Listening to Kenny Burrell Midnight Blue

Musicpod, I had the same problem with an early release of this LP. Lots of surface noise! I replaced it with a later copy and no problems. Some of these reissues are not as pristine as they could be in regards to quality control, luckily they seem to be willing to easily address the problem.My advice would be to return it and get another copy.

I have the music matters 33 1/3 release. The sound is fantastic and is very quiet. My only gripe is some songs are panned left and right with no middle imaging. Otherwise excellent sonics and music.

Snopro and Daveyf:

I wondered the same thing myself on the stage right / stage left item. And Daveyf, if you're right that this is reflective of the artist positioning at the time of recording, as I listened to it I was wondering why they wouldn't have placed the featured artist in center stage. But, if that's how they decided to do it, then so be it.

Musicpod, I don't know why many artists were featured that way, but it is certainly not uncommon. I have several other older Blue Notes and jazz LP's that are recordings of artists on stage in the same positioning.