Analogue Productions' LP Reissue of Duke Ellington's Blues In Orbit

Man, I have a lot of music to review right now. The pile of CDs next to my laptop looks like three-hour old game of Jenga. My mystery source for some of the experimental jazz I've been reviewing has finally revealed itself--they had to ask for my new address because stuff kept shipping back to them. Once I confirmed my New York post office box, the new CDs starting coming in fast and furious-like, three and four at a time.

I also sent Morten Lindberg of 2L Recordings a note with my new address. I figured the same thing happened, that his latest recordings were being shipped from Norway, passing through customs, and then getting sent all the way back unclaimed. But Morten actually informed that he hadn't sent anything in a while because they were busy working on several new releases. Last week, all of them arrived at once!

Plus I keep discovering great new artists on Tidal, which in turn compels me to walk over to The Sound Garden record store here in Syracuse to see if they have it on vinyl. They usually do. My review of Michael Kiwanuka's Love & Hate should be appearing in Positive Feedback Online soon, and just yesterday I fell in love with Angel Olsen's My Woman and this morning I had to fetch Wilco's Schmilco. So I have some work to do.

This Ellington LP sort of fell through the cracks in the last few weeks. I bought it from the Acoustic Sounds website as sort of a consolation prize when they sold out of their Julie London reissues at the Newport Show last June. I ordered Julie Is Her Name, Vol. 2, and I felt like getting one more. Hmmmm, I thought, what's the latest magical release from Chad Kassem's catalog? I turned out to be this one, Blues In Orbit. I was a little torn at first--Duke Ellington is one of my favorites in all of jazz, but I wasn't very familiar with this 1960 LP. I looked up some reviews and found that while it's considered a solid release in Ellington's catalog, it isn't really one of "the greats." But even a good Duke recording has to be better than the great albums of most, right?

I'm glad I purchased this one, however. It's not perfect--it has a very loose structure to it that was the result of two somewhat spontaneous late night/early morning live sessions at Columbia Studios on December 2, 1959. The overall sound quality is a bit veiled compared to some of Duke's classics. And I'm not in love with the rather stodgy variation on "Duke's Place" that landed here. But other than those minor complaints, this album swings like nobody's business. It's got a full, crazy and lively blues sound that will make your toes tap and your head bob. It also has moments where individual instruments LEAP out at you, almost in your lap--Ray Nance's trumpet, Booty Wood's trombone and especially Harry Carney's whimsical, breathy bass clarinet.

This one's a keeper, an instant classic for my demo stock at trade shows and such. It's the epitome of the late night blues album, captured on the fly, and overflowing with life and humor. If you don't believe me, listen to Ray Nance's wild, untamed violin solo on "C Jam Blues" and listen to the entire band laugh afterwards at the sheer audacity of it. It's a classic moment in a classic album.

Ella and Louis Again on Analogue Productions' CