Demo Discs – Jazz

Here you will find more than 100 jazz recordings that can sound absolutely amazing on big speakers at loud levels.

With the right system and a large enough room, the best pressings of these recordings are true Demo Discs. They are guaranteed to sound more like live music than any other pressing of the album you’ve heard, or your money back.

Miles Davis – Green Haze (‘The Musings of Miles’ and ‘Miles’)

More of the Music of Miles Davis

  • A Green Haze like you’ve never heard, with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on all FOUR sides of these vintage Mono pressings – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Spacious, sweet and positively dripping with ambience – talk about Tubey Magic, the liquidity of the sound here is positively uncanny
  • This Prestige Two-Fer simply combines two complete Miles Davis titles recorded by Rudy Van Gelder in 1955 – ‘The Musings of Miles’ and ‘Miles’
  • The 1976 transfers of tape to disc by David Turner are superb in all respects – this is remastering done right
  • 4 stars: “… it is for the excellent rhythm sections and the playing of Miles Davis that this two-fer is highly recommended.”
  • If you’re a fan of Miles, this All Tube MONO Recording from 1955 belongs in your collection.

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. (more…)

Airto – Fingers

More Jazz Fusion

  • A Fingers like you’ve never heard, with solid Double Plus (A++) grades from top to bottom – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Incredibly impressive funky Brazilian jazz sound with huge lifelike percussion – thanks, RVG!
  • This is without a doubt the best album Airto ever made, and this copy really has the kind of sound we look for, with an open, fully extended top end that gives all the elements of this complex music room to breathe
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Produced by [Creed] Taylor and recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s famous New Jersey studio, this LP demonstrates just how exciting and creative 1970s fusion could be. When Moreira and his colleagues blend jazz with Brazilian music, rock and funk on such cuts as ‘Wind Chant,’ ‘Tombo in 7/4’ and ‘Romance of Death,’ the results are consistently enriching. Fingers is an album to savor.”
  • 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 less of an accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. Fingers is a good example of a record many audiophiles may not know well but should.

Fingers is one of our all time favorite records, a Desert Island Disc to be sure. I’ve been playing this album for more than thirty years and it just keeps getting better and better. Truthfully it’s the only Airto record I like. I can’t stand Dafos, and most of the other Airto titles leave me cold.

I think a lot of the credit for the brilliance of this album has to go to the Fattoruso brothers, who play keyboards, drums, and take part in the large vocal groupings that sing along with Airto.

At times this record really sounds like what it is: a bunch of guys in a big room beating the hell out of their drums and singing at the the top of their lungs. You gotta give RVG credit for capturing so much of that energy on tape and transferring that energy onto a slab of vinyl. (Of course this assumes that the record in question actually does have the energy of the best copies. It’s also hard to know who or what is to blame when it doesn’t, since even the good stampers sound mediocre most of the time. Bad vinyl, worn out stampers, poor pressing cycle, it could be practically anything.)

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Sonny Rollins – Taking Care Of Business (Work Time, Tenor Madness and Tour de Force)

More of the Music of Sonny Rollins

  • With outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on all FOUR sides, these vintage Prestige pressings are guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Taking Care Of Business you’ve heard
  • The complete Tenor Madness album is found here, with big, full-bodied, MONO jazz sound at its best, courtesy of the great one, Rudy Van Gelder
  • This is what classic 50s jazz is supposed to sound like – they knew how to do these kinds of records 70+ years ago, and those mastering skills are in short supply nowadays, if not downright extinct
  • The transfers from 1978 by David Turner are in tune with the sound of these recordings – there’s not a trace of phony EQ on this entire record
  • “Tenor Madness was the recording that, once and for all, established Newk as one of the premier tenor saxophonists, an accolade that in retrospect, has continued through six full decades and gives an indication why a young Rollins was so well liked, as his fluency, whimsical nature, and solid construct of melodies and solos gave him the title of the next Coleman Hawkins or Lester Young of mainstream jazz.”

This Two-Fer includes all of Tenor Madness and most of Work Time and Tour De Force.

