High quality CD recordings

I meant "Raitt"

Anything on Jazz label Pablo... Count Basie..."Basie Jam."For blues...muddy waters..."Folk singer"(mofi)...Lighnin Hopkins..."going away"(xrcd)...For vocals... Eva cassidy..."live at blues alley"....

Dave Gruisin - "Homage to Duke". Exceptional recording quality, very dynamic with sparkling highs! Features Clark Terry's (RIP) famous "mumbles" on a couple of tracks. Truly a reference quality CD, currently available new via Amazon for only ~$8 delivered!

Hi Broadstone. Record guidebooks and reviews can be an excellent resource for finding quality recordings. Have you ever checked out the PENQUIN RECORD GUIDE or GRAMMAPHONE ? In my opinion they are a must!! I've found the specialty labels are in no way the only source for quality; and thank goodness - their catalogs are "so" limited. My experience is you 'can' find excellent recordings on many labels, but the specialist labels like Reference Recordings and Chesky, to name only 2,are consistent in their quality.
There are hundreds - no 'thousands' of excellent Deutsche Grammophon, RCA, Telarc,etc classical recordings; and "countless" good jazz recordings on a great variety of labels. It's a matter of finding them. For example I've got STINGRAY MUSIC on my TV via cable and just heard, while typing this, Anthony Spiri on CPO RECORDS playing a Piano sonata by Edward Marksen from the album Klavier Works? Even though it's low res through the TV I found the sound to be very nice, natural and nuanced. Of course the CD or DVD through my ref Spectral system will provide a far clearer and much more emotional view of this album; but just that listening has encouraged me to request my library bring it in for me -and they probably will. I can discuss finding good recordings more if you like. I also like recordings from South America and European countries. I've had some excellent recordings from Russian labels totally unknown to me and not reviewed outside Russia! It's a big world and I've found that in the Classical and Jazz music fields a love of providing good sounding music is pervasive. Great for us! Just reread your post. Sorry I strayed off your request. Will send some labels later.

Thanks, Ptss. I'm looking forward to your recommendations. I've been spending hours auditioning some of the CDs suggested in this thread and have been pretty consistently happy with them. Right now I'm listening to sound that is at least equal to the best I've ever heard from my system which inspired me to look at the case to determine who did the recording. When I looked up, though, I saw that the blue HDCD on my player was lit. This raises another question; could the excellence I'm hearing in this instance be at least partly a result of the format or is it simply the quality of the recording independent of the format?

I know there are arguments, even here on Audiogon, which differ on the subject but I would like to hear from you on this thread who obviously pay significant attention to the importance of recording quality.