Top Artists – Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk – Criss-Cross

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Hot Stamper Pressings of Jazz Albums Available Now

  • This black print 360 Stereo pressing boasts solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from first note to last
  • Columbia records produced by Teo Macero in the early ’60s have consistently open, natural sound – this one recorded in ’63 is no exception
  • The piano sounds natural and dynamic, letting Monk’s passionate playing shine
  • 4 stars: “Thelonious Monk’s second album for Columbia Records features some of the finest work that Monk ever did in the studio with his ’60s trio and quartet … This is prime Monk for any degree of listener.”

I wish more Blue Note records had this kind of sound — natural, full-bodied, and sweet up top. The bass here is well-defined with real weight and lots of punch. Monk’s piano sounds correct from the highest notes all the way down to the lower register, and the sax sounds tonally right on the money. The clarity and transparency are superb throughout. (more…)

Thelonious Monk / Monk’s Blues

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More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

  • Outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound brings Monk’s 1969 release to life on this vintage Columbia pressing
  • Both of these sides are rich, full and open throughout, with excellent transparency and real weight to the piano
  • This is not your typical Monk album – here he leads a big band, conducted by the great Oliver Nelson
  • It’s an interesting collaboration that may not succeed in every way, but it’s certainly a fun listen and even more so when you have an outstanding copy like this one

I wish more Blue Note records had this kind of sound — natural, full-bodied, and sweet up top. The bass here is well-defined with real weight and lots of punch. Monk’s piano sounds correct from the highest notes all the way down to the lower register, and Charlie Rouse‘s sax sounds just right — totally free of the “RVG squawk” we often hear on some Blue Notes. The clarity and transparency are superb throughout.

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Brilliant Corners – This Pig Sure Wears Pretty Lipstick

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What a Good Copy of Brilliant Corners Sounds Like

During our most recent shootout of Brilliant Corners, we took the opportunity to play the Craft pressing cut by Bernie Grundman and released in 2023.

We thought it was godawful, the worst sounding version of the album we’ve ever played.

But how is that possible? Read all about the best practices being followed and look at the description of the fancy packaging below. Why would they go to all that trouble just to produce a bad souding record?

For the answer to that question, you will have to ask them. We’re stumped.

  • Pressed using a one-step lacquer process at RTI utilizing Neotech’s VR900 compound
  • All-analog mastering by Bernie Grundman from the original master tapes
  • Housed in a foil-stamped, linen-wrapped slipcase
  • Numbered and limited to 4,000

They used Neotech’s VR900 compound! Really?! That must be one awesome compound!

Apparently even the VR900 compound was not enough to save this pathetic excuse for a record.

For those of you who might be new to this blog, we should point out that we have been dumbfounded by Bernie Grundman’s work for more than twenty five years. The first RCA he remastered for Classic Records, LSC 1806, was so bright and the strings were so shrill that it probably lasted on our turntable maybe all of three minutes. My ears just couldn’t take it, even on a system that was dramatically darker and less revealing than the one we have now.

Equally bad sounding Classic Records were to follow by the hundreds.

Our quickie notes for side one can be seen below. After hearing side one fall so short of the mark, we dropped it from the shootout and put the Craft pressing on the shelf to go back to whoever loaned it to us. Who cares what side two sounds like if side one is that bad? Time is money. We are in the business of finding good records to sell to our customers, not playing crap Heavy Vinyl that only the most hard-of-hearing collector types would consider owning.

Before long we had a change of heart. We thought we owed it to Bernie’s fans to be more thorough, so we took our best side two and played it against the Craft pressing.

The scathing notes you see are the result of the emotions you might experience if you were forced to sit through an album whose sound has been completely screwed up. Keep in mind we brought this on ourselves. We volunteered for this duty.

And it was ruined not by some audiophile wannabe engineers making audiophile records. A guy like this has an excuse. He doesn’t know anything about making records.

No, this turd was made by someone who should know better than to turn in such shoddy work. It’s inarguable that Bernie Grundman used to make good sounding records. We know that for a fact because we’ve played them by the hundreds.

He apparently has lost whatever skill he previously possessed.

And it simply won’t do to deny it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our notes for side two, for those who have trouble reading our scratch:

  • Horns so thin.
  • The richness is gone.
  • Snare is hard and boxy.
  • The bottom of the piano and horns is gone.
  • Bass isn’t connected to anything.

(When I asked our listening guy what he meant by this, he said all of the rich lower mids were gone and all that was left down there was blubbery deep bass. Robert Brook has quite a bit to say about that subject, well worth reading.)

  • Gritty horn texture.
  • This is CRAP!

