever heard or you get your money back.

Further Reading

Letter of the Week – “The immediacy of the music was an order of magnitude better than my version.”

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom,  

About the only good thing I can say during the time of “COVID” is that I have been listening to a lot of music. Well today I ran my first shootout. I was listening to The Incredible Jimmy Smith, Back At The Chicken Shack.

First, I played the title track from side one on the LP I have had in my collection for about 5 years. I know every note and just love this record. Then, I played my Better Records copy, same track.

To anyone who does not understand what a hot stamper actually is, I feel sorry for you. Those folks are missing out.

First, the immediacy or the presence of the music on the disk I bought from you was an order of magnitude better than my library version. It was also just flat out louder.

Stanley Turrentine’s playing was alive in way I’ve never truly heard before. Jimmy Smith’s solo’s were absolutely stunning. As I said, I know every note and yet it was like a new listening experience.

I think about all the thousands of dollars people spend on gear but ultimately what’s the point if your source material is compromised ? I know I am preaching to the choir with you but I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate what you’ve figured out and made available to people like me.

Thanks so much and take care.

Art

Stanley Turrentine – The Spoiler

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  • Another triumph for Rudy Van Gelder – he refined a “live-in-the-studio” jazz sound that still sounds fresh to this day, even after 50+ years
  • Surprisingly dynamic, with great energy, this copy brought Stanley Turrntine’s music to life right in our listening room
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Turrentine is in fine form throughout the date, even finding something to say on ‘Sunny.’ ‘La Fiesta’ (no relation to the later Chick Corea tune) is the highpoint of a largely enjoyable set.”

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Jimmy Smith – Prayer Meetin’

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  • The wonderful Prayer Meetin’ makes its Hot Stamper debut here with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it from first note to last
  • Rich, smooth and Tubey Magical, this pressing was simply more ALIVE and musically involving than the others we played
  • Stanley Turrentine is one of our favorite bluesy sax players – just play Kenny Burrell’s Midnight Blue to hear him at this best, and he is especially good here too
  • Credit must go to Rudy Van Gelder once again for the huge space this superbly well-recorded quartet occupies
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Prayer Meetin’ is a delight from start to finish. Forming a perfect closure to Smith’s trio of albums with Turrentine… The blues roots are obvious here, and the Smith-penned title track might even be called jazz-gospel…

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Our Previous Shootout for Midnight Blue Took Place Back in 2019

Hot Stamper Pressings of Jazz Guitar Recordings Available Now

Midnight Blue is back on the site for the first time in years, six of them to be exact, and here you will find Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades on both sides of this vintage 60s pressing.

One of our All Time Favorite Blue Note albums for music and sound – is there a better bluesy jazz guitar album?

5 stars on AMG – if there were a Top 100 Jazz List on our site, Midnight Blue would be right up at the top of it.

It’s taken us at least five years to get this shootout going, and none of the top copies we managed to get hold of did not have condition issues of some kind — good luck finding one of these on your own, you are going to need it.

Jazz Improv Magazine puts the album among its Top Five recommended recordings for Burrell, indicating that “[i]f you need to know ‘the Blue Note sound,’ here it is.”

Midnight Blue is our favorite Kenny Burrell album of all time, at least in part because it’s one of the All Time Best Sounding Blue Notes. 

If you already own a copy of Midnight Blue and you don’t consider it one of the best sounding jazz guitar records in your collection, then you surely don’t have a copy that sounds the way this one does! In other words, you don’t know what you’re missing. (And if you own the Classic Records release, or any other Heavy Vinyl pressing from the modern era, then you really don’t know what you are missing.) (more…)

Letter of the Week – “The Kenny Burrell album arrived, and I’m STUNNED at how good it sounds.”

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Kenny Burrell

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom, 

Holy crap. The Kenny Burrell album arrived, and I’m STUNNED at how good it sounds. I’m really pleased to have it… you have new customer!

Best, Russ