1962-best

Bud Shank & Clare Fischer – Bossa Nova Jazz Samba

  • This superb collaboration from 1962 makes its Hot Stamper debut with stunning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound throughout
  • With a breathy sax, lively and present piano, clarity, space and timbral accuracy, this is guaranteed to be one of the best sounding jazz records you’ve heard
  • A wonderful Bossa Nova classic that shows you just how lovely this music can sound when properly mastered and pressed
  • This is vintage Sixties Pacific Jazz Stereo at its best – big, rich and Tubey Magical like you will not believe

This Original Pacific Jazz Stereo pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records rarely even 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 group, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound. (more…)

Bruch / Scottish Fantasia / Oistrakh

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

CS 6337. This Minty looking London Whiteback LP has THE MOST AMAZING SCOTTISH FANTASIA I have ever heard! Folks, it doesn’t get any better than this. I would say this is one of the five best sounding violin recordings I have ever heard. Interestingly, the violin sound that we typically put up with is found on side two of this very album. It’s easy to forget that there are actually records that sound like side one, and that side two really isn’t the way an orchestra is supposed to sound.

The Hindemith side is weak on this pressing. The Bruch found here is musically every bit as good as the famous Heifetz recording (LSC 2603) and so is the sound. (The sound is actually better I would guess, but without a Hot Copy of 2603 — very hard to find, by the way — I can’t really make that claim honestly.)

Violin concerto fans will love this one, especially those who appreciate the real thing and not the typically shrill and aggressive sound of most of the modern 200 gram reissues by you know who.

Performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, this record also features Hindemith’s Violin Concerto (1939).

This is an Older Classical/Orchestral Review

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Anderson / Fiddle-Faddle / Fiedler

This famous Fiedler / Boston Pops recording of Leroy Anderson’s music has Super Hot Stamper sound on both sides! I frankly admit to never having taken this title seriously. I imagine few hard core Shaded Dog collectors have ever bothered to play it, which is their loss, not ours. It’s very well recorded, with tons of Golden Age Living Stereo magic. Talk about BIG and RICH, both sides will show you exactly why modern audiophiles drool over these recordings. You simply cannot find this sound anywhere else.

Side One

A++. It’s dynamic and lively, with huge size and scope and lovely transparency (a quality we find virtually non-existent on modern pressings by the way). Bells up top, rich lower strings, tons of Tubey Magic — it’s all here folks.

There is however some smear, heard most clearly on the strings. A++ is about right we think.

Side Two

A++, so transparent, with spaciousness, depth and 3-D that really draws you in and lets you forget you’re listening to a record at all. You will have a very hard time finding a Golden Age classical record that sounds better.

Listen to the horns on the second track — man do they ever sound REAL.

Track three has some pizzicato playing that you can demo your stereo with.

Like side one, a bit of smear holds it back from out top grade. (more…)

Ray Charles – Genius + Soul = Jazz

More of the Music of Ray Charles

  • With stunning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on both sides and Count Basie backing up The Genius himself, this copy is As Good As It Gets! 
  • Most of this album is Ray stretching out with “some pretty mean and lean, cut-to-the-heart-of-the-matter B-3 Hammond organ licks.”
  • Big and rich, clear and Tubey Magical, the 1962 sound of this vintage stereo pressing is just right; quiet vinyl too!
  • Allmusic notes: “…one of those instrumentals, a cover of the Clovers’ “One Mint Julep,” would give Charles one of his most unpredictable (and best) early-’60s hits.”.

This album has long been a personal favorite of mine. It features Ray on the organ playing with every bit as much soul as he sings with, and who sings with more soul than Ray Charles?

Both sides here are open and transparent with HUGE amounts of room-filling bass. (more…)