At least one reviewer liked it a lot more than we did:

While the Neotech VR900 vinyl compound can sometimes sound soft, here it does not. but it surely is dead quiet. The quiet further expresses the skilled front to back layering in Jack Higgins’ live mix. The celeste Monk plays with his right hand while playing piano with his left definitely sounds best on this “One Step”. Likewise, Monk’s solo piano on “I Surrender Dear” has the most profound and pleasing sustain—though again, none of these editions are less than a seriously pleasant listen and each has its minor pleasing embellishments. Also, on “Bemsha Swing” from the second recording session, where the sound is quite different and Roach’s drum kit is pushed further back on the soundstage, the NeoTech VR900’s quiet (plus probably the “One Step” process), proves its worth. You really catch all of what Roach is doing.

My conclusion: other than the inexplicably poor cover art reproduction, this is a recording worthy of a “Small Batch” One-Step and Bernie Grundman did his usually great mastering job.

Hard to believe we played the same record. When it comes to Michael Fremer’s reviews, we say that a lot. All the time in fact. Possibly without exception. To be sure I would have to check my notes, and that’s more trouble than it’s worth.

More from Robert Brook

Robert Brook did a shootout using both his own and many of our killer copies and went into great detail about the time-consuming, somewhat exhausting experience and what he learned from it. We feel that the many insights he gained make his review one that audiophiles will find well worth reading.

If you want to make progress in this hobby, he’s the guy that can show you how to do it based solely on his personal experience.

Below you will find our reviews of the more than 200 Heavy Vinyl pressings we’ve played over the years.

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Thelonious Monk – In Person

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Hot Stamper Pressings of Jazz Albums Available Now


  • In Person returns to the site with solid Double Plus (A++) sound on all FOUR sides of these vintage Milestone pressings – remarkably quiet vinyl too
  • Unusually rich, full-bodied, lively and present sound which brings out the best in this music
  • Features incomparable jazz greats Donald Byrd and Joe Gordon
  • The 1976 transfers of tape to disc by David Turner are superb in all respects – remastering is not a dirty word when it sounds like this
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The first half of In Person contains the pianist/composer’s famous Town Hall concert of 1959… The second half of this two-fer finds Monk leading a strong sextet with trumpeter Joe Gordon and tenors Rouse and Harold Land live…”

The Riverside pressings we’ve auditioned of both The Thelonious Monk Orchestra – At Town Hall and Thelonious Monk Quartet Plus Two – At The Blackhawk were just awful sounding. The OJC reissues from the ’80s, although better, were not overflowing with the rich, natural, relaxed sound we were looking for either.

Ah, but a few years back we happened to drop the needle on one of these good Milestone Two-Fers. Here was the sound we were looking for and had had so little luck in finding.

Which prompts the question that should be on the mind of every audiophile:

What are the rules for collecting records with the best sound quality?

The answer, of course, is that there are no such rules and never will be.

There is only trial and error. Our full-time staff has been running trials — we call them shootouts and needle drops — for decades, with far more errors than successes. Such is the nature of records. It may be a tautology to note that the average record has mediocre sound, but it nevertheless pays to keep this inconvenient fact in mind.

Even worse, if you make the mistake of pinning your audiophile hopes on a current reissue — and you have reasonably high standards and two working ears — your disappointment is almost guaranteed.

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Thelonious Monk – Underground

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More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

  • With two incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sides, this copy is close to the BEST we have ever heard, right up there with our Shootout Winner – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Charlie Rouse – featured on many of the tracks here – is particularly wonderful on sax. His saxophone is full-bodied and natural with breathy texture and just the right amount of honk
  • So many copies just sound like an old jazz record, but this one lets you feel like you are right there as the music happens
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The instantly recognizable stride piano lines are delivered with the same urgency and precision that they possessed over two decades earlier…”

These Nearly White Hot Stamper pressings have top-quality sound that’s often surprisingly close to our White Hots, but they sell at substantial discounts to our Shootout Winners, making them a relative bargain in the world of Hot Stampers (“relative” meaning relative considering the prices we charge). We feel you get what you pay for here at Better Records, and if ever you don’t agree, please feel free to return the record for a full refund, no questions asked.

This is an outstanding Monk album from 1968. Thanks to Columbia’s state of the art engineering — still using tubes I’d wager, based on the sound — the recording really comes to life, or at least it does on a copy that sounds as good as this one does.

Monk’s piano has powerful dynamics and real weight, just like a real piano.

So many copies just sound like an old jazz record, but this one lets you feel like you are right there as the music happens. What more could you ask for?

Unlike a lot of Columbia jazz records, both the 360 originals and the early Red Label reissues can sound good on this title.

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Robert Brook Shoots Out Brilliant Corners

Robert Brook has a blog which he calls

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

Below you will find a link to the shootout Robert recently conducted for Thelonious Monk’s amazing Brilliant Corners album on OJC.