Top jazz players such as Ray Bryant, John Coltrane, Red Garland, Kenny Drew, Max Roach and Paul Chambers can be heard on the album.

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Ted Heath – Swings In High Stereo

More Large Group Jazz

  • Superb sound throughout, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER
  • Impossibly quiet vinyl for a vintage London Stereo pressing from 1958 – how this one survived for so many years in such lovely playing condition is something we will never know
  • Kingsway Hall, Wilkinson and the Decca Tree add up to audiophile quality Big Band sound, on this copy anyway
  • Heath and his group play with all the energy and verve essential to this joyful Big Band music – he really does swing in high stereo
  • We consider Ted Heath’s early London recordings to be some of the best big band ever recorded

This album has Demo Disc sound like you will not believe. Just listen to Heath’s arrangement of “Big Ben,” the second track on side two, for audiophile quality Big Band sound the likes of which you may have never heard.

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The Mahavishnu Orchestra – Birds of Fire

More of the Music of The Mahavishnu Orchestra

  • This original UK import copy boasts solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER throughout – it’s so smooth and natural you can turn up your volume pretty much as loud as you like and really let it blast
  • If you only own one Jazz Fusion album, you could hardly do better than Birds of Fire — It’s hard to think of another record that rocks as hard, and it’s not even a real rock record!
  • These early British pressings are very hard to find with quiet vinyl, and a lot of the ones that come from overseas are not in the condition advertised, making this a title that shows up on the site a great deal less often than we think it should
  • 5 stars on AllMusic and clearly one of the All Time Greats in the world of Jazz/Rock, as well as the band’s Masterpiece

This is the band at the peak of their powers and, no pun intended, on fire. This may be jazz, but it’s jazz that wants to rock. And on this copy, it rocks like you will not believe. The louder you play it the better it sounds.

Birds of Fire is one of the top two or three Jazz/Rock Fusion Albums of All Time. In my experience, few recordings within this genre can begin to compete with the dynamics and energy of the best pressings of the album — if you have the big dynamic system for it.

We find ourselves playing albums like Houses of the Holy and Zep II and Dark Side of the Moon for hour upon hour, with dozens of copies to get through, and we do it on a regular basis. If anybody knows “big rock sound,” it’s us. But can we really say that those albums rock any harder than this one? Birds of Fire is to Jazz what Zep II is to Rock — the ultimate statement by a band at the absolute top of their game.

The Best Copies

The main problem with this record is a lack of midrange presence. If the keyboards, drums, and guitars are not right in front of you,, your copy does not have all the presence it should. On the best copies, the musicians are in the room with you. We know this for a fact because we heard the copies that could present them that way, and we heard it more than once.

Which, of course, gets to the reason shootouts are the only real way to learn about records. The best copies will show you qualities in the sound you had no way of knowing were possible. Without the freakishly good pressings, you run into by chance in a shootout you have no way to know how high is up. On this record up is very high indeed.

Birds of Fire as a recording is not about depth or soundstage or ambience. It’s about immediacy, plain and simple. All the lead instruments positively jump out of the speakers — if you are lucky enough to be playing the right pressing. This is precisely what we want our best Hot Stampers to do. The better they do it, the higher their grade.

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Lee Morgan / The Sidewinder

More of the Music of Lee Morgan

  • Incredible sound throughout this 60s Blue Note pressing, with a Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one
  • It took us about two years to get this shootout going, but the best copies we played were so impressive that they made all the time and money it took to pull it off worth the effort – what a record!
  • These sides are rich and full, from the extended top end all the way down to the deepest bass — thanks RVG!
  • The trumpet on this album is amazing — tonally correct with wonderful leading edge transients
  • Both musically and sonically, this is Blue Note at its best
  • 5 stars: “Carried by its almost impossibly infectious eponymous opening track, The Sidewinder helped foreshadow the sounds of boogaloo and soul-jazz with its healthy R&B influence and Latin tinge. While the rest of the album retreats to a more conventional hard bop sound, Morgan’s compositions are forward-thinking and universally solid…”

When we dropped the needle on this one, we immediately stopped listening critically and just began enjoying the album. That’s the sign of an exceptional copy — the sound gets out of the way and the music becomes the point.

