Top Producers – Creed Taylor

Kenny Burrell with Gil Evans – Guitar Forms

More of the Music of Kenny Burrell

  • This original Stereo Verve pressings (the first copy to hit the site in three and a half years) boasts INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish
  • Gil Evans wrote the orchestral arrangements and Rudy captured them on lovely analog tape – what’s not to like?
  • We agree with the AllMusic reviewer: this album is every bit as the groundbreaking work Evans did with Miles, and for our money, makes for an even more enjoyable album length listen
  • 4 stars: “His landmark 1965 collaboration with Gil Evans, Guitar Forms rivals anything the arranger did with Miles Davis. Indeed, the track ‘Lotus Land’ has a bolero form reminiscent of Sketches of Spain. Burrell takes thoughtful, concise, and utterly musical solos, and even switches to acoustic classical guitar on [two tracks].”

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Another Great Conga Tester Title

Hot Stamper Pressings of Recordings by Rudy Van Gelder Available Now

The best pressings of Prelude are especially full-bodied and rich.

The congas are well up in the mix, which allows them to drive the powerful rhythmic energy of the music.

We know this because the copies with congas that were veiled or thin never seemed to have any get up go. 

There is wonderful transparency and openness to the soundstage, as well as less congestion in the loudest parts. Also Sprach (2001) is on side one of the album and it is KILLER on the best pressings.

Both sides can also be surprisingly sweet and Tubey Magical, nice qualities for a CTI record to have since so many of them are aggressive and edgy to the point of distraction.

Full, lively horns; rich, punchy, smear-free congas; fuzzy fuzzed-out guitars; as well as correct tonality and Tubey Magic in every area of the spectrum, what’s not to love?

The best pressings are so much bigger than most copies too. There is no doubt that you will hear the difference immediately. If you do a shootout with your best copy and ours plan on it being over almost before it starts.

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George Benson – Beyond the Horizon

More George Benson

  • Benson’s CTI label debut appears on the site for the first time with stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A+++) grades from start to finish – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • The sound is everything that’s good about Rudy Van Gelder‘s recordings – it’s present, spacious, full-bodied, Tubey Magical, dynamic and, most importantly, ALIVE in that way that modern pressings almost never are
  • 5 stars: “… a superb jazz session where Benson rises to the challenge of the turbulent rhythm section of Jack DeJohnette and Ron Carter, with Clarence Palmer ably manning the organ. A must-hear for all aficionados of Benson’s guitar.”

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George Benson – White Rabbit

More of the Music of George Benson

  • Benson’s Must Own Masterpiece returns to the site for only the second time in two years, here with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout this vintage CTI pressing
  • Open and transparent throughout, with wonderfully full-bodied guitars, solid bass and huge amounts of swingin’ jazz energy
  • Superb engineering by the legendary Rudy Van Gelder – White Rabbit features jazz legends Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Billy Cobham, Airto, and more
  • 4 stars: “For George Benson’s second CTI project, producer Creed Taylor and arranger Don Sebesky successfully place the guitarist in a Spanish-flavored setting full of flamenco flourishes, brass fanfares, moody woodwinds and such… In this prime sample of the CTI idiom, everyone wins.”

We recently conducted another extensive shootout for White Rabbit and it was a blast. It always is. Benson and his funky jazz all-stars buds (Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock and Airto to name a few) tear through some great material here, and on both sides of this copy the sound is outstanding.

If you want to hear the best George Benson record we know of, this is the one. The Grammy-winning Breezin’ from 1976 is a perfectly good album but it’s quite a bit more commercial than our White Rabbit here from 1972, his first album to make the Top Ten on the jazz charts.

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Bola Sete – At The Monterey Jazz Festival

More Bola Sete

More Bossa Nova

  • Sete’s superb trio album from 1967 (one of only a handful of copies to hit the site in two years), here with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them throughout this vintage Stereo Verve pressing
  • We are big fans of Bola Sete here – his Tour De Force has been a favorite of ours for more than twenty years (if only we could find clean, good sounding copies to sell)
  • This is always the problem with acoustic guitar jazz – there are just too many quiet passages where the surface noise will be audible
  • This copy not only sounds great, but it is reasonably quiet for a vintage Verve pressing
  • Recorded in 1966, this side one boasts remarkably natural guitar sound, as well as note-like bass and the kind of energy you rarely get outside of a live performance, and side two is not far behind in all those areas

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Quincy Jones – Gula Matari

More Jazz Fusion

More Large Group Jazz Recordings

  • Gula Matari makes its Hot Stamper debut on this early A&M pressing with two solid Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides
  • The sound is rich and Tubey Magical, yet transparent and spacious in the way that only vintage pressings ever are
  • Valerie Simpson’s vocals on the R&B cover of S&G’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” on side one are wonderfully sweet and breathy with remarkable in-your-listening-room presence
  • Another title that was rarely pressed on good vinyl — A&M made some awfully good sounding records, but they rarely play as quietly as we audiophiles would like them to
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…the roaring big band comes back with a vengeance in ‘Walkin’,’ where Milt Jackson, Herbie Hancock, Hubert Laws, and other jazzers take fine solo turns, and things really get rocking on Nat Adderley’s ‘Hummin”… The whole record sounds like they must have had a ball recording it.

