1959-best

Brahms – Variations On A Theme By Haydn / Hungarian Dances / Dorati

More Mercury Label Classical Recordings

  • Dorati and the LSO’s performance of these classical works debuts on the site with a lush, tubey, and dynamic Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two
  • Both of these sides have an abundance of energy, loads of detail and texture, remarkable transparency and excellent clarity – all qualities the best classical pressings have in abundance
  • What both sides did not have in our shootout was a huge, dynamic, powerful low end
  • Side one is the only side that had the bass deserving of a top Mercury — consequently no copy earned a 3+ grade on side two
  • The sound is big and open, and like so many Mercury recordings with the London Symphony, it’s rich and full-bodied, not thin and nasally as is so often the case with their domestically recorded releases

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Kind of Blue on a Killer 70s Red Label Pressing

More of the Music of Miles Davis

  • With two solid Double Plus (A++) sides or close to them, this Red Label pressing has Demo Disc sound – sound that’s guaranteed to make you want to take all of your remastered pressings and dump them off at the Goodwill
  • After auditioning a Hot Stamper Kind of Blue like this one – a pressing that captures the sound of this amazing group like nothing you have ever heard – you may be motivated to add a hearty, “Good riddance to bad audiophile rubbish and the audiophile reviewers who can’t hear the difference!”
  • KOB is the embodiment of the big-as-life, spacious and timbrally accurate 30th Street Studio sound Fred Plaut was justly famous for (particularly on this side two)
  • Space, clarity, transparency, and in-the-room immediacy are some of the qualities to be found on this pressing (also particularly on side two)
  • It’s guaranteed to beat any copy you’ve ever played, and if you have the new MoFi pressing, please, please, please order this copy so that you can hear just how screwy the sound of the remaster is
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 5 stars: “KOB isn’t merely an artistic highlight for Miles Davis, it’s an album that towers above its peers, a record generally considered as the definitive jazz album, a universally acknowledged standard of excellence.”
  • If you’re a fan of the music Davis, Adderley and Coltrane were playing circa 1959, this album clearly belongs in your collection

The Labels of Kind of Blue

The 6 Eye label domestic stereo pressings win our shootouts, in the case of Kind of Blue without exception.

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Weber / Overtures / Ansermet

Decca and London Pressings Available Now

  • Glorious sonics throughout this early London pressing (only the second copy to hit the site in years), with an INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • It has the Decca / London sound we expect from Ansermet, the Suisse Romande orchestra, and the amazing Victoria Hall they recorded in — rich and spacious, with lovely texture to the strings
  • These sides are open, airy and sweet, with a lovely extended top end and spaciousness for days

This record is exceptionally dynamic. If you like listening to your records at realistic levels — the only way to fly to our way of thinking — then you had better watch your levels! The huge bottom end makes those dynamic passages a thrill to experience. Make sure your VTA is carefully adjusted — a big deal with us these days — and you will be in for the ride of your life.

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Wynton Kelly Trio & Sextet – Kelly Blue

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

  • Wynton Kelly’s hard-to-find second album, here with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides of this vintage OJC pressing
  • A superb pressing, with lovely richness and warmth, good space, separation between the instruments, and real immediacy throughout
  • Kelly brings in jazz greats Nat Adderley, Bobby Jaspar, and Benny Golson, as well as several of his bandmates from Miles Davis’s sextet, including Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb
  • There are some bad marks (as is sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs) on “Old Clothes,” but once you hear just how incredible sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and just be swept away by the music
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Kelly was renowned as an accompanist, but as he shows on a set including three of his originals and four familiar standards… A fine example of his talents.”
  • “Wynton Kelly demonstrates once again why he has been a major influence in the history of jazz piano.”

Jack Higgins was the engineer for these sessions. He recorded Chet Baker’s brilliant Chet album the same year, as well as many other albums for Riverside in New York in the 50s and 60s.

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Chet Baker / Plays The Best Of Lerner And Loewe

More of the Music of Chet Baker

  • This Riverside stereo recording pressed on OJC vinyl boasts solid Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • Big, rich, smooth, open, natural, with plenty of note-like bass – what’s not to like? This copy is doing most everything right
  • Some of the best jazz guys of the day back up Chet on this one: Zoot Sims, Pepper Adams, Bill Evans, Herbie Mann and more
  • “…the timelessness of the melodies, coupled with the assembled backing aggregate, make Chet Baker Plays the Best of Lerner and Loewe (1959) a memorable concept album.”

