Top Artists – Thelonious Monk

Brilliant Corners – This Pig Sure Wears Pretty Lipstick

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Thelonious Monk Available Now

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 are shown on the left. 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.

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Monk and Coltrane on OJC is Bright, Compressed and Midrangey

Not long ago we dropped the needle on a copy of the album you see pictured (OJC-039) and thought the sound was not good enough to please the serious audiophiles we cater to, especially at the prices we charge.

As far as we can tell, based on this single pressing, this is not an album that would end up being worth the cost associated with finding, cleaning and playing enough copies for a shootout.

We can’t say that there aren’t good sounding pressings of the album though. If we happen to hear a good sounding one down the road, we would certainly consider spending the money to do a real shootout in order to make the better copies available to our customers.

Gary Hobish mastered the record so I suppose he deserves the blame, but who knows how good the tapes were that he had to work with?

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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.

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Thelonious Monk – The Riverside Trios

More of the Music of Thelonious Monk

  • This Milestone 2-LP set boasts solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on all FOUR sides
  • We know of no better way to hear these legendary MONO recordings – these are by far some of the better sounding pressings of both these albums we’ve yet to play
  • The 1979 transfers of tape to disc by David Turner are superb in all respects – this is remastering done right
  • Can anybody working today make a record that sounds as good as this one? We can think of only two, and one of them we only know by his work, not by his name, as there is no trace of it in the credits for the great sounding Bill Evans title he remastered!
  • 4 1/2 stars: “When Thelonious Monk first signed with Riverside Records in 1955, producer Orrin Keepnews thought that it would be a good idea for the unrecognized giant to record an album of Duke Ellington compositions and follow it up with a set of standards so as to discount his eccentric and forbidding image. The results were quite satisfying, trio performances that made Monk’s playing seem more accessible to the regular jazz audience without watering down his style.”

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Thelonious Monk / Brilliant Corners

More of the Music of Thelonious Monk

  • Boasting STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from start to finish, this vintage MONO recording pressed on fairly quiet OJC vinyl was giving us the sound we were looking for on Monk’s 1957 release
  • Rich, full-bodied and present yet still clear and spacious – we guarantee this copy sounds better than any pressing you’ve heard, and should beat the pricey originals hands down
  • With masterful horn playing from Sonny Rollins and Clark Terry, and a rhythm section that can actually keep up with Monk – made up of Max Roach, Oscar Pettiford and Paul Chambers – this is a Must Own for any music loving audiophile
  • 5 stars: “Brilliant Corners may well be considered the alpha and omega of post-World War II American jazz. No serious jazz collection should be without it.”
  • If you’re a fan of Mr. Monk, this All Tube Recording from 1957 belongs in your collection.
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” but with the accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. Brilliant Corners is a good example of a record most audiophiles probably don’t know well but would benefit from getting to know better

If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good a 1957 All Tube Analog recording can be, this superb copy should be just the record for you. Talk about Tubey Magic! The liquidity of the sound here is positively uncanny. 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.

No recordings will ever be made like this again, and no CD will ever capture what is in the grooves of this record. There is of course a CD of the album, but those of us in possession of a working turntable could care less.

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Thelonious Monk – Solo Monk

More of the Music of Thelonious Monk

  • Here is an early Stereo 360 pressing of Monk’s sixth studio album (the first copy to ever hit the site) with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from first note to last
  • If you want to hear just how good Monk’s big, rich piano can sound, this copy can show you like nothing by Monk you’ve ever heard
  • With Teo Macero producing and top Columbia engineering, the best pressings have audiophile quality sound that puts to shame anything from his earlier period
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The mystery and haunting angular beauty of Thelonious Monk’s unadorned keyboard sides are the focus of Solo Monk. As if holding the history of jazz in his hands, Monk’s solo recordings and performances from every phase of his career remain pure. The components of what made Monk such an uncompromising composer, arranger, and especially bandmember are evident in every note he plays.”

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Thelonious Monk – Criss-Cross

More of the Music of Thelonious Monk

  • Here is a black print Stereo 360 Stereo pressing with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it from first note to last – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • 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…)

The Glorious Sound of Tubes in 1963

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Thelonious Monk Available Now

UPDATE 2026

In 2018 we put up a killer Hot Stamper pressing of Big Band and Quartet and had a few thoughts about the sound of the best copies we played.

On this record, more than most, the tubes potentially make all the difference. 

Keep in mind that we are referring specifically to 1963 tubes, not the stuff that engineers are using today to make so-called “tube-mastered” records.

Today’s modern records barely hint at the Tubey Magical sound of a record like this, if our experience with hundreds of them is any guide. We, unlike so many of the audiophile reviewers of today, have a very hard time taking any of the new pressings seriously. We think our position is pretty clear, and we have yet to hear more than a stray record or two that would make us want to change our minds.

If you’ve ever heard a pressing that sounds as good as this one, you know there hasn’t been a record manufactured in the last forty years that has this kind of sound.

Right, wrong or otherwise, this sound is simply not part of the modern world we live in.

[Well, not quite, but close.]

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A Warm, Rich Piano and Smooth Horns Make All the Difference on Straight, No Chaser

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Thelonious Monk Available Now

UPDATE 2026

Our previous shootout was in 2020. The copy from the shootout described below sounded amazing, so we took the time to point out a few of the special qualities that lifted it up above the others we played.

What a recording! If you want to hear just how good Monk’s great big rich piano sounds, look no further. 

Rudy Van Gelder, eat your heart out. Straight, No Chaser has the piano sound Rudy never quite managed.

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 the 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.

Side Two

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.

Side One

Very clear but as we said above, finding all the fullness is the toughest job in the mastering and pressing of this album. Still, quite good and better than most.

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Monk’s Music on Riverside 9242 Didn’t Make the Grade

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Thelonious Monk Available Now

The Riverside 9242 pressing of Monk’s Music we played recently was very much not to our liking.

In fact, every copy of this record we have ever played sounded terrible. The early pressings sounded bad and the OJC sounded bad.

We give up. We’re cutting our losses. We love Monk, but why on earth would we keep throwing money down this rathole? Our notes for this copy read:

  • Dry (more records with dry sound can be found here), and
  • Bright (more records with bright sound can be found here),
  • Overall grade: No Good

Some reviewers of the audiophile persuasion prefer to review only 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 dedicated group of people and a healthy budget to carry out these kinds of tests in large numbers.

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 pressings of the recordings that have stood the test of time for decades. Now, with a staff of ten or more, we can buy, clean and play records at a scale that would be 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 much scientifically reliable approach.

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