1960-best

Wagner / Excerpts from Operas / Dorati

More of the Music of Richard Wagner

  • With two solid Double Plus (A++) sides or close to them, we guarantee you’ve never heard this underrated Wagner album sound remotely as good as it does here
  • It’s also fairly quiet at the high end Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • Mercury is one of the few labels that can bring to life the power of the orchestra that Wagner’s music demands, and the engineers (Robert Eberenz, et al) do not disappoint (particularly on side two)
  • One of the better Watford Town Hall recordings (The Firebird would be another one), this album was recorded in 1959 and it fully captures the magic of the venue as only an All Tube Recording / Mastering Chain from that era can (also particularly on side two)
  • If you’re a fan of orchestral showpieces such as these, this Mercury recording from 1960 belongs in your collection.

(more…)

Shelly Manne & His Men – At The Black Hawk, Vol. 4

More of the Music of Shelly Manne

  • Here is an early Contemporary stereo pressing with solid Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides
  • This is West Coast Jazz at its best, and if anyone can capture the realism of a live jazz club, it’s the engineers and producers at Contemporary
  • For our shootout, we chose to play Volumes 2, 3 and 4 on the same day, which taught us something we might not have known otherwise — Volume 4 tends to have the best sound of those three albums
  • If you want to hear a healthy dose of the Tubey Magic, size and energy of this wonderful live session recorded at the Black Hawk in September 1959, this copy will let you do that
  • 4 stars: “Shelly Manne’s 1959 quintet (with trumpeter Joe Gordon, tenor saxophonist Richie Kamuca, pianist Victor Feldman, bassist Monty Budwig, and the drummer/leader) was … a hard-swinging unit well versed in bebop. The lengthy solos are consistently excellent, making this entire series recommended to straight-ahead jazz fans.

(more…)

Shelly Manne & His Men / At The Blackhawk, Volume 2

More of the Music of Shelly Manne

  • With solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from first note to last, this early Contemporary stereo pressing will be very hard to beat
  • This is West Coast Jazz at its best, and if anyone can capture the realism of a live jazz club, it’s the engineers and producers at Contemporary
  • Each instrument here sounds right – the piano is weighty and percussive; the drums are punchy; and the brass has lovely leading edge transients
  • 4 stars: “These lengthy performances (“Vamp’s Blues” is over 19 minutes long) give trumpeter Joe Gordon, the cool-toned tenor-saxophonist Richie Kamuca, pianist Victor Feldman, bassist Monty Budwig and the leader/drummer a chance to really stretch out. Fine 1950s bebop.”

Wonderful sound and music! This is West Coast Jazz at its best. The sound is superb — airy, open, and spacious with a stunningly good bottom end. You won’t believe how alive the bass sounds — the depth and definition are out of this world! Each instrument here sounds just right — weighty, percussive piano; punchy drums; and lovely leading edge transients on the brass. Contemporary got live nightclub jazz sound down to a “T” here.

(more…)

The Curtis Counce Group – Carl’s Blues

More Contemporary Label Jazz Recordings

 

  • Both sides of this vintage Contemporary recording pressed on exceptionally quiet OJC vinyl boast solid Double Plus (A++) grades
  • This pressing has the studio space, presence, driving energy, and Midrange Magic that’s almost always missing from whatever 180g reissue (at 33 or 45, don’t fall for that BS) has been made from the 65 year old tapes
  • Out of the five pressings we could find in audiophile playing condition, only two had Super Hot or better sides, and no copy earned a White Hot grade for side two
  • Which simply means that finding good sound on this title is tough — for those of you who like to do your own shootouts, we wish you good luck, you’re going to need it
  • 4 stars: “Although the Curtis Counce Quintet was not a commercial success, their four Contemporary albums were all timeless in their own way, undated examples of high-quality hard bop from the late 50s. Excellent music that still sounds fresh four [now six] decades later.”

(more…)

Liszt / The Music of Franz Liszt / Fiedler

More of the Music of Franz Liszt

  • This vintage Shaded Dog pressing of these wonderful orchestral showpieces boasts two outstanding Double Plus (A++) sides or close to them
  • 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
  • Classic superb Living Stereo sound on this side one – big and open with an especially clean and extended top end (great fun on those huge cymbal crashes Liszt favored), and side two is not far behind in all those areas
  • Powerful, rich, dynamic and life-like orchestral reproduction, set in a huge hall – no Heavy Vinyl pressing can hold a candle to sound as good as this (particularly on side one)
  • “The Hungarian-born composer and pianist Franz Liszt was strongly influenced by the music heard in his youth, particularly Hungarian folk music, with its unique gypsy scale, rhythmic spontaneity and direct, seductive expression.”
  • If you’re a fan of orchestral showpieces such as these, this Living Stereo from 1960 belongs in your collection.

