manne-best

Shelly Manne & His Friends – Bells Are Ringing

More of the Music of Shelly Manne

An early Contemporary pressing with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on both sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
Side two was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be amazed at how big and rich and tubey the sound is
This copy makes it clear that this is a Demo Disc quality recording for Contemporary, and that’s saying a lot
It’s also our favorite jazz piano performance by Andre Previn on record
Only a handful of copies of this title have made it on the site in the last few years – finding them in audiophile condition is getting harder (and more expensive) than ever these days
“Previn’s piano is the lead voice and his virtuosity, good taste, melodic improvising, and solid sense of swing are chiefly responsible for the music’s success.”

I have a very long history with this album, going back decades. My friend Robert Pincus first turned me on to the CD, which, happily for all concerned, was mastered beautifully. We used it to test and tweak all the stereos in my friends’ systems.

Playing the original stereo record, which I assumed must never have been reissued due to its rarity (I have since learned otherwise), all I could hear on my ’90s all tube system was blurred mids, lack of transient attack, sloppy bass, lack of space and transparency, and other shortcomings too numerous to mention that I simply attributed at the time to vintage jazz vinyl.

Well, things have certainly changed. I have virtually none of the equipment I had back then, and I hear none of the problems with this copy that I heard back then on pressing I owned. This is clearly a different LP (I sold off the old one years ago) but I have to think that much of the change in the sound was a change in cleaning, equipment, tweaks and room treatments, all the stuff we prattle on about endlessly on the site.

In other words, if you have a highly-resolving modern system and a good room, you should be knocked out by the sound of this record. I sure was.

(more…)

The L.A. 4 – Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte (33 RPM)

More L.A. 4

More Audiophile Records

Boasting two outstanding Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, this East Wind 33 RPM Japanese import pressing will be very hard to beat – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
Side one was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be amazed at how big and rich the sound is
This is one of the better sounding versions with all 7 tracks we’ve played
Lee Herschberg recorded these sessions direct-to-disc – he’s the guy behind the most amazing piano trio recording I have ever heard, a little album called The Three
Both of these sides give you the richness, clarity, presence and resolution few copies can touch
This 33 RPM version features all seven of the original tracks – “C’est What” and “Corcovado” were omitted from the shorter 45 RPM pressing

(more…)

The Three / Self-Titled (45 RPM)

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

Amazing sound throughout this Japanese import pressing, with both sides earning KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them
The transients are uncannily lifelike – listen for the powerful kinetic energy produced when Shelly whacks the hell out of his cymbals
My favorite piano trio jazz album of all time — every one of the tracks is brilliantly arranged and performed
4 stars: “One of Joe Sample’s finest sessions as a leader” – with Shelly Manne and Ray Brown, we would say it’s clearly his finest session, as a leader or simply as the piano player in a killer trio
Some of the other records we’ve discovered with top jazz piano sound can be found here
More amazing sounding piano recordings, of every kind of music, can be found here

If you want to hear the full six tunes recorded by The Three at that famous Hollywood session (which ran all day and long into the night, 4 AM to be exact), our 33 RPM pressings are your best bet.

If you want absolutely amazing, mind-blowing, you-are-there sound, a Hot Stamper 45 is the only way to go.

The music is so good that I personally would not want to live without the complete album. The Three is, in fact, my favorite piano trio jazz album of all time. Very one of those six tracks is brilliantly arranged and performed (if you have the right takes of course; more about that later).

