1959

Rachmaninoff / Concerto No. 2 – Reviewed in 2008

More of the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

Reviews and Commentaries for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos

This is the earlier pressing of LSC 2068, which stretches the Rachmaninoff piece over both sides of the record, resulting in a more dynamic pressing.

The sound is tonally right on the money with the superb, rich, sweetly textured strings we have come to expect from RCA in this period.

The piano has exquisite tone as well.

This is a lovely, lyrical piece of music and the natural sound conveys the qualities of the work perfectly.

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Xavier Cugat – Chile Con Cugie

More Exotica

Living Stereo Titles Available Now

Amazing nearly White Hot stamper sound on side two. It’s so big and fun, jumping with energy in a huge space.

1959 Living Stereo three-dimensionality from Webster Hall.

Lots of exotica percussion and rhythm make for fun stereo listening. 

Side Two

So much bigger and clearer than we expected, with instruments just jumping out of the soundfield everywhere, this is the way you want your Xavier Cugat records to sound!

Big, lively and fun, that’s what an authentic original Living Stereo pressing can do that the modern record of today has such trouble recreating.

Side One

Tonally correct — maybe not all the fun of this amazing side two but a healthy portion of it.

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Holst / British Band Classics Vol. 2 / Fennell

More of the music of Gustav Holst (1874-1934)

Side one big, full and dynamic, with horns and winds that are never screechy. (Side two of this first LP is very screechy and not at all to our liking.) 

Side two of the second record has the sound of live music. Huge space, clear yet rich, this is the sound we were looking for! (more…)

Count Basie & Joe Williams – Memories Ad-Lib

  • A vintage stereo pressing of Joe Williams right at his peak in 1959, with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound and fairly quiet vinyl 
  • This is one of the few Joe Williams records we’ve been able to find with audiophile sound and surfaces – it’s taken us years to get even one shootout going, but it produced this great copy, so we think it was worth it!
  • “Williams’ vocals seem effortless throughout the date… highlights include the easygoing swinger “The One I Love (Belongs to Somebody Else)” and a foot-tapping “Honeysuckle Rose.”

This vintage LP has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern pressings cannot BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing any sign of coming back. (more…)

This Budget Surprise Symphony Is Our Favorite

This vintage RCA Living Stereo Camden LP has Super Hot Stamper sound on both sides. It’s one of the best Camdens, if not actually THE best.

In true Living Stereo fashion, a natural, realistic concert hall perspective unfolds before you. As we noted about side one: it’s rich, smooth, sweet and tubey — what’s not to like? 

Fjeldstad’s performance is excellent as well. Fjeldstad, you may remember, is the man behind the definitive Peer Gynt on Decca (SXL 2012). His recordings may not be common but they have never disappointed. If you can’t own all 104 of Haydn’s symphonies, make sure that at least this one is in your collection.

Side One

A++, rich, smooth, sweet and tubey — what’s not to like? Lovely sheen on the strings. The loudest parts get a bit congested — what Golden Age recordings don’t suffer from compressor distortion? — but other than that this side has the Living Stereo sound we love.

Side Two

A++, and interesting in this respect: the highs are missing at the beginning, making the sound somewhat dark, but about one inch in on the side they come back, and they come back so nicely, along with many other fine qualities, that the overall sound is actually better than side one! We averaged it out to A++.

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Brahms / Violin Concerto / Szeryng / Monteux

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

DEMO QUALITY SOUND!.

One of the most amazing violin concerto records I have ever heard! Makes most of the Heifetz records pale in comparison. The performance is sublime as well.

When you hear the gorgeous texture of the massed strings at the beginning of this work you know you are in for a magical Living Stereo experience. It only gets better. Szeryng’s violin is as sweet and musical as any I have ever heard. This has to be one of the greatest Golden Age recordings in the history of the world. Its reputation is probably hurt by the fact that it’s so rare that few people have had a chance to hear how good it is.

If you love this work, one of the classics of the violin repertoire, you will be hard pressed to find a better performance with better sound. In my mind, there simply is no competition for this record.

Music Of Berlioz on Stereo Treasury

Hot Stamper Pressings on Decca and London Available Now

This English Stereo Treasury pressing (on an odd looking Orange label, with handwritten stampers I have never seen before) has a SUPERB side two and side one is almost as good! The original release is London CS 6101 and I doubt most copies of it would sound this good.

