1962-best

Morton Gould and His Orchestra – Love Walked In

Living Stereo Titles Available Now

200+ Reviews of Living Stereo Records

This Super Hot Stamper (or better!) Living Stereo Shaded Dog pressing has SUPERB TUBEY MAGICAL Golden Age sound the likes of which you will not believe. (If you’ve bought some of our best Hot Stamper Living Stereo recordings then you will have no trouble believing it I’m sure.) 

Side two displays some of the richest, most three-dimensional orchestral sound we have heard in quite some time. The fifth track is especially notable for a pizzicato arrangement that makes it a DEMO DISC track to beat them all. Plucked strings simply do not sound any better!

The legendary RCA engineer Lewis Layton deserves all the kudos here. The string tone is perfection on side two, Living Stereo Magic at its best! (more…)

Benny Carter – Further Definitions

  • KILLER sound throughout for this original Impulse stereo pressing with each side earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • These sides are clean, clear, spacious and natural, yet overflowing with the rich, Tubey Magical sound of vintage ANALOG
  • There’s not a chance in the world the current 180 gram reissue can hold a candle to this early stereo pressing 
  • 5 stars: “The all-star group (which also includes Hawkins, altoist Phil Woods, Charlie Rouse on second tenor, pianist Dick Katz, guitarist John Collins, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Jo Jones) performs a particularly inspired repertoire. Carter’s charts, which allow Hawkins to stretch out on “Body and Soul,” give everyone a chance to shine. …Very highly recommended.”

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Barber, Bartok, Britten, Respighi / I Musici

More of the music of Bela Bartok (1881-1945)

More Classical ‘Sleeper” Recordings with Demo Disc Sound

This Philips Festivo reissue LP (not as pictured by the way, that’s an original) plays Mint Minus or better and sounds GREAT! This is a wonderful record — I Musici is one of my favorite groups. They play with tremendous energy, enthusiasm and feeling, taking works that have been recorded poorly by too many others and performing them with gusto.

The ‘Ancient Dances and Airs’ is superb here, one of the best on record. Britten’s ‘Simple Symphony’ is one of the best I’ve ever heard as well. Barber’s ‘Adagio For Strings’ is good but you can find better if you look hard enough. Highest recommendation for music.

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Frank Sinatra – Point of No Return

More Frank Sinatra

More Point of No Return

  • This vintage stereo pressing of Sinatra’s 1962 release boasts outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • Both sides are big and full, with a nice extended top end and wonderfully present vocals
  • About as quiet as they come — Mint Minus Minus on both sides (with two issues, noted below)
  • “… someone persuaded the singer to make the album a special occasion by reuniting with Axel Stordahl, the arranger/conductor who helped Sinatra rise to stardom in the ’40s. Sinatra would never sing these standards with such detailed, ornate orchestrations, and, as such, the album has a feeling of an elegy.”

Check out the AMG review for the story behind the album, which teams Frank up with his former collaborator Axel Stordahl, who arranged and conducted the album. The results are wonderful.

We love doing the work that it takes to find Sinatra albums from his prime recording days that actually sound the way we want them to — lively and fun. This means slogging through lots of bad pressings in order to find gems like this one. But hey, that’s what we do. We love it when a record with music this good can be found with sound like this.

Believe me, these Capitol pressings don’t usually sound like this. From the very first notes you hear Billy May’s colorful arrangments come to life in a way you are very unlikely to have heard before. (more…)

Brahms / Violin Concerto / Szeryng / Dorati – Our Shootout Winner from 2012

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

These later Mercury stampers are wonderful: gorgeous woodwinds, a large, full-bodied orchestra and of course a Tubey Magical violin to die for. Both sides earned SUPERB Super Hot Stamper grades (but for very different reasons). The exciting sound is matched by an equally exciting performance by Dorati. Dorati and the LSO pull out all the stops; they’re staking out a position as to just how powerfully and emotionally this work ought to be performed.