Further Reading

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Straight, No Chaser – Now That’s a Piano (and a Saxophone)

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More of the Music of Thelonious Monk

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Thelonious Monk

An outstanding copy we played not long ago had us singing its praises, to wit:

If you want to hear just how good Monk’s big, rich piano can sound, look no further.

Rudy Van Gelder, eat your heart out. This is the piano sound Rudy never quite managed to get on tape all those years ago.

Some say it’s the crappy workhorse piano he had set up in his studio. Others say it was just poorly miked. Rather than speculating on something we know little about (good pianos and their miking), let’s just say that Columbia had the piano, the room and the mics to do it right, as you can easily hear on this very record.

    • We like our pianos to sound natural (however one chooses to define the term)
    • We like them to be solidly weighted
    • We like them to be free of smear, a quality that is rarely mentioned in the audiophile reviews we read

Listen to Monk vocalizing — this copy is so resolving you can hear him clearly, yet the overall sound is warm, rich and smooth in the best Columbia tradition.

Speaking of warm, rich and smooth, this is important to the horn sound too. Most copies could not make the sax as full-bodied and free of honk as we would have liked.

This one did, earning lots of points in the process. Hard to fault and definitely hard to beat.

Further Reading

Thelonious Monk – It’s Monk’s Time

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More Vintage Hot Stamper Pressings on Columbia

  • An incredible 360 label pressing of It’s Monk’s Time, with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it throughout
  • The piano is clear with a solid bottom end — we’re crazy for that sound, and Columbia knew exactly how to give it to us on these vintage pressings
  • 5 stars: “contains some of the best — if not arguably the best — studio sides that the pianist cut during his final years as a recording musician…”

There are three main elements that comprise the sound of a top quality It’s Monk’s Time: piano, sax and drums. You need all three to be balanced and correct. The mix is perfection on the best copies, with the piano, sax and drums clearly audible and in musically correct proportion to each other.

As we played the sides we noted how each of them fared.

  • PIANO. Clear, present and lively. Very high-rez.
  • SAX. Smooth, rich and tubey, with no RVG squawk to be found.
  • DRUMS (and BASS). Big drums in a big room. Listen to how solid that kick is. The standup bass is tight and note-like.

On the top copies, this is a truly superb sounding Thelonious Monk album. We can thank the brilliant Columbia engineers for their service to one of the authentic geniuses of jazz.

And if you own the Speakers Corner Heavy Vinyl reissue, please buy this copy and hear what you’ve been missing.

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Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk – Miles & Monk at Newport

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  • This original 360 Stereo pressing boasts seriously good Double Plus (A++) live jazz sound from first note to last
  • Remarkably spacious and three-dimensional, as well as relaxed and full-bodied – this pressing was a big step up over most other copies we played
  • The energy and presence are wonderful – Monk’s piano has real weight and the brass sounds just right
  • “On the first side of the LP [are] are a series of high tempo performances of bebop tunes and other staples of the Davis live repertoire from 1958. On the second side [are] a few numbers by Thelonious Monk’s combo, from a 1963 Newport appearance [that] featured the idiosyncratic appearance by clarinetist Pee Wee Russell.”
  • “[The Miles Davis Sextet’s] rapid version of ‘Ah Leu Cha’ is thunderous and ‘Straight No Chaser’ swings like mad.”

Of special note on the Monk side is the excellent work of Frankie Dunlap on drums, and of course Charlie Rouse is always interesting. Add to those top players someone you wouldn’t normally associate with Monk — Pee Wee Russell on clarinet, here proving that he’s every bit the bop jazz musician that these other guys are.

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Thelonious Monk – This One Didn’t Make the Grade

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Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Thelonious Monk

Every copy of this record we have ever played sounded terrible. The early pressings sounded bad and the OJC sounded bad. We gave up on the album a long time ago. Why throw good money after bad?

Some audiophile reviewers prefer to review only the records that sound good to them and ignore the rest. We think this does the audiophile community a disservice.

Like Consumer Reports, we like to test things. They test toasters, we test records. We put them through their paces and let the chips fall where they may.

They want to find out if the things they are testing offer the consumer good quality and value.

We want to find out if the records we are testing offer the audiophile good sound and music.

It takes a lot of people and a healthy budget to carry out large numbers of these kinds of tests.

No other record dealers, record reviewers or record collectors could possibly have auditioned more than a small fraction of the records that we’ve played. We’ve been looking for the best sounding records for a very long time. Now, with a staff of ten or more, we can buy, clean and play records in numbers that are unimaginable for any single person to attempt.

That puts us in a unique position to help audiophiles looking for the highest quality pressings.

Yes, we have the resources, the staff and the budget. More importantly, we came up with a different approach.

We’ve learned through thousands and thousands of hours of experimentation that there is no reliable way to predict which pressings will have the best sound for any given album.

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