There’s life and presence on these sides the likes of which you almost never hear on any jazz record.

The lineup here is fantastic, with Joe Henderson on tenor sax, Billy Higgins on drums, Barry Harris on piano and Bob Cranshaw on bass. (more…)

Cannonball Adderley / Somethin’ Else

More of the Music of Cannonball Adderley

  • A triumph for Rudy Van Gelder, a Top Blue Note title, and as much a showcase for Miles Davis as it is for Cannonball Adderley
  • The best sides of this album had as much energy, presence, dynamics and three-dimensional studio space as any jazz recording we have ever played
  • 5 stars: “Both horn players are at their peak of lyrical invention, crafting gorgeous, flowing blues lines.”
  • “…signs of Milesian influence are the calm, conversational delivery of the title track and the newfound lyricism in Adderley’s playing that followed from his nightly experience at the trumpeter’s side.”

The music here is simply amazing, but the good news for us audiophiles is that it’s also one of the Best Sounding Blue Note Albums we know of, if not The Best.

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Duke Ellington – At the Bal Masque (aka Dance to Duke!)

More of the Music of Duke Ellington

  • A seriously good sounding Stereo 6-Eye pressing with solid Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides
  • Here are boatloads of the kind of Tubey Magical richness that make these vintage Columbia recordings the uniquely satisfying listening experience we know them to be
  • The title of the album was changed soon after its release in 1959 to Dance to Duke! — note that the back cover and the label kept the original title: Ellington – His piano and his Orchestra at the Bal Masque
  • More superb sound from the legendary CBS 30th Street Studios in New York – the size and power of a jazz orchestra in glorious all analog sound
  • “Ellington and his all-star orchestra manage to transform what could be a set of tired revival swing into superior dance music and swinging jazz… a surprise success.”

If you want to know what it was like to attend an Ellington supper club concert, this record will do the trick (even though the album was recorded in the studio and the applause added later). Ellington’s magic is on display for everyone to hear. (more…)

Sonny Rollins – Sonny Rollins & the Contemporary Leaders

More of the Music of Sonny Rollins

  • Hot Stamper sound brings Rollins’s second and last Contemporary release to life on this vintage pressing
  • Both of these sides are textbook examples of the kind of rich, smooth, effortlessly natural Contemporary jazz sound that Roy DuNann‘s All Tube Recording Chain was known for in 1958
  • If all you know are the Heavy Vinyl reissues of Sonny’s Contemporary catalog, we think it’s safe to say that you have never begun to hear these albums sound the way they should
  • This is a lot of money for a somewhat noisy copy, but the sound is so awesome and quiet pressings of the album so hard to come by that we hope someone will take a chance on it and get the thrill we did from hearing it sound right for once
  • “The last of the classic Sonny Rollins albums prior to his unexpected three-year retirement features the great tenor with pianist Hampton Hawes, guitarist Barney Kessell, bassist Leroy Vinnegar and drummer Shelly Manne… Great music.”

This Contemporary Label LP has THE BIG SOUND we love here at Better Records — rich and full-bodied with live-in-your-listening-room immediacy. The bass is deep, rock-solid, and note-like. There’s plenty of clarity and extension up top, bringing Shelly Manne’s fantastic work on the cymbals to life.

This is no Heavy Vinyl slogfest. Just listen to the leading edge transients on Sonny’s sax.

The guitar is warm, rich, and sweet, and just swimming in ambience.

Sonny is backed here by a heavy-hitting lineup of Barney Kessel, Shelly Manne, Leroy Vinnegar and Hampton Hawes — all favorite players of ours here at Better Records.

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Eric Dolphy – Out There in 2026

More Saxophone Jazz

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER throughout this vintage Prestige stereo recording pressed on OJC vinyl
  • This copy (the first to hit the site in over four years) was doing just about everything right: it’s rich, full-bodied and Tubey Magical yet still super open and spacious
  • 5 stars: “A somber and unusual album by the standards of any style of music, Out There explores Dolphy’s vision in approaching the concept of tonality in a way few others – before, concurrent, or after – have ever envisioned.”

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