1964-best

Mahler – Symphony No. 1 / Solti

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • Boasting two huge, powerful and tubey Double Plus (A++) sides or BETTER, we guarantee you’ve never heard Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 sound remotely as good as it does on this vintage London pressing
  • The sonic are big and rich, lively and open, with an abundance of depth and huge climaxes that hold together
  • Everything that we listen for in a great classical recording can be heard on this copy – it’s immediate, dynamic, very low distortion, spacious, and alive
  • We had one original unboxed Decca, and what a disappointment it was after hearing so many great sounding London pressings
  • Mastered by Stan Goodall, it was not remotely competitive on either side with the work of Harry Fisher
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we think offer the best performances with the highest quality sound. This record is certainly deserving of a place on that list.

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Britten / Young Person’s Guide To The Orchestra

More of the Music of Benjamin Britten

  • Superb sound throughout this unboxed UK Decca stereo pressing, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades
  • It’s also exceptionally 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, and it should be noted that early Decca pressings rarely can be found in this condition
  • This is our favorite recording of the work – those of you looking for a Young Person’s Guide can stop looking, this is the one
  • We’ve learned from shootouts past (and were reminded again during our most recent) that the London pressing can also be quite good, but none of them can hold a candle to these early Deccas
  • For those who have never heard the work, check out The Young Person’s Guide on YouTube – it is a tour de force of orchestral excitement, especially the percussion section

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Mozart – Sinfonia Concertante / Duo in G Major / Oistrakh

More of the Music of Mozart

  • These sublime works for violin and viola debut on the site with INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades throughout this vintage London pressing
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this amazing copy in our notes: “sweet and transparent and dynamic violin”…”lively and lush and tubey”…”very roomy and 3D”…”great texture”
  • These sides are doing everything right – they’re rich, clear, undistorted, open, spacious, and have depth and transparency to rival the best recordings you may have heard
  • The texture and harmonic overtones of the strings are perfection – as we listened we became completely immersed in the music on the record, transfixed by the remarkable virtuosity father and son bring to the piecesFor those of you who keep track of such things, we would like to point out that no Decca pressing did better than “good” in our shootout
  • The early London pressings are the only ones we played with the sonic goods befitting such an extraordinary recording, a reality that many audiophiles would do well to wrap their heads around

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Sonny Stitt – Stitt Plays Bird

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Saxophone

 

  • With two excellent Double Plus (A++) sides, this original Blue and Green Atlantic Stereo pressing (one of the few copies to hit the site in recent years) will be very hard to beat
  • No reissue in our shootout could touch it, although it’s tough to find these early pressings with surfaces as quiet as we would like
  • Tom Dowd engineered, which is why the best copies of the album sound so damn good – Dowd recorded many of the best Coltrane albums in the early 60s, so if you like the sound of those, and who doesn’t?, you will no doubt find much to like here
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Sonny Stitt forged his own approach to playing bebop out of the sound and style of Charlie Parker, so this tribute album was a very logical project… Stitt, who mastered bebop and could play hot licks in his sleep, is in top form… making this an essential item for straight-ahead jazz fans…”

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Oliver Nelson – More Blues and the Abstract Truth

More Oliver Nelson

  • With two solid Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this original Impulse pressing (only the second copy to hit the site in years)
  • The sound is everything that’s good about Rudy Van Gelder‘s recordings – it’s present, spacious, full-bodied, Tubey Magical, dynamic and, most importantly, alive in that way that modern pressings never are
  • It typically takes us at least many years to get a shootout for this album going (our last one was in 2019), and that’s with searching the web everyday, hoping that a clean copy with the right stampers will pop up for sale
  • 4 stars: “… there are some strong moments from such all-stars as trumpeter Thad Jones, altoist Phil Woods, baritonist Pepper Adams, pianist Roger Kellaway and guest tenor Ben Webster (who is on two songs).”

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The Beach Boys – The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album

More of The Beach Boys

  • With two STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides or close to them, this early Capitol pressing could not be beat
  • This copy gets the midrange right, and since that is where The Beach Boys’ voices are, that puts it ahead of everything else we heard
  • What’s shocking to those of us who have played The Beach Boys records by the bucketful is how rich and open the best pressings of this album are
  • You will have an awfully hard time finding another Beach Boys album that sounds as good as this one, and you may just find that it simply can’t be done
  • 4 stars: “This mix of favorites and originals makes this a balanced holiday album that should please both Beach Boys admirers and those unfamiliar with the group
  • This is our pick for The Beach Boys’ best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best recording by an artist or group can be found here on the blog.

Having done this for so long, we understand and appreciate that rich, full, solid, Tubey Magical sound is key to the presentation of this primarily vocal music. We rate these qualities higher than others we might be listening for (e.g., bass definition, soundstage, depth, etc.). The music is not so much about the details in the recording, but rather in trying to recreate solid, palpable, and real Beach Boys singing live in your listening room. The best copies have an uncanny way of doing just that.

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Charles Mingus – Mingus Plays Piano

More Charles Mingus

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

  • With two solid Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, this vintage Impulse reissue pressing is doing just about everything right
  • Once again Rudy Van Gelder delivers the sound that audiophiles and jazz fans alike thrill to
  • These sides are lively, dynamic and full-bodied, and there’s real weight to the piano, a key quality we look for on all the piano recordings we play
  • 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
  • 4 stars: “This album is unique in Mingus’ enormous catalog. As the title indicates, the famous bassist takes to the ivories solo to give life to his dazzling improvisational art. At first it seems odd to hear Mingus without one of his trademark interactive and exploratory ensembles. But the sensibility that he brings to this collection of piano pieces bears all the signs of the composer’s genius.”