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Freddie Hubbard – Red Clay

More of the Music of Freddie Hubbard

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  • A Red Clay like you’ve never heard, with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound throughout – fairly quiet vinyl for this Hubbard title too
  • All of the top copies from our last big shootout in 2022 featured an acetate issue that affected track 2 on side 1, but we’re happy to report no such problems this time around!
  • It’s one of our favorite CTI albums – Red Clay (the song and the album) is Hubbard’s soul jazz masterpiece, and it’s a record that belongs in every audiophile’s jazz collection
  • Lenny White drums up a storm on this album – on this copy he is playing right in the room with you
  • 5 stars: “This may be Freddie Hubbard’s finest moment as a leader, in that it embodies and utilizes all of his strengths as a composer, soloist, and frontman. [It] places the trumpeter in the company of giants such as saxophonist Joe Henderson, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Lenny White… This is a classic, hands down.”
  • If you’re a Hubbard fan, or perhaps a fan of early-’70s Soul Jazz, this title from 1970 is surely a Must Own.

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 more of an accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. Red Clay is a good example of a record most audiophiles may not know well but would benefit from getting to know better.

Hubbard was a master of funky jazz, and the song “Red Clay” is arguably the funkiest jazz track he ever committed to tape. At 12 minutes in length it is a transcendentally powerful experience — and the bigger your speakers and the louder you turn them up the more moving that experience is going to be!

The intro to “Red Clay” begins with a stylized free-form jam, sounding like a bop-jazz band of old, then takes form and solidifies into a groove of monstrous proportions. Ron Carter’s bass playing is stellar! It’s big and lively with tons of presence and energy.

Like many of our funky favorites, this one was eventually sampled for a popular hip-hop song. That may not mean much to you, but it definitely means that nice copies of this album get swiped up quickly by young DJs and producers.

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Jimmy Smith – Hobo Flats

More Jazz Recordings of Interest

More Large Group Jazz Recordings

  • Hobo Flats is back on the site for only the second time in close to three years, here with solid Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this original Stereo Verve pressing – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Both sides are wonderfully big, rich and lively, with boatloads of Tubey Magic and the kind of three-dimensional space that’s a hallmark of Bob Simpson‘s engineering
  • “Smith bubbles and bounces through all of it at the B-3 while Nelson proceeds to fill every available corner with huge, sweeping orchestral washes and crescendos. The clear highlight, though, is the lead and title track, ‘Hobo Flats,’ which moves at a languid but wonderfully funky pace and establishes a groove as wide as the Mississippi River.”

Both sides of this very special early stereo pressing are huge, rich, tubey and clear. As soon as the band got going we knew that this was absolutely the right sound for this music.

In the past we’ve complained about “echo-drenched brass” on some of these Oliver Nelson / Jimmy Smith collaborations, but on a killer copy such as this there is nothing to complain about. If you have a top quality front end (and the kind of system that goes with it), this recording will be amazingly spacious, three-dimensional, transparent, dynamic, and open.

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Antonio Carlos Jobim – Wave

More Antonio Carlos Jobim

More Bossa Nova

  • Wave FINALLY returns to the site after about a ten year absence, here with excellent Double Plus (A++) sound throughout – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Both of these sides are remarkably full-bodied, natural and present, with tight bass and lots of space around all of the players
  • We love the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim here at Better Records and we think this album is one of his best — no serious jazz collection should be without it
  • 5 stars: “When Creed Taylor left Verve/MGM for his own label under the auspices of A&M, he quickly signed Antonio Carlos Jobim and they picked up right where they left off with this stunningly seductive record, possibly Jobim’s best.”

This vintage A&M/CTI 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.

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Astrud Gilberto – Windy

More Astrud Gilberto

More Bossa Nova

  • This superb pressing boasts Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish – remarkably quiet vinyl too
  • Forget whatever Heavy Vinyl imposter is in print – this vintage Verve stereo pressing has the kind of High-Rez Tubey-Magical Midrange that will bring Astrud’s soft samba music to life in your very own listening room
  • “… Windy nevertheless proves one of Astrud Gilberto’s most consistent and sublime efforts, artfully straddling the division between Brazilian bossa nova and American sunshine pop.” 

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