This is Classic Old School Decca sound, rich and smooth with an exceptionally wide and deep soundstage. All the instruments are clear and have good texture, which is what one rarely hears on most early pressings. They tend to be thick and dark. A little more top and this side two would have earned the full Three Pluses.

Side one earned a grade of A+ to A++. It actually has more top end than side two but lacks that side’s richness and fullness (two qualities we prize highly here at Better Records. The Blueback copy we had in our shootout captured that sound beautifully).

Side one is transparent and dynamic and the timbre of the instruments is mostly correct, just lacking some richness in the lower strings and weight to the trombones.

If you want to hear some exciting French orchestral music played by one of the great orchestras under the direction of the amazing Jean Martinon, you will have a hard time finding a record that delivers the goods better than this one.

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Ray Charles – The Genius of Ray Charles

  • One of the few copies to ever hit the site and boy is it KILLER — Triple Plus (A+++) sound on the second side and Double Plus (A++) on the first
  • The sound is incredibly rich, full and Tubey Magical with tons of energy and a nice extended top end
  • Robert Christgau noted that “Charles tried many times, but except for Modern Sounds, he never again assembled such a consistent album in this mode.”
  • “Charles’ voice is heard throughout in peak form, giving soul to even the veteran standards.”

Tom Dowd engineered on Ampex 3 Track through an All Tube chain (this is 1959 after all), Quincy Jones did the arrangements, and Ray sang the hell out of this great batch of songs — all the ingredients in a recipe for soul are here.

Top tracks on the first side: Let The Good Times Roll, It Had To Be You and When Your Lover Has Gone. (more…)

Count Basie / Chairman of the Board – The Reissues that Beat the Originals (and of course the Classic Records Remaster)

  • A Shootout Winning copy with Triple Plus (A+++) sound on the first side and Double Plus (A++) sound on the second
  • From first note to last, this copy is big, clear, rich and lively, with huge amounts of space around the band
  • Forget the honky, hard-sounding Roulette originals, and of course the second-rate Classic Records pressing – this reissue is the way to go
  • 4 1/2 stars: “This 1958 date for Roulette was a rare chance for the orchestra to perform on its own, and listeners to hear how powerful the band could be when its concentration was undiverted… The record is admittedly heavy on the blues, but it’s a brassy, powerful vision of the blues… A dynamic date, it shows the ‘new testament’ edition of Basie’s orchestra in top form.”

This reissue is spacious, open, transparent, rich and sweet. It’s yet another remarkable disc from the Golden Age of Vacuum Tube Recording Technology, with the added benefit of mastering using the more modern cutting equipment of the ’70s. We are of course here referring to the good modern mastering of 30+ years ago, not the dubious and too often disastrous modern mastering of today. 

The combination of old and new works wonders on this title as you will surely hear for yourself on these superb sides. We were impressed with the fact that these pressings excel in so many areas of reproduction. What was odd about it — odd to most audiophiles but not necessarily to us — was just how rich and Tubey Magical the reissue can be on the right pressing.

This leads me to think that most of the natural, full-bodied, lively, clear, rich sound of the album is on the tape, and that all one has to do to get that vintage sound on to a record is simply to thread up the tape on the right machine and hit play. (more…)

Cannonball Adderley In San Francisco in 1959

More Cannonball Adderley


  • Amazing Triple Plus (A+++) sound on the first side and Double Plus (A++) on the second for this groundbreaking live jazz album 
  • The sound of this wonderful reissue pressing is big and full-bodied with good live club space and plenty of Tubey Magic
  • Cannonball joins forces here with his brother, cornetist Nat Adderley, at The Jazz Workshop in San Francisco to create an album Orrin Keepnews lauded as, “the birth of contemporary live recording”
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Both Cannonball and Nat Adderley play with stunning, bluesy brilliance here… Outside of Somethin’ Else, Adderley’s 1958 masterpiece, In San Francisco may be the saxophonist’s defining moment.”

Classic Jazz – How Can You Go Wrong?

What the best sides of this Classic Jazz Album have to offer is clear for all to hear: (more…)