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Jazz for aficionados

Jazz for aficionados

I'm going to review records in my collection, and you'll be able to decide if they're worthy of your collection. These records are what I consider "must haves" for any jazz aficionado, and would be found in their collections. I wont review any record that's not on CD, nor will I review any record if the CD is markedly inferior. Fortunately, I only found 1 case where the CD was markedly inferior to the record.

Our first album is "Moanin" by Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers. We have Lee Morgan , trumpet; Benney Golson, tenor sax; Bobby Timmons, piano; Jymie merrit, bass; Art Blakey, drums.

The title tune "Moanin" is by Bobby Timmons, it conveys the emotion of the title like no other tune I've ever heard, even better than any words could ever convey. This music pictures a person whose down to his last nickel, and all he can do is "moan".

"Along Came Betty" is a tune by Benny Golson, it reminds me of a Betty I once knew. She was gorgeous with a jazzy personality, and she moved smooth and easy, just like this tune. Somebody find me a time machine! Maybe you knew a Betty.

While the rest of the music is just fine, those are my favorite tunes. Why don't you share your, "must have" jazz albums with us.

Enjoy the music.
orpheus10
pjw81563
1,834 posts
 
Here is a great example of East Coast meets West Coast:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEDLZmM_C_Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ2qAbtZKo0

Every player on that album is considered a West Coast Jazz Disciple except Stan Getz who, although he lived in Cali for a time was a New Yorker through and through and he injects some bebop into a lot of his solo's on the session.

orpheus10 OP
8,668 posts
 

Pjw, if you go back and forth between what you posted on page 386 (poinciana) and what I posted on page 387 "I could have danced all night"; you can hear the difference, one is clearer with more dynamic range than the other.


      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLbXPwPKfK4


Notice how clear the trumpet is on that live cut above, good CD shouldn't be any difference.
schubert
7,386 posts
 
81563 , What you say is right about vinyl .
Only problem is one’s brain didn’t study engineering and has a mind of its own .
I lived next door to a Retired Navy Admiral who was in charge of Navy
recruiting .I asked him why the great engineering schools were the prime place they scouted for pilots .

Answer( he had a few) was. Engineers are intelligent and are easily trained. .They could see them selves as pilots and lacked the imagination to see their self crashing into the back of a carrier on night ops .
English majors are other way around .
pjw81563
1,834 posts
 
orpheus10,

With all due respect I did not upload those songs onto You Tube.

YouTube uploads vary and I believe the content cannot be more then 320 kbps which is compressed. You cannot use You Tube to compare the sonics of a song since the source (an MP3 "lossy file") can vary from 128 kbps (ok) to 190 kbps (ok) to 320 kbps. I would say that most of the uploads on You Tube are in the lower kilobits per second - kbps.

First in the chain of listening is the source. In this case a compact disc. If the engineer overly compresses the dynamic range will suffer.

Secondly you must rip you compact disc onto a pc to upload it onto You Tube. If you rip your CD’s in MP3 codec as most people do the sound quality suffers.

I have ripped to my laptop my whole CD collection in FLAC codec in which has a very high bit rate so the music is identical to the source with no problems in the dynamic range. I cannot upload any songs from my library to You Tube unless I convert them down to an MP3 file which is inferior by far compared to FLAC - Free Lossless Audio Codec.

I can plug my laptop into my audio video receiver via HDMI and my system sounds great. For even better listening I plug my laptop into a headphone amp with a DAC - Digital to Analog Convertor and then out to my Sennheiser 650’s. I recently listened to one song off each disc of the Shelly Manne Blackhawk boxset through my headphone rig which is my "critical listening" choice and the dynamic range was fine. The quiets were quiet and the louds loud (this is what becomes "flat" when overly compressed).

"Since FLAC is a lossless format, it is suitable as an archive format for owners of CDs and other media who wish to preserve their audio collections. If the original media are lost, damaged, or worn out, a FLAC copy of the audio tracks ensures that an exact duplicate of the original data can be recovered at any time. An exact restoration from a lossy copy (e.g., MP3) of the same data is impossible".

From here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC

My offer still stands. Do as you wish but please do not use You Tube as a audio comparison.




pjw81563
1,834 posts
 
BTW Orpheus did you like the 2 songs from Stan Getz’ album titled "West Coast Jazz"


Big Stan Getz fan here. Could make an argument he is one of the top 10 tenors of all time. The following was downloaded from a turntable with a USB connect into a laptop then uploaded to You Tube and you can hear its sonics are better then 90% of the stuff on You Tube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P1EKY8p5pk

I am listening to "Sweet Rain" through my headphone gear as I write this and it sounds much better then the upload on You Tube above and that upload, as I said, is really good.

"Sweet Rain" is from the Stan Getz album of the same title "Sweet Rain" which features a very young Chick Corea on piano. Chick also composed a couple of songs on the session.




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