live-jazz

Oscar Peterson / The Trio – Live From Chicago

Reviews and Commentaries for the Recordings of Oscar Peterson

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  • Tonally correct from top to bottom and as transparent as any vintage recording you’ve heard, the combination of clarity and Tubey Magic here is hard to beat
  • The Trio, including Ray Brown and Ed Thigpen, are in fine form on these live recordings from the London House in Chicago; if you want to hear one of the great jazz trios at the height of their powers, this is the ticket!
  • “…[Peterson] was generally in peak form during this era. He sticks to standards on this live [album] (a good example of the Trio’s playing), stretching out ‘Sometimes I’m Happy’ creatively for over 11 minutes and uplifting such songs as ‘In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning,’ ‘Chicago’ and ‘The Night We Called It a Day.'”
  • If you’re a fan of Oscar’s, this Top Title from 1961 belongs in your collection.
  • The complete list of titles from 1961 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

Peterson really puts on a great show. He’s made an awful lot of records during his career and most of them aren’t especially noteworthy. This album is clearly an exception to that rule. (If You Could See Me Now is another one.)

This pressing was a HUGE step up from the other copies we played in our recent shootout. This killer copy has the immediacy that puts you front and center at The London House for a great jazz show. Ray Brown is his usual incredible self on bass.

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Sonny Rollins – Our Man In Jazz

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More Living Stereo Recordings

  • An original Black Label Living Stereo copy, with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from the first note
  • A superb 1963 Living Stereo recording with tons of Tubey Magic, one of Sonny’s best
  • We’ve played quite a number of Our Man in “X” RCA titles, and I don’t think we have ever heard a bad one
  • It’s the exceptionally rare copy that sounds as good as this one does – let’s find it a good home!
  • Recorded live in 1962 at the Village Gate in Greenwich Village, NY and featuring Bob Cranshaw, Don Cherry, and Billy Higgins

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Coleman Hawkins – Hawkins! Alive! (Reviewed in 2005)

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More Reviews and Commentaries for Live Jazz Club Recordings

This review was written in 2005. We are not big fans of mono, but we know a good sounding record when we play one.

This Verve T Label Mono pressing DESTROYS the Classic Records reissue. It’s no contest.

Side one is lively, present, and dynamic, but a bit aggressive — the horn can really bite when Hawk pushes it. Side two, however, sounds LOVELY. It’s much smoother and very natural.

This isn’t an easy album to find in such gorgeous condition, and I bet you’d have a really tough time finding one that sounds as good as this one does on side two.

This is an Older Jazz 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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The Oscar Peterson Trio – Put On A Happy Face

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Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Oscar Peterson

  • INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on both sides of this original Verve stereo pressing
  • The transparency of a killer analog pressing such as this has the power to transport you to the front row of a small ’60s jazz club – what a thrill!
  • These live sessions produced four LPs worth of material, with The Trio and The Sound of the Trio being the most famous of the four
  • “The Oscar Peterson Trio’s 1961 live sessions at Chicago’s London House are considered among their finest recordings… Essential Jazz Classics.”
  • If you’re a fan of Live Jazz Piano Trio recordings, this is a Verve from 1966 that belongs in your collection.
  • The complete list of titles from 1966 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

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Bill Evans – At Shelly’s Manne-Hole

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More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

  • This superb live album makes its Hot Stamper debut here with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it throughout – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Both sides are Tubey Magical yet clear, with plenty of performance energy and a lovely musical quality that’s noticeably missing from many of the copies we’ve played over the years (and no doubt the Heavy Vinyl pressing)
  • 4 stars: “. . . a 1964 release that finds the entire band in classic form. . . Jazz is rarely as sensitive or as melodic as this. Another classic from Bill Evans and company.”

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Milt Jackson Quintet – That’s The Way It Is

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Yet Another Record We’ve Discovered with (Potentially) Excellent Sound

  • You’ll find outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound and fairly quiet vinyl on both sides of this is a killer live jazz album from Shelly’s Manne-Hole
  • Big, rich and real, with the kind of relaxed Tubey Magical sound that not many live albums achieve
  • Wally Heider engineered and he knocked it out of the park – You Are There, and even better, it’s 1969
  • “This is not experimental jazz. It’s beyond that, or as they say in New York, outside that. This is solid, rooted, sweet-smelling earth of an enduring style, as played by masters.”

We dropped the needle on a copy of this record last year and could hardly believe how good it sounded. So rich, so tubey, so big and clear – this is one of the best Impulse records we have played in a very long time.

It’s clearly another “sleeper” discovered by your friends here at Better Records. Who else is finding vintage albums with this kind of sound and music? (more…)

Bill Evans – The Paris Concert, Edition Two

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  • A superb original pressing with excellent Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish and fairly quiet vinyl
  • These sides are doing most everything right – as befits a live concert, there’s an overall unprocessed quality to the sound and superb space around all three players
  • 4 1/2 stars: “[T]his could be considered Bill Evans’ final recording and serves as evidence that, rather than declining, he was showing a renewed vitality and enthusiasm in his last year.”

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Keith Jarrett / Solo-Concerts (3 LP Box Set) – Reviewed in 2010

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

This is a very nice looking ECM Promo 3 LP set with Virtually No Sign of Play (VNSOP). The set comes with a 13-page booklet containing extensive liner notes and photographs.

We prefer the sound of these domestic pressings to the imports we’ve played.    (more…)

Art Blakey – Meet You At The Jazz Corner of the World – Volume 1

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More Albums on Blue Note

  • The first in this superb 2-volume live set makes its Hot Stamper debut here with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • Tubier, more present, more alive, with more of that “jumpin’ out of the speakers” quality that only The Real Thing (an old record) ever has
  • Credit goes to RVG once again for the huge space that the superbly well recorded combo occupies
  • “Here all ears are tuned to the proverbial “jazz corner of the world,” better known as Birdland, where the quintet serves up a healthy sampling of its concurrent catalog… a welcome addition to the library of most any jazz lover.”

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Coleman Hawkins – Hawkins! Alive! At the Village Gate

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  • This superb live album makes its Hot Stamper debut with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on side two mated with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound on side one
  • Tubier, more present, more alive, with more of that “jumpin’ out of the speakers” quality that only The Real Thing (an old record) ever has
  • 4 stars: “The great Hawkins (who debuted on records 40 years earlier) gets to stretch out on this live outing by his 1962 quartet (which also features pianist Tommy Flanagan).”

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