1968

Gary Burton Quartet – In Concert

  • This sensational jazz album boasts outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from first note to last
  • Captured live at Carnegie Hall, this recording eloquently communicates the space of the concert hall with stereo precision
  • Big, rich, and Tubey Magical, this pressing lets us hear Burton’s quartet with the energy and clarity these classic jazz performances deserve
  • 4 stars: ” The material (by Mike Gibbs, Burton, Coryell and Bob Dylan) is quite strong, and there are some hints of the avant-garde. “

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Stan Getz – What The World Needs Now

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More Bossa Nova

  • This 1968 jazz classic boasts outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • Stan interprets these songs beautifully – for those who don’t mind a bit of easy listening from time to time, this is music worth playing
  • Another top jazz recording from Rudy Van Gelder – big, bold and lively, just the right sound for this music
  • “Forget those snobs who dismiss this album, Getz does a wonderful job interpreting some of Bacharach’s hits. He ‘jazzes’ up ‘A House is not a Home’ with a nice upbeat tempo and ‘Alfie’ is lush with his wonderful tenor sax.”

As expected, if you clean and play enough copies of a standard domestic major label album like this Verve, sooner or later you will stumble upon a good one. The best copies are filled with studio ambience, with every instrument occupying its own space in the mix and surrounded by air. On those pressings, there is not a trace of grain, just the silky sweet highs we’ve come to expect from analog done right.

This is, of course, the premise behind Hot Stampers themselves. They are out there to be stumbled upon. You can’t tell what pressing, from what era, from what country is going to be The One (Keanu, are you listening?) until you actually sit down, clean and play a big pile of them.

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Dave Brubeck – Adventures In Time

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More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

This is a Minty looking Columbia Red Label Double LP with EXCELLENT sound and quiet vinyl. The tracks compiled here are live and studio versions of Brubeck and his quartet playing material composed in some non-traditional time signatures, such as the hit track Take Five (in 5/4).

We aren’t completely sure which tracks here are live versions and which are studio versions, but everything we played sounded great. There’s a version of Blue Rondo a la Turk that clocks in at over 12 minutes!

If you haven’t explored much of the music of Brubeck past Time Out, this would be an excellent addition to your collection.

“The huge success of Paul Desmond’s “Take Five” (1960) was followed by many songs played in “odd” time signatures such as 7/4 and 9/8; the high-quality soloing of the musicians kept these experiments from sounding like gimmicks.”

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Savoy Brown – Getting To The Point – Awesome Bell Sound Pressing

I am not usually a fan of Bell Sound cuttings but this one seems hard to fault. I would be surprised if the British import pressings are any better; this sounds like the real master tape to me. The original Parrot vinyl is going to be hard to find any quieter. 

Some sides of some copies were leaner and drier than we would have liked and we marked them down accordingly. The big, rich, Tubey Magical sound of Classic British Rock is critical to the success of this music, and our Hot Stamper pressings are guaranteed to deliver plenty of that sound.

Side One

Jumpin’ out of the speakers, side one of this copy was nearly White Hot. Lively clear and present — it works for this side!

Side Two

This side is full, rich and tubey, a bit too much in some ways, but this is still the right sound for this music. It’s dynamic and if you turn it up it will really come to life! (That’s of course what we did.) (more…)

Petula Clark / Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 – Surprisingly Good Sound on the Early WB Label

More Compilation Albums with the Potential for Very Good Sound

SURPRISINGLY GOOD SOUND! I didn’t expect this music to sound so smooth and sweet. The only versions I’ve ever heard were the 45 mixes on the radio.

Of course, the sound of those is quite suspect, but seeing as how these are mid-’60s pop recordings, one might assume that they’re the kind of midrangy artificial productions that were common in those days.

But one would be wrong — this material is actually quite well recorded. Stick to the early Green Label pressings. The reissues are godawful in exactly the way most reissues of albums from this era are.

This is an Older 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 developed in the early 2000s and have since turned into a fine art.

We found the records you see in these older listings by cleaning and playing a pressing or two of the album, which we then described and priced based on how good the sound and surfaces were. (For out Hot Stamper listings, the Sonic Grades and Vinyl Playgrades are listed separately.)

We were often wrong back in those days, something we have no reason to hide. Audio equipment and record cleaning technologies have come a long way since those darker days, a subject we discuss here.

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Gary McFarland – Does The Sun Really Shine On The Moon?

Look at the track listing — these are pop tunes by The Beatles and The Beach Boys set to jazzy arrangements, perfect for your bachelor pad. Enjoy this one for what it is — enchanting pop tunes without the vocals, superbly well recorded and well played by jazz guys who know how to have fun with these kinds of songs. 

DCC did this title on CD and if you want one just drop us a note and we will include one with your order gratis.

This copy is dramatically more open and spacious than any of the other copies we’ve heard. The organ and bass are especially well recorded.

Drop the needle on God Only Knows to get a taste of how good side one sounds. (more…)

Sly and the Family Stone – Dance to the Music

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  • Dance to the Music makes its debut on the site, with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound and reasonably quiet vinyl
  • This early Epic Yellow label pressing blew them all out of the water – the hit “Dance to the Music” sounds better here than we have ever heard it – who knew?
  • “This is exuberant music, bursting with joy and invention. Consider this — prior to this record no one, not even the Family Stone, treated soul as a psychedelic sun splash, filled with bright melodies, kaleidoscopic arrangements, inextricably intertwined interplay, and deft, fast rhythms.”

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Gabor Szabo – Dreams

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Guitar

Reviews and Commentaries for Gabor Szabo

This original Black Label Skye LP has an EXCELLENT SIDE TWO backed with a pretty good side one.

Szabo has made a number of mediocre albums, some of which are poorly recorded, but thankfully this is not one of them. In fact, this is some of the best sound and music he produced for Skye. Side two is open and spacious with a HUGE three-dimensional soundfield that really allows you to hear into the music.

Side one is pretty darn good as well. While not quite as three-dimensional as side two it still retains some of that quality. Listen to all the crazy studio recording effects on the first track. (more…)

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band – In My Own Dream

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More Electric Blues

  • An outstanding copy of the band’s 1968 release with solid Double Plus (A++) sonic grades on both sides
  • Like most of the group’s albums on these early pressings, the sound is full-bodied and smooth, with prodigious amounts of bottom end
  • Notable as the last Butterfield record with original members Mark Naftalin and Elvin Bishop who both moved on to solo ventures after its release
  • “More to the point, this album represented a new version of the band being born… there was a widely shared spotlight for the players, and more of a jazz influence on this record than had ever been heard before from the group…The playing is impressive…”

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Booker Ervin – The In Between

More Saxophone Jazz

More Recordings by Rudy Van Gelder

  • Booker Ervin makes his long-awaited site debut with this 1968 release, boasting a Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two and an outstanding Double Plus (A++) side one – exceptionally quiet vinyl too 
  • The sound here is wonderful – big, lively, textured, open and clear with Tubey Magical richness that brings out the best in this jazzy hard bop sound
  • Credit must go to Rudy Van Gelder once again for the huge space this superbly well-recorded quintet occupies
  • 4 stars: “Every song on The In Between is an Ervin original designed to challenge the musicians… it’s edgy, volatile hard bop that comes from the mind as much as the soul… The result is a satisfying, cerebral set of adventurous hard bop that finds Booker Ervin at a creative peak.

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