Top Engineers – Dennis Sands

Zoot Sims – Passion Flower (Zoot Sims Plays Duke Ellington)

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  • An original Pablo pressing that was doing practically everything right, featuring incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound from start to finish – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Both of these sides are big, clear, and present, with far more energy and space around the instruments than almost all other copies we played
  • Amazingly dynamic and natural, with an especially breathy sax, this copy had precisely the kind of sound we were looking for
  • “The album is highlighted by ‘In a Mellow Tone,’ ‘I Got It Bad,’ ‘Passion Flower’ and ‘Bojangles,’ but all nine selections are enjoyable and Sims is in top form.”

This is one of the all time great Pablo sleepers.

Why is no one else writing about records like these? The music is wonderful and the sound on the best copies is top drawer. on the best copies. If you’ve tried and failed with other Pablo Zoot Sims records, fear not: this title is one of the best we have ever played, musically and sonically.

The ensemble is huge, probably at least a dozen pieces at any given time, and all that energy is captured on the better copies with tremendous engineering skill. The lively arrangements are by none other than Benny Carter, a man who knows his jazz. His career started in the 1920s(!) and lasted into this century if you can believe it. I consider myself fortunate to have seen him play locally when he was more than 90 years old. He still had it, kind of.

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Passion Flower Is Clearly Better Than For Duke

Hot Stamper Pressings of Pablo Recordings

More Reviews and Commentaries for Our Favorite Pablo Recordings

This is one of the all time great Pablo sleepers.

Why is no one else writing about records like these? The music is wonderful and the sound is top drawer on the best copies. If you’ve tried and failed with other Pablo Zoot Sims records, fear not: this title is one of the best we have ever played, musically and sonically.

The ensemble is huge, probably at least a dozen pieces at any given time, and all that energy is captured on the best copies with tremendous engineering skill. The lively arrangements are by none other than Benny Carter, a man who knows his jazz. His career started in the ’20s(!) and lasted into this century if you can believe it. I consider myself fortunate to have seen him play locally when he was more than 90 years old. He stlll had it, kind of.

What to Listen For

Clarity and transients.

Thickness and fatness were common problems with Passion Flower — many copies were overly rich and somewhat opaque. It’s not necessarily a bad sound, but it becomes more and more irritating as you find yourself struggling to hear into the musical space of the studio. Smear is a problem too; many copies were lacking the transient information of the best.

In a nutshell, our Hot Stamper pressings are the most transparent copies that are tonally correct, with the least amount of smear.

forduke

Better Sound than a Direct Disc?

Musically Passion Flower is everything that For Duke isn’t, and although it may not be a Direct to Disc recording, it sure sounds better to these ears than that pricey TAS List Super Disc. The insufferably dead room For Duke was recorded in has forever ruined the album for me. I can’t stand that sound (which helps explain our aversion to Heavy Vinyl around these parts — the sound of the new remasters is consistently lacking in space, ambience and three-dimensionality).

Passion Flower was engineered by Bob Simpson at the RCA recording studios in NY, and Dennis Sands in Hollywood. These guys know a lot more about recording a large jazz ensemble than a couple of audiophiles who owned a stereo store and recorded in their showroom at night and on weekends.

Experience is surely a great teacher in this regard.

Incidentally, Dennis Sands is the engineer for one of the All Time Great Basie recordings on Pablo, Farmers Market Barbecue.

Milt Jackson with Oscar Peterson – Ain’t But a Few of Us Left

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A Top Pablo Recording

  • An outstanding Pablo pressing, boasting Double Plus (A++) sound throughout and playing about as quietly as these LPs ever do
  • Both sides here are rich and full-bodied with tons of energy and a nice extended top end – this is the sound of ANALOG, and Pablo knew how to get it on tape and from there on to vinyl
  • “The music is unsurprising but still quite enjoyable and virtuosic as Bags and Co. perform blues, standards and ballads with their usual swing and bop-based creativity. Highlights include the title cut, “Stuffy,” “What Am I Here For” and a vibes-piano duo version of “A Time for Love.”” – 4 Stars

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Count Basie Big Band – Farmers Market Barbecue

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Labels We Love – Pablo

  • Stunning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it from beginning to end on this famous Pablo, one we consider The Best Basie Big Band Record We’ve Ever Played
  • Both sides are exceptionally clear, rich, and full of Tubey Magic, with a solid bottom end and huge amounts of three-dimensional studio space
  • Demo Disc sound – guaranteed to beat the pants off of any Heavy Vinyl pressing, at any speed, of any title
  • Allmusic: “This was an excellent outing by the Count Basie Orchestra during its later years.”

Musically FMB is a Top Basie Big Band title in every way. This should not be surprising: many of his recordings for Pablo in the mid- to late-’70s all the way through the early ’80s display the talents of The Count and his band of veterans at their best.

Sonically it’s another story. Based on our recent shootout for this title, in comparison to the other Basie titles we’ve done lately, we would have to say that FMB is the best Basie big band title we’ve ever played.

