Top Artists – Wayne Shorter

Sweetnighter Is a Must Own Album of Modern Jazz Fusion

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Weather Report Available Now

We 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,” with the accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life.

The list is purposely wide-ranging. Yes, it includes some well-known albums (Tumbleweed Connection, The Yes Album), but we’ve also gone out of our way to choose excellent titles from famous artists that are less well known (Atlantic Crossing, Kiln House, Dad Loves His Work).

Which simply means that you won’t find Every Picture Tells a Story or Rumours or Sweet Baby James on this list because masterpieces of that caliber should already be in your collection.

Many of these may not be to your taste, but they sure are to ours.

Out of the thousands of records we have auditioned and reviewed, here are a hundred or so that maybe are less well known but have stood the test of time for us. As such, we think they are more than deserving of a serious listen.

Sweetnighter checks off a number of boxes for us here at Better Records

More letters, reviews and commentaries for Sweetnighter.

Freddie Hubbard / Ready For Freddie

More Freddie Hubbard

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Trumpet

  • You’ll find seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it throughout this vintage Blue Note pressing
  • Spacious and three-dimensional, as well as relaxed and full-bodied (particularly on side one) – this copy was a solid step up over most others we played
  • Another triumph for Rudy Van Gelder and his unerring skill at getting all the musical elements to work together
  • 5 stars: “Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard really came into his own during this Blue Note session. . . Hubbard’s sidemen all play up to par and this memorable session is highly recommended; it’s one of the trumpeter’s most rewarding Blue Note albums.”

This Blue Note reissue pressing boasts wonderful music and sound. The reproduction of the trumpet on practically every track is nothing less than superb. It jumps out of the speakers front and center and forces you to listen to it. It’s surprisingly real and breathy, with just the right amount of bite.

The track “Crisis” on side two should particularly appeal to audiophiles — just check out the exceptionally well-recorded bass and all the cool little drum breaks.

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Miles Davis – Water Babies

More Miles Davis

  • This superb compilation album makes its Hot Stamper debut here with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it throughout
  • Tubier, more transparent, more dynamic, with that “jumpin’ out of the speakers” quality that only The Real Thing (an old record) ever has
  • Huge amounts of three-dimensional space and ambience, along with boatloads of Tubey Magic – here’s a 30th Street recording from 1967 and 1968 that demonstrates just how good Columbia’s engineers were back then
  • “Time has revealed this band to be as daring and fascinating as any in the long Davis career, and Water Babies contains some of its best music. There is simply so much happening here; hear it.”

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Freddie Hubbard / Goin’ Up – Reviewed in 2011

Good sound and some straight ahead Blue Note jazz. The second track on side one, ’The Changing Scene,’ is a wonderful ballad reminiscent of ’Round Midnight. It’s the best material on the album in my opinion. 

AMG Review

For his second recording as a leader, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard (22-years-old at the time) performs two compositions apiece by Kenny Dorham and Hank Mobley, the obscure “I Wished I Knew” and his own “Blues for Brenda.”

Hubbard (featured in a quintet with tenor-saxophonist Mobley, pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Philly Joe Jones) takes quite a few outstanding solos, playing lyrically on the ballads and building his own sound out of the Clifford Brown/Lee Morgan tradition. Goin’ Up is an excellent set of advanced hard bop…

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.)

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Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – Free For All

  • Insanely good sound throughout for this Blue Note New York label pressing with both sides earning shootout winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound 
  • This LP was simply bigger, richer and clearer, with more Tubey Magic, less smear and distortion, and on and on down the list 
  • A Van Gelder recording from 1964 is hard to beat for you-are-there immediacy, and this pressing delivers that qualitiy like no other copy you’ve heard – we guarantee it
  • “Free for All is a high point in drummer Art Blakey’s enormous catalog. This edition of the Jazz Messengers had been together since 1961 with a lineup that would be hard to beat: Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Wayne Shorter on tenor sax, Curtis Fuller on trombone, Cedar Walton on piano, and Reggie Workman on bass.”