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Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto / Getz-Gilberto

More Bossa Nova

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Saxophone

  • A vintage Stereo Verve pressing of this Brazilian-flavored cool jazz classic with a KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to an excellent Double Plus (A++) side one
  • An impossibly difficult album to find in audiophile playing condition – we sunk a lot of time and dough into finding this copy, and it ain’t all that quiet, but it’s about as quiet as we can find them on vintage vinyl
  • If you want to hear this music right, the only way we know to do that is to get hold of as many copies as you can, clean them and play them and hope for the best, our business model in a nutshell
  • These sides have wonderful transparency and lovely presence – Astrud’s vocals sound breathy and Getz’s sax is full bodied, with fast transients
  • You may be surprised to learn that the right reissues of this album consistently win the shootouts, something we’ve know for many years
  • Not that it does us much good, as they are so hard to find that our last shootout was, I kid you not, 2012
  • 5 stars: “This music has nearly universal appeal; it’s one of those rare jazz records about which the purist elite and the buying public are in total agreement. Beyond essential.”
  • You may be surprised to learn that the right reissues of this album consistently win the shootouts, something we’ve know for many years
  • Not that it does us much good, as they are so hard to find that our last shootout was, I kid you not, 2012
  • If I were to compile a list of The Best Non-Classical Albums from 1964, this album would obviously have to be on it

We have been trying to find great sound (on reasonable surfaces) for this album for years — I kid you not — which is why this is one of only a very small handful of Hot Stamper versions to hit the site in, oh, about ten years.

We have fired up this shootout multiple times since 2012 and been left empty-handed each and every time until the last go-around. We have sunk an insane amount of dough into trying to get a few killer copies because we love the music so much, but we just haven’t had much to show for it. If you love this Brazilian-flavored cool jazz as much as we do, you might want to snap this one up because who knows when or if we’ll find another one.

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Beethoven / Haydn / The Heifetz-Piatigorsky Concerts

Hot Stamper Pressings Featuring the Violin

Reviews and Commentaries for Recordings Featuring Jascha Heifetz

This is a lovely sounding pressing of cello and violin, with smooth, natural, tonally-correct sound and correctly-sized instruments, something you don’t hear often on recordings with Heifetz. They tend to have huge violins and small orchestras.

In these chamber works perhaps the engineers had an easier time of getting it right.

The sound is transparent, spacious and three-dimensional in the best Living Stereo tradition.

If you love the sound of violin and cello, played by virtuosi of the highest order, this is the record for you.

Side One

Beethoven: Piano Trio, Op. 1, No. 1

Side Two

Haydn: Divertimento for Cello and Orchestra 
Rozsa: Tema con Variazioni

This is an older classical/orchestral review

Most of the older reviews you see are for records that did not go through the shootout process, the revolutionary approach to finding better sounding pressings we started developing in the early 2000s and have since turned into a veritable science.

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Stan Getz / Getz Au Go Go – A Bossa Nova Classic

More Stan Getz

More Bossa Nova

  • Musically and sonically, this is a must own jazz album for audiophiles, perfect for those new to jazz as well as serious jazz aficionados
  • This was a magical night (or two) with Stan feeling the spirit and staying telepathically in the groove with his compadres all evening long
  • An incredibly tough album to find with the right sound and decent surfaces, which is the main reason it’s been about four years since we last did this shootout
  • The top copy of Getz-Gilberto last time around sold for $1499 — if I had to choose between them, I would be tempted to take Getz Au Go Go, especially with sound like this
  • 4 stars: “Highly recommended for all dimensions of jazz enthusiasts.” [We would, of course, give it the full 5 Stars]

This Stan Getz record has the kind of live jazz club sound that audiophiles like us (you and me) dream of.

More importantly, this ain’t no jazz at some stupid pawnshop — this is the real thing. Stan Getz, Gary Burton, Kenny Burrell and the lovely Astrud Gilberto, the living embodiment of cool jazz, are coming to a listening room near you.

Fans of cool jazz — in point of fact, some of the coolest jazz ever recorded — take note.

Cool Jazz Is Right

I’ve gotten more enjoyment out of this Getz album than any other, including those that are much more famous such as Getz/Gilberto (which doesn’t sound as good by the way). This one is (mostly) live in a nightclub and it immediately puts you in the right mood to hear this kind of jazz.

Listening to side one, I’m struck with the idea that this is the coolest jazz record of cool jazz ever recorded. Getz’s take on Summertime is a perfect example of his “feel” during these sessions. His playing is pure emotion; every note seems to come directly from his heart.

What really sets these performances apart is the relaxed quality of the playing. Getz seems to be almost nonchalant, but it’s not a bored or disinterested sound he’s making. It’s more of a man completely comfortable in this live setting, surrounded by like-minded musicians, all communicating the same vibe. Perhaps they all got hold of some really good grass that day. That’s the feeling one gets from their playing. As one is listening, there’s a certain euphoria that seems to be part of the music. This is definitely one of those albums to get lost in. (more…)