This is, in our opinion, one of the most underrated Living Stereo treasures in the Golden Age canon — but not by this critic (here reviewing the CD):

In the early days of stereo, RCA released an all-Liszt LP by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops that has remained in my memory as one of the finest things the popular maestro ever committed to disc…

Two works, the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 and the high energy Rákoczy March, have been out for some time, coupled with “Hi-Fi Fiedler”. Now RCA has added to this current disc the two main pieces, Mazeppa and Les Preludes, from the original collection. They are as wonderful as ever – among the best, if not the best, performances of this music. Fiedler doesn’t dawdle or toy around with the melodies; he lets Liszt’s Romantic vision speak for itself, helping it along with brisk tempos and incisive phrasing. Seldom have the fanfares in Les Préludes had such bite and majesty.

ClassicsToday

The richly textured, rosin-on-the-bow lower strings on this record are to die for.

Find me a modern record with that sound and I will eat it. And by “modern record” we hasten to include both modern recordings and modern remasterings of older recordings. NO ONE alive today can make a record that sound like this. To call it a lost art is to understand something that few vinyl-loving audiophiles appear to have fully grasped since the advent of the Modern Reissue, which is simply this: compared head to head, they are simply not competitive.

After twenty years of trying and literally hundreds of failed examples, both the boutique and major labels of today have yet to make a record that sounds as powerful or as life-like as this RCA from the old days.

Fortunately for us record lovers and collectors, we at Better Records are not trying to make a record sound the way these sides do, we’re just trying to find ones that do, and folks, we found some very, very good sides here.

(more…)

Beethoven – Piano Concerto No. 2 / Moonlight Sonata / Backhaus

More of the Music of Beethoven

  • The Hot Stamper debut of Backhaus and the Vienna Phil’s masterful performance of these two sublime classical works, here with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER throughout this vintage London pressing
  • It’s also remarkably quiet at the high end of Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • Piano Concerto No. 2 takes up all of this incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) side one and is practically as good as we have ever heard, right up there with our Shootout Winner
  • Both of these sides are big, full-bodied, clean and clear, with a wonderfully present and solid piano, and plenty of 3D space around it
  • Dynamic, huge, lively, transparent and natural – with a record this good, your ability to suspend disbelief will require practically no effort at all
  • After surveying various recordings of the work, it was clear to us that CS 6188 on the early London pressing offers the discerning audiophile the best performance of the piece with the highest quality sound available

(more…)

Albeniz / Iberia – Another Knockout of a Recording, Conducted by Ernst Ansermet

More of the Music of Albeniz

  • This superb classical release (only the second copy to hit the site in close to two and a half years) boasts big, bold, dynamic Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout this early London pressing
  • 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
  • Here you will find the huge hall, correct string tone, spacious, open sound that are hallmarks to all the best vintage orchestral pressings
  • Listen to the plucked basses – clear, not smeary, with no sacrifice in richness. Take it from us, the guys that play classical recordings by the score, this is hard for a record to do!
  • Ernst Ansermet conducted some of the best sounding records ever made — here are some of the ones we’ve reviewed

The sound of this copy is so transparent, undistorted, three-dimensional and real, without any sacrifice in solidity, richness or Tubey Magic, that we knew we had a real winner on our hands as soon as the needle hit the groove.

We were impressed with the fact that it excelled in so many areas of reproduction. The illusion of disappearing speakers is one of the more attractive aspects of the sound here, pulling the listener into the space of the concert hall in an especially engrossing way.

(more…)

Sibelius – Violin Concerto / Heifetz / Hendl

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

xxx

  • Solid Double Plus (A++) or BETTER Living Stereo sonics from 1960 bring to life this fiery performance from Heifetz in his prime on this early Shaded Dog pressing
  • 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’s some of the best sound we have ever heard for the work, right up there with Ricci’s on Decca/London
  • The nothing-less-than-breathtaking performance by Heifetz may raise this one to the rank of ‘first among equals’ for those of you who prize immediacy and energy in your violin recordings
  • If you have one of our killer Hot Stampers of the Beethoven or Tchaikovsky violin concertos, you know exactly the sound I am talking about
  • “In the easier and looser concerto forms invented by Mendelssohn and Schumann I have not met a more original, a more masterly, and a more exhilarating work than the Sibelius violin concerto.”
  • Here is a link to more records like this one containing some of our favorite orchestral performances with top quality sound
  • 1960 was a great years for classical recordings – other Must Own Orchestral releases can be found here.