On the best pressings, the horns are so present and high-rez, not to mention full-bodied, this could easily become a favorite big band album to demo or test with — or just to enjoy the hell out of.

Since so many Basie big band recordings are so good, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves — after all, we haven’t done shootouts for all of his Pablo large group recordings. To be safe we’ll just call this one First Among Equals.

And when you hear it sounding as good as it does here, it truly qualifies as a Big As Life DEMO DISC. (more…)

Zoot Sims / Passion Flower – Our Shootout Winner from 2014

More of the Music of Zoot Sims

Hot Stamper Pressings of Pablo Jazz Albums Available Now

One of the all time great Pablo sleepers. Why is no one else writing about records like these? The music is wonderful and the sound is top drawer on the best copies. If you’ve tried and failed with other Pablo Zoot Sims records, fear not: this title is one of his best, musically and sonically. 

If you want to hear the Duke’s music swing in top sound, get this album.

This is a big group, probably at least a dozen pieces at any given time, and all that energy is captured on the best copies with tremendous engineering skill. The lively arrangements are by none other than Benny Carter, a man who knows his jazz. His career started in the ’20s(!) and lasted into this century if you can believe it. I consider myself fortunate to have seen him play locally when he was more than 90 years old. He stlll had it, kind of. (more…)

Terry, Hubbard, Gillespie, & Peterson / The Alternate Blues – Our Shootout Winner from 2013

With Hot Stamper sound on both sides, this Pablo disc shows you what three of the greatest trumpeters of the last fifty years can do given the opportunity, nay, the encouragement, to let loose on a handful of classic slow blues jams. Many of the tracks here run in excess of eight minutes, giving the players plenty of space to explore, yet practically all of them are taken at a fairly slow pace, what used to be called a “slow drag”, making them that much more involving and emotional. These are not your classic “blowing sessions” where the players try to outdo each other. No, this is something quite different.

Norman Granz revered the classic “jam session,” of which this is a prime example; he produced dozens for the various labels he owned over the years. Playing this album we can see why. The heart of the blues is here in every measure.

Clark Terry is joined here by Freddie Hubbard and Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet, with strong support from Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown, Joe Pass and Bobby Durham on drums.

The album was recorded in 1980 by Dennis Sands, one of my favorite Pablo recording engineers, the man behind the brilliant Farmer’s Market Barbecue and many others. (Soon enough he crossed over to films and has done the sound for more than 250 to date. He must be pretty good to get that much work, and you can be sure he makes a lot more money for his film work than he would for recording jazz dates.) (more…)

Count Basie – Me and You

  • An excellent sounding copy of Basie’s 1983 release, with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Forget whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of this wonderful session from 1983, this is the only way to go 
  • This is the Basie Big Band album that came out right after 88 Basie Street, a hard act to follow – top engineering by Dennis Sands
  • “… recorded only a little more than a year before his death. However, the spirit of this music (helped out by some Ernie Wilkins) arrangements) make Count Basie seem ageless.”

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Sarah Vaughan – Send In The Clowns

  • This outstanding pressing, only the second copy to EVER hit the site, boasts outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • Huge and powerful, Basie’s horns are really blastin’ on this copy
  • Sassy’s remarkable vocal range and flexibility are on full display here, singing favorites including “I Got A Right To Sing The Blues,” “When Your Lover Has Gone,” and, of course, the title track 
  • “Sarah Vaughan is accompanied by her regular rhythm section of the early ’80s, guitarist Freddie Green, and the Count Basie horn sections on this enjoyable date… Sassy is in superb form…” – Allmusic

A wonderful recording by one of our favorite engineers, Dennis Sands, the man behind the amazing Basie album, Farmers Market Barbecue. (more…)

Basie’s Farmers Market Barbecue – First Among Equals, or The Best Pablo Ever?

More of the Music of Count Basie

Hot Stamper Pressings of Big Band Recordings

Reviews and Commentaries for Farmers Market Barbecue

Musically FMB is a Top Basie Big Band title in every way. This should not be surprising: many of his recordings for Pablo in the ’70s and early ’80s display the talents of The Count and his band of veterans at their best.

Sonically it’s another story. Based on our recent shootout for this title, in comparison to the other Basie titles we’ve done lately we would have to say that FMB is the best Basie big band title we’ve ever played. Since so many Basie big band recordings are so good, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves; after all, we haven’t done shootouts for all of his Pablo large group recordings. To be safe we’ll just call this one First Among Equals.

The following are some general guidelines as to What to Listen For while you critically evaluate any of the Basie Big Band Pablo recordings (or any other big band recordings for that matter).

Simply put, we offer here a short list of qualities that we’ve come to appreciate on the best of the Basie Big Band pressings, qualities that we find are often in short supply on lesser LPs (and, as a rule, those that have been remastered onto Heavy Vinyl). (more…)