I MADE THIS FOR YOU, MYSELF, AND FRIENDS WHO ALWAYS ASK ME ….
FAVORITE CD’S (it’s hard not to be very personable about this)
DYNAMIC ‘Show Off Your System’ type of stuff: After a few listens, alone and with friends, they gather dust. So, buy a few DEMO Compilations, Praise yourself for assembling your system, i.e. get it out of your system (pun?).
IF you have an LP in good shape, and you like streaming quality, don’t look for a ‘better’ CD. Look for music you don’t have. Look for masters of Instruments, i.e. Piano; Saxophone; Trombone; Trumpet; Bass; Drums. Find you like Trombone, get more! Same thing: Singers you don’t have, find who you really like. I cruise YouTube: Tiny Desk Concerts; Boyce Avenue Duets, Voice Battles (all over the world), … Got Talent. You might not like the show’s, but there are many great singers to be found. I find new to me stuff, then buy that person’s music. I was only buying LP’s, I found a SACD player I really like, so I am buying used CD’s as well as LP’s, and rediscovering my many CD’s.
CD/SACD. IF the player you have/like plays both CD layer and SACD layer, that is an advantage. Used player: get one with low hours, the lasers get weak, and finding the SACD layer becomes problematic. Also, check if replacement laser assemblies are available on eBay to keep it going for many years. (there are not a whole lot of SACD’s)
SACD advantages: for me, what I often notice: SACD’s noise floor is always lower (a rare track un-naturally quiet).
after a while you stop listening for the difference, just enjoy that version.
Stereo/Mono LP’s: CD versions from Mono originals: MAY be quieter, but methods used: at what expense?
Stereo R2R was 1956. Stereo LP’s were 1958. For a few years, both were made/issued. Mono recording teams had excellent skills, and at first the major labels had two teams, existing Mono team, and new ‘whiz kids’ doing separate Stereo. They paid the studios and musicians for longer sessions. Our friend Rudy Gelder watched this, didn’t have the money for this, so he decided to record in Stereo and mix Mono from that, thus having the Stereo to issue later.
So, Mono CD’s and Early Stereo CD’s of Rudy’s have a better chance of sounding better than reprocessed stuff. CD’s of highly respected Mono LPs are likely to be better, no re-processing needed (avoid reprocessed to Stereo).
Mono LP’s (not CD’s I know): I learned here, playing with a true Mono cartridge is better, ranging from a bit, to a lot better. Mono ‘mode’ on your preamp is not as good. Sometimes, playing your preamp in L+R to L (or right), i.e. thru one speaker, not only sounds best, but lets you sit anywhere, and stop our habit of seeking imaging. An example: an early compilation, 20’s and 30’s, all to become greats, including a very early Louis Armstrong. Stereo: a history lesson, never would play it again. Mono cartridge: not imaging, but a distinction of individual instruments: trumpet, trombone, drums, .., much more enjoyable, and have played it for friends several times.
I sold a few ‘quiet’ mono lps. Told buyer: some noise/scuffs, very little noise with a mono cartridge, same scuffs more apparent with a stereo cartridge, it reacts to both vertical and horizontal movement. So, buyer will be happy with a Mono cartridge, don’t buy to play stereo.
This is why I always mention either two tonearms, switch Stereo/Mono in seconds in a listening session, or arms that allow different arm wands ready to go, i.e. Technics BP500 Base; VPI Unipivots, …
Enough of that, eh
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JAZZ, some I collect, have a lot of, many are ‘who is that ….playing, remember from the credits)
The recording skills I prefer: small bands, not orchestras, both with and without voice. Distinct instruments, and, if engineered properly greater imaging. I agree, as many musicians did, if you see Rudy Gelder’s name, go for it.
Oscar Peterson, nearly anything, check online for remarks. SACD 4 disc series ‘For My Friends’ is terrific. He had a stroke, early/later recordings, but it’s hard to tell the difference. I’ve seen him live at the Blue Note, he can do bass with his left hand, lean left and do EVERY thing else with his right hand, you wouldn’t know, big reach with his arms, big hands, wonderful to watch..
Louis Armstrong with Ella Fitzgerald, other separate Louis and Ella also
Miles Davis. Start with early Miles, Kind of Blue, … then after a while ‘Sketches of Spain’ a near religious experience. Then. Later stuff, he simply couldn’t play the same stuff over and over, so he experimented, if you keep that in mind, you ‘get it’ more readily.