Early Shaded Dog pressings of Heifetz’s records rarely survived in audiophile playing condition. Top quality early pressings in clean condition come our way at most a few times a year, which means shootouts for them get done infrequently. There are hundreds, even thousands, of clean, vintage classical pressings sitting in our stockroom waiting for a few more copies to come our way so that we can finally do a shootout. These things cannot be rushed.

As for the sound, it’s practically impossible to find the richly textured, natural string tone offered here on anything but the vintage pressings produced in the 50s and 60s. Record making may be a lost art, but as long as we have these wonderful vintage pressings to play, it’s an art that is not being lost on us.

(more…)

Bizet / Saint-Saens / Carmen Fantaisie / Introduction And Rondo Capriccioso / Ricci

More of the Music of Georges Bizet

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this early London LP
  • This is a spectacular recording, and one of the Greatest Violin Showpiece Albums of All Time
  • It is certainly a record that belongs in every right-thinking audiophile’s collection. If you’re on our site and taking the time to read this, that probably means you
  • Ruggiero Ricci is superb throughout – we know of no better performance of these works than those found on this very record
  • Some old record collectors (like me) say classical recording quality ain’t what it used to be – here’s all the proof anyone with two working ears and top quality audiophile equipment needs to make the case

Ricci’s playing of the Bizet-Sarasate Carmen Fantasie is out of this world. There is no greater performance on record, in my opinion, and few works that have as much audiophile appeal.

The Average Copy

When you play a copy of this record and hear a smeared, veiled violin, don’t be too surprised. This is not the least bit unusual, in fact it’s pretty much par for the course. The soundstage may be huge, spacious and 3-D. It is on most copies.

But what good is a record of violin showpieces if the violin doesn’t sound right?

Sides One and Two

These two sides can show you how good the violin — and the whole orchestra — can sound. They’re tonally correct from top to bottom, transparent and sweet.

These pieces are less about the “violin-in-your-lap” effect and more about the violin as an integrated member of the orchestra.

These sides had plenty of a quality that goes a long way in the world of classical music. As we went through the various copies, we noticed that the sound on the best sides was especially relaxed. (Compare that to the typical Classic Records Heavy Vinyl pressing, which, on the relaxation scale of one to ten, rates a lot closer to one than it does to ten. Between one and two, probably.)

Once you spot the relaxed copies, you find they tend to do every other thing well, and that’s what it takes to score top grades in shootouts — doing everything well.

(more…)

Joan Baez – Self-Titled in Mono

More Pure Folk Recordings

  • Excellent sound for Baez’s debut album, with both sides of this early MONO Vanguard pressing earning Double Plus (A++) grades
  • Both of these sides boast glorious All Tube chain recording quality that will be very hard to beat
  • One of Joan Baez’s best sounding albums in our experience, shockingly free of artificiality – play it against your favorite female vocal album to hear the difference
  • A TAS list Super Disc that actually deserves to be on a Super Disc list, how about that
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings, but once you hear just how superb sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and pops and just be swept away by the music
  • 140 weeks on the charts and Five Stars on AMG: “…a brace of traditional songs (most notably ‘East Virginia’ and ‘Mary Hamilton’) with an urgency and sincerity that makes the listener feel as though they were being sung for the first time…”

This former member of the TAS list is the kind of recording that has everything going for it: Golden Age equipment in a live acoustic with a simple arrangement for voice and guitar (or two).

The voice and the material come together nicely. If I were to recommend only one Joan Baez record it would surely have to be this one. Diamonds and Rust is a nice pop album but I think if you go back and play it today you will find that it sounds somewhat dated. Good folk tunes like the ones found on this album, however, never seem to go out of style.

The record sounds like a live demo session because that is exactly what it is:

In 1983 Baez described the making of the album to Rolling Stone’s Kurt Loder:”…It took four days. We recorded it in the ballroom of some hotel in New York, way up by the river. We could use the room every day except Tuesday, because they played Bingo there on Tuesdays. It was just me on this filthy rug. There were two microphones, one for the voice and one for the guitar. I just did my set. It was probably all I knew how to do at that point. I did ‘Mary Hamilton’ once and that was it…That’s the way we made ’em in the old days. As long as a dog didn’t run through the room or something, you had it…”

(more…)