This album checks off a number of important boxes for us here at Better Records:

It’s a jazz Demo Disc, especially when played on big speakers at loud levels
It’s the best sounding Joe Sample album we know of
It’s a masterpiece as well as a member of our core jazz collection
It’s a personal favorite, and a record we’ve been obsessed with for close to 30 years

(more…)

Barney Kessel – Easy Like

More Barney Kessel

More Contemporary Label Jazz Recordings

Both sides of this vintage Contemporary pressing were giving us the rich, sweet and tubey MONO sound we were looking for, earning INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them
Roy DuNann (at the console on select tracks, with Val Valentin handling engineering duties on the others) always seems to get phenomenally good sound out of the sessions he recorded – amazingly realistic drums in a big room; Tubey Magical guitar tone; deep, note-like string bass, and on and on
For some reason, the guitar sound from this era of All Tube Chain Recording seems to have died out with the times – it can only be found on the best of these vintage pressings, and, as you may imagine, the better the guitar sounds, the more likely it is that the record will win our shootout
If you don’t have an electric guitar jazz record with this kind of off-the-charts Tubey Magical sound, maybe it’s time you got one
4 1/2 stars: “…features Kessel in boppish form with quintets in 1953 and 1956 featuring, either Bud Shank or Buddy Collette doubling on flute and alto. Kessel shows off the influence of Charlie Christian throughout the performances, with the highlights including ‘Easy Like,’ ‘Lullaby of Birdland,’ ‘North of the Border,’ and the accurately titled ‘Salute to Charlie Christian.'”

(more…)

Shelly Manne and His Men / At The Blackhawk Vol. 1 – Live West Coast Jazz in 1960 Is Hard to Beat

More Shelly Manne

More Contemporary Label Jazz

Boasting two solid Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, this vintage stereo pressing will be very hard to beat – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
Side one has the best condition grade we give out, Mint Minus – there may not be another record on the site with vinyl that quiet!
This is West Coast Jazz at its best, and if anyone can capture the realism of a live jazz club, it’s the engineers and producers at Contemporary
Each instrument here sounds right – the piano is weighty and percussive; the drums are punchy, and the brass has lovely leading edge transients
We were surprised that Volumes One and Four had much better sound than Two and Three
Until we can crack the code for those other two titles, don’t expect to see them on the site
If you’re a fan of live jazz, this Contemporary from 1960 belongs in your collection.
The complete list of titles from 1960 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

(more…)

Andre Previn & His Pals – West Side Story

Contemporary Jazz Records Available Now

Reviews and Commentaries for Contemporary Jazz

Previn’s stellar piano trio finally returns to the site with jazzy interpretations of the best songs from West Side Story, with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound throughout
You win shootouts with this kind of All Tube Analog sound – warm, natural, lively and clear, with solid support down low, a nicely extended top and a huge three-dimensional soundfield
We had pressings on the black label, on the green label, and on the yellow label, and the person who ends up with this fantastic copy will know for sure which label sounds best, because he will be the owner of the best sounding copy
Andre Previn and his friends take eight classic tunes from West Side Story – it would be hard to imagine having better material to work with in a jazz setting
4 stars: “The last of a series of showtune albums recorded by the trio finds the all-star group focusing on the music of West Side Story… As usual, the melodies are treated respectfully yet swingingly, and Andre Previn in particular excels in this setting. Recommended.”

One of Previn’s best piano trio records, this album was recorded in 1959 by Roy DuNann while at the height of his engineering powers.

The two Must Owns from his many sessions at Contemporary are this album and Bells Are Ringing. We are not aware of any of his jazz piano albums on other labels being much better than passable and most are not worth picking up at any price. Believe me, we’ve tried. The one exception I can think of is Four to Go on Columbia. It’s pretty good. Not in the same league as his Contemporary recordings by a long shot, but better than most of his output from the ’60s.

For both the albums mentioned above the Black Label originals in stereo are the best way to go, but finding them in clean audiophile playing condition is no walk in the park, which is the main reason it takes us about four years to do a shootout for either title.

The Piano Is Key

On the best copies of the album, the sound of the piano is solid, full-bodied, with both weight and warmth, just like the real thing. The copies of the album with a piano that sounded lean or hard always ended up having problems with the other instruments as well. (This should not be surprising; the piano was designed to be the single instrument most capable of reproducing the sound of an entire orchestra.)

(more…)