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Freddie Hubbard – The Body and Soul of Freddie Hubbard

The bluesy version of Willow Weep For Me on side one is WONDERFUL. The rich, full-bodied sax sound is Right On The Money. The overall sound is totally transparent with superb clarity. Scrapple From The Apple (also on side one) has a silky top end anchored with deep, well-defined bass.

We had good success with both ’60s originals and later copies pressed in the ’70s. (more…)

Miles Davis – Nefertiti

More of the Music of Miles Davis

  • STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound throughout for this Columbia 360 Label pressing; relatively quiet vinyl too!
  • Both of these sides are incredibly rich, Tubey Magical, and full-bodied with superb transparency and tons of presence
  • The music is wonderful too — Miles and his late ’60s quintet featuring Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams are all in top form here, slowly working their way towards the electric fusion sounds that would be coming shortly
  • “What’s impressive, like on all of this quintet’s sessions, is the interplay, how the musicians follow an unpredictable path as a unit, turning in music that is always searching, always provocative, and never boring” – All Music, 5 Stars

It’s getting tougher to find these classic Miles albums. Hit the jazz bins at your local store and I’m sure you’ll have the same experience we’ve been having — tons of pricey modern reissues but not too many clean early copies.

This vintage Columbia 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.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.

What the Best Sides of Nefertiti Have to Offer Is Not Hard to Hear

  • The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
  • The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1968
  • Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
  • Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
  • Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space

No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

Copies with rich lower mids and nice extension up top did the best in our shootout, assuming they weren’t veiled or smeary of course. So many things can go wrong on a record! We know, we’ve heard them all.

Top end extension is critical to the sound of the best copies. Lots of old records (and new ones) have no real top end; consequently, the studio or stage will be missing much of its natural air and space, and instruments will lack their full complement of harmonic information.

Tube smear is common to most vintage pressings. The copies that tend to do the best in a shootout will have the least (or none), yet are full-bodied, tubey and rich.

What We’re Listening For on Nefertiti

  • Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
  • The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
  • Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
  • Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
  • Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
  • Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.

Side One

Nefertiti 
Fall 
Hand Jive

Side Two

Madness 
Riot 
Pinocchio

AMG 5 Star Review

Nefertiti, the fourth album by Miles Davis’ second classic quintet, continues the forward motion of Sorcerer, as the group settles into a low-key, exploratory groove, offering music with recognizable themes — but themes that were deliberately dissonant, slightly unsettling even as they burrowed their way into the consciousness… What’s impressive, like on all of this quintet’s sessions, is the interplay, how the musicians follow an unpredictable path as a unit, turning in music that is always searching, always provocative, and never boring. Perhaps Nefertiti’s charms are a little more subtle than those of its predecessors, but that makes it intriguing.

Miles Davis – In A Silent Way

More Miles Davis

More of Our Best Jazz Trumpet Recordings

Sit down with this record, draw the blinds, and you’ll hear why AMG gave it 5 Stars. Perhaps it’s the extended solos from John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Davis himself. Perhaps it’s the slippery, spiraling nature of these signature jazz fusion epic pieces. Perhaps it’s the grooves that Tony Williams and Dave Holland spin, slowly at first, building later in each of the LP’s mesmerizing tracks.

This is one of the most important jazz-fusion records of all time and it sounds AMAZING on this pressing. Hearing music this important on a killer pressing is a treat to say the least! You can turn this one up good and loud and really immerse yourself in the sound.

We could talk about this music all day, but if you’re in the market for a Super Hot Stamper pressing I’m guessing it’s safe to assume you already know how good this album is. It’s worth mentioning how much more we appreciate this music after hearing it on Hot Stamper copies. If you’re stuck with a weak pressing, you’re missing a lot of magic. When you get a copy with real transparency and clarity there are numerous small details and subtle textures revealed in the mix that basically don’t exist on the standard LP. A copy like this lets you hear it all.

Superb transparency, amazing presence and immediacy, complete freedom from any kind of phony, hyped-up sound — you’re not going to find one like this lying around in the bins, that’s for sure. This album never comes cheap, is very rarely clean, and you need a pretty good sized stack to have a realistic chance on finding one with sound like this. If you’re up for the challenge, more power to you, but it’s probably a lot easier to let us tackle the hard work of unearthing the truly magical copies that are still to be found like this one. (more…)