Side two earned a grade of A+++, absolutely As Good As It Gets! The top end is fully extended here in a way the average copy barely hints at, and the overall sound is amazingly transparent and three-dimensional. The brass is full and rich, the percussion is lively and present, and the bass is weighty and defined.
Side One
The energy is excellent, with only very slight smear. Smear kills what’s good about this record — the percussion transients lose their snap and the harmonics get lost — so being less smeary lets this side really work its funky magic. This side is also very high-rez; the echo trails from all the studio reverb go on for days.
The bass is superb as well, which means that this copy was pretty much doing everything right!
Since side one has the best track on the album, Boogie Woogie Waltz (which isn’t even a waltz!), that makes this a VERY special copy indeed. You could easily play twenty and not find one that sounds like this on side one. And finding twenty clean copies of the album even here in Los Angeles, the record capitol of the world, might take you a decade or more. Here’s a killer copy ripe for the taking to save you all that work. (more…)