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Great and well-recorded jazz on CD

I'm looking for recommendations for great CDs that are also great recordings. Let's keep it to jazz recorded between 1950 and 1980. Some CDs I've been listening to recently that fit the bill as posed in this post include Sarah Vaughan's first LP with Clifford Brown (Verve), or Bags Meets Wes (Riverside).

I listen to just about anything, including free jazz and fusion. Not looking for suggestions of awesome records per se, or for suggestions of audophile-quality recent jazz.

I listen to music for all sorts of reasons, and some of the albums I like are horribly recorded. I do appreciate a nice Sun Ra album for example that has bedroom-quality recording (hear the telephone ring just before the cut ends!) But that's not what I'm asking about here. On the other hand, I don't mind old recordings where you can really hear the hiss and the bacon frying---those can still be beautiful recordings with a sense of space, depth, etc.

Any ideas? Thanks.
price
mnmark
57 posts
 
Dexter Gordon "One Flight Up". The long opening cut "Tanya" is worth the price of admission.
price OP
31 posts
 
Great, thanks for these. Keep them coming.

I have some of them, and I'm looking into the others. It's helpful to list which release you're listening to. With Cool Struttin', for instance, is the Rudy Van Gelder remaster any good? I know some people like those and others hate them. Always a crapshoot. I got a Japanese import of Herbie Hancock's Sextant (mind blowing) in 1992, and then later picked up the remastered version (2000?) and was disappointed. Not that the earlier CD was any great shakes, but I hate to hear a 'remastered' CD and realize that it's basically been fed through compression software.
orpheus10
8,668 posts
 
"Sonny Clark, Sonny's Crib"; "Somethin Else", Cannonball Adderly, and the most beautiful is "Charley Parker with Strings".
herman
2,259 posts
 
Not sure why you would limit it to the 50-80's so I'm going to break your rule

Charles Lloyd "Canto"
Carla Bley "The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu"
Dave Holland Big Band "What Goes Around"
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong "Ella and Louis"
Ginger Baker "Coward Of The County"
Lynne Arriale "with words unspoken"
Viktor Krauss "far from enough"
Talking Horns "For St. Caecilien"

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quadophile's avatar
quadophile
418 posts
 
Ella Fitzgerald - Porgy and Bess (stunning sonics even on plain CD.

As for Cool Struttin I own the Japanese pressing on vinyl and it has stunning sonics. I believe this album has been released a few times and I think a JVC XRCD version is also available. If I were you I would pick the XRCD version, as I have never been disappointed with any XRCD issues. I would not be surprised if the plain aluminium CD is also very good sounding.

I remember this album fetched US$ 497 on Ebay for the original vinyl issue from 1952 and that was a record high price for any vinyl. This was good five years ago if I remember it correctly.

I hope this helps :)
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