This is a wonderful Chet Baker record that doesn’t seem to be getting the respect it deserves in the wider jazz world. You may just like it every bit as much as the Chet album, and that is one helluva record to compare any album to. In our estimation it’s about as good as it get. (more…)

Debussy / Images For Orchestra / Munch

More of the Music of Debussy

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A++) Living Stereo sound throughout this original Shaded Dog pressing
  • A spectacular Demo Disc quality orchestral recording – big, clear, rich, dynamic, transparent and energetic
  • The rich, textured sheen on the strings that the Living Stereo recording process perfected starting in the 50s is clearly evident throughout these pieces, something that the Heavy Vinyl crowd will never experience – that sound just does not exist on modern records

Demo Disc quality sound! Iberia on side two sounds exceptionally good. It’s also a better performance than the famous Reiner. Munch understands this music perfectly.

This recording has an extremely open, extended top end. If you can add a few dB around 50 cycles, you will have the best of both worlds.

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Horace Silver – Blowin’ The Blues Away

More of the Music of Horace Silver

  • Incredible sound throughout this early 60s Blue Note Stereo pressing, with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them
  • A Must Own from Horace Silver, with the kind of sound that only the better vintage pressings can offer
  • If you don’t know his music, this is a good place to start
  • Another triumph for engineering maestro Rudy Van Gelder – he refined a “live-in-the-studio” jazz sound that still sounds fresh to this day, even after 67 years
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Blowin’ The Blues Away is one of Horace Silver’s all-time Blue Note classics, only upping the ante established on Finger Poppin’ for tightly constructed, joyfully infectious hard bop… one of Silver’s finest albums, and it’s virtually impossible to dislike.”
  • If you’re a fan of Silver’s, this 1959 album belongs in your collection, along with quite a few others, if only we could find them
  • The complete list of titles from 1959 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

The really good RVG pressings (often on the later labels) sound shockingly close to live music — uncompressed, present, full of energy, with the instruments clearly located on a wide and often deep soundstage, surrounded by the natural space and cool air of his New Jersey studio. As our stereo has improved, and we’ve found better pressings and learned how to clean them better, his “you-are-there” live jazz sound has come to impress us more and more. (more…)

Milt Jackson and John Coltrane – Bags & Trane

More of the Music of John Coltrane

  • Stunning sound throughout this stereo pressing, with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • If all you have ever played is an original pressing or a modern reissue, you are in for a treat — this copy is going to murder them
  • One of Tom Dowd’s many outstanding recordings of John Coltrane at the height of his powers – the sound is to die for
  • 5 stars: “Vibraphonist Milt Jackson and tenor saxophonist John Coltrane make for a surprisingly complementary team on this 1959 studio session, their only joint recording.”

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Shostakovich / Symphony No. 5 in Living Stereo

More Living Stereo Titles

  • An early Shaded Dog pressing of this wonderful recording with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) Living Stereo sound or close to it from start to finish
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • This spectacular Demo Disc recording is big, clear, rich, dynamic, transparent and energetic – here is the sound we love
  • We guarantee that this original pressing resolves musical information like no other copy you’ve heard
  • The best copies are not harsh or shrill the way so many copies are – our Shootout Winners give you all the size and energy as well as the smoothest possible strings
  • The RCA has a bit more of the vintage Living Stereo Tubey Magical sound from back in the day compared to the London with Kertesz, which, although a bit more modern, is every bit as good

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Gilbert and Sullivan – Overtures / Ward

More Recordings in Living Stereo

  • You’ll find INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides of this vintage Shaded Dog pressing of Gilbert and Sullivan’s music
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • Rich and sweet Living Stereo sound from the first note to the last – who can resist these sublime orchestral arrangements?
  • The Overtures are played to perfection – for music and sound, this one is hard to fault, a Top Title in every way and one that belongs in every right-thinking audiophile’s collection
  • This pressing is clearly a Demo Disc for orchestral size and space

The hall is HUGE: spacious and open as any you will hear, but not at the expense of richness or fullness. The orchestra is solid and full-bodied, yet the woodwinds and flutes soar above the other sections, so breathy and clear.

How did the Decca (recording) and RCA (mastering) engineers succeed so brilliantly where so many others have failed, failed right up to this very day?

Who knows? It’s still a mystery that has yet to be explained, to our satisfaction anyway.

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