Dave Brubeck, Take 5 for sure, other recordings, and then his band member’s individual recordings:
Paul Desmond,
Stan Getz, Stan-Getz-Gold--Happy-50th-Stan-A-Celebration-Live-At-Montmartre
Ben Webster, meets Oscar Peterson
A 1953 line-up of the Dizzy Gillespie/Stan Getz Sextet featured Gillespie, Getz, Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown and Max Roach.[1] He moved to Copenhagen, Denmark in 1958.[5] Here he performed with pianist Jan Johansson and bassist Oscar Pettiford, among others, at the Club Montmartre.[12]
Toots Theilemans, Chez Toots, Belgian Harmonica, unique playing style.
Bill Evans
In late 1959, Evans left the Miles Davis band and began his career as a leader, with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian, a group now regarded as a seminal modern jazz trio. In 1961, two albums were recorded at an engagement at New York’s Village Vanguard jazz club, Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby; a complete set of the Vanguard recordings on 3CDs was issued decades later.
SAX: COLEMAN HAWKINS, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderly, BENNY CARTER, Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis, PAUL DESMOND, Bud Freeman. Dexter Gordon, ILLINOIS JACQUET, RAHSAAN ROLAND KIRK, LEE KONITZ, Joe Lovano, BRANFORD MARSALLIS, Hank Mobley, James Moody, GERRY MULLIGAN, David ‘Fathead’ Newman, Art Pepper, IKE QUEBEC, Joshua Redman, SONNY ROLLINS, Zoot Sims, Sonny Stitt, STANLEY TURRENTINE, Grover Washington Jr., BEN WEBSTER.
PIANO: Mose Allison, Lil Harden Armstrong (Louis’s Wife), Patricia Barber, Count Basie (early), Eubie Blake, JOANNE BRACKEEN, DAVE BRUBECK, Henry Butler, Ray Charles, Cyrus Chestnut, Nat King Cole, Connie Cruthers, Duke Ellington, Bill evans, RED GARLAND, ERROLL GARNER, Vince Guaraldi, EARL HINES, JAMES P. JOHNSON, HANK JONES, NORAH JONES, Stan Kenton, Kenny Kirkland, DIANA KRALL (early), John Lewis, RAMSEY LEWIS, Marian McPartland, JAY MCSHANN, Thelonius Monk (take your time), Phineas Newborn Newman, OSCAR PETERSON, Leon Russell (some, not organ), Dianne Schurr, GEORGE SHEARING, BOBBY SHORT, NINA SIMONE, CLARENCE ‘PINETOP’ SMITH, Billy Taylor, Allen Toussaint, MCCOY TYNER, Mal Waldron
BASS: Moses Allen, Ellen Brekken, RAY BROWN, RON CARTER, Stanley Clarke, Ray Drummond, Pops Foster, EDDIE GOMEZ, CHARLIE HAYDEN, Percy Heath, Milt Hinton, SAM JONES, Scott LaFaro, Jay Leonhart, CECIL MCBEE, CHRISTAN McBRIDE, CHARLES MINGUS, RED MITCHELL, NEILS-HENNING ORSTED PEDERSON (DOUBLE BASS WITH SAM JONES), OSCAR PETTIFORD,
DRUMS: MAX ROACH, GINGER BAKER, Ray Barretto, LOUIS BELLSON, ART BLAKEY, Sid Catlett, Stanley Crouch, Al Harewood, Roy Haynes, Albert ‘Toothie’ Heath, ELVIN JONES, PHILLY JOE JONES, Willy Jones
TROMBONE: Bob Brookmeyer , Jimmy Cleveland, Jimmy Cleveland, Robin Eubanks, JJ Johnson, ,tromboneshorty, Fred Wesley, Urbie Green, Natalie Cressman, Curtis FowlkesBennie Green, Urbie Green , J. C. Higginbotham,
Trumpet: NAT ADDERLEY, Red Allen, LOUIS ARMSTRONG, Chet Baker, TERENCE BLANCHARD, Chris Botti, Clifford Brown, Donald Byrd, BENNY CARTER, Doc Cheatham, Don Cherry, Buck Clayton, Johnny Coles, MILES DAVIS, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Roy Eldridge, Art Farmer, Maynard Ferguson, DIZZY GILLESPIE, Roy Hargrove, Freddie Hubbard, Thad Jones, WYNTON MARSALIS, HUGH MASEKELA, Fats Navarro, King Oliver, Nicholas Payton, ARTURO SANDOVAl, Charlie Shavers, CLARK TERRY, Cootie Williams, Webster Young,
My ass hurts.