Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Wynton Kelly Available Now
Sometimes the 70s reissues of vintage jazz recordings that were made in the fifties, sometimes released with different covers similar to the one you see pictured, have excellent sound.
We know that for a fact because we’ve played some very good ones.
In the case of Kelly Blue, we felt we were obligated to play a few to make sure we were hearing as wide a range of different pressings as possible. We wanted to be sure we were hearing the best sounding pressings regardless of what era they were pressed in. (We’re very open minded that way.)
Here are our notes for the Black Label Riverside Stereo pressing with “1971” stampers:
- Thin,
- Dry,
- Honky,
- Veiled.
- Severe stereo spread. (Hard left and right, unmusical this way, players are disconnected.)
- Grade: 1+ on both sides
The other copy we had was even worse:
- NFG on side one, side two never played.
The Riverside originals we’ve played in the past, like a lot of other Riverside originals from the 50s, such as those by Thelonious Monk, were uniformly terrible.
And trying to find one in audiophile playing condition is as easy as it sounds.
We’ve auditioned countless pressings like this one in the 38 years we’ve been in business — buying, cleaning and playing them by the thousands. This is how we find the best sounding vinyl pressings ever made.
Not the ones that should sound the best. The ones that actually do sound the best.
If you’re an audiophile looking for top quality sound on vintage vinyl, we’d be happy to send you the Hot Stamper pressing guaranteed to beat anything and everything you’ve heard, especially if you have any pressing marketed as suitable for an audiophile. Those, with very few exceptions, are rarely better than mediocre, and some of them are just awful, with many of the newest releases being the most awful of them all!