The opening is so dramatic — in the style of the First Brahms Symphony — that it’s hard to imagine there is any recording medium that can capture it without a fair amount of dynamic compression. This vintage pressing suffers from a relatively (in our experience) small amount of congestion and shrillness at the opening and elsewhere.

I find it hard to believe that any attempt to record the work would not encounter quite a lot of difficulty with the prodigious dynamic power of the piece. (more…)

The Everly Brothers – The Golden Hits of The Everly Brothers on the Green Label

More Sixties Pop

  • A superb early WB Green Label Stereo LP, with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER on both sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too 
  • Our early pressing here showed us a wonderfully Tubey Magical midrange for the Everlys that most audiophiles have never heard
  • So much good material here – Cathy’s Clown, Crying In The Rain, So Sad, That’s Old Fashioned, Lucille, etc.
  • “There are few sounds in American popular music more thrilling and sublimely satisfying than the harmonies of Don and Phil Everly…”

In stereo, on the early WB Green Label, with really quiet vinyl — this copy will be tough to beat!

It took us a long time to find enough records to do this shootout. How many extremely popular 50 year old records survived into the present era in such clean condition? We can’t be sure when the next shootout will be, but we can be pretty sure it won’t be any time soon.

UPDATE 2025

It’s 2025 and we’ve just done another shootout for this title and none of the Green Label pressings earned even minimal Hot Stamper grades of 1.5+ on both sides.

Stick with the Gold Label originals. We were wrong about the Green Labels.

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Oscar Peterson Trio w/ Milt Jackson – Very Tall

  • An excellent copy which earned Double Plus (A++) grades for sound on both sides – there’s plenty of rich, Tubey Magic from 1962 to be found on this vintage stereo pressing
  • If you made the mistake of buying the atrocious Anadisq pressing MoFi put out in the ’90s, here is your chance to hear what a wonderful recording Val Valentin cooked up with these cats in their prime
  • “This first matchup on records between pianist Oscar Peterson and vibraphonist Milt Jackson was so logical that it is surprising it did not occur five years earlier… this first effort is a particularly strong set.”

For us audiophiles both the sound and the music here are wonderful. If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good 1961-62 All Tube Analog sound can be, this killer copy will do the trick. (more…)

Gerry Mulligan – Jeru

This Black Print 360 original stereo pressing from 1962 put every other copy we played to shame – it’s White Hot on both sides. Tubier, more transparent, more dynamic, with that “jumpin’ out of the speakers’ quality that only The Real Thing (an old record) ever has. Hard to imagine any reissue, vintage or otherwise, can beat the sound of this amazing LP – we sure couldn’t find one.  (more…)

Count Basie – On My Way & Shoutin’ Again

  • Incredible shootout winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it from start to finish – relatively quiet vinyl too
  • Both sides here are clear, present, and energetic, with plenty of Tubey Magic, befitting this All Tube Recording on Verve from 1962
  • “A solid and worthwhile album that has been out of print for far too long, this will be a welcome addition to any Basie lover’s collection, and comes highly recommended to anyone even mildly interested in excellent large-ensemble mainstream jazz.” 

For us audiophiles both the sound and the music here are wonderful. If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good 1962 All Tube Analog sound can be, this killer copy will do the trick. (more…)

Beethoven / Quartet in C-Sharp Minor / Julliard String Quartet

More Violin Recordings

This RCA White Dog pressing contains what many consider to be Beethoven’s greatest string quartet, with SUPERB better than Super Hot Stamper sound on BOTH sides, each of which rated grades of A++ to A+++.

The reason we held back on the full Three Plus White Hot Stamper designation is simple: each side had slightly more of a fairly important quality that the other side lacked. When you play this record at home see if you don’t agree with us that this is an AMAZING sounding chamber music record, with minor, albeit recognizable and appreciable, differences in its strengths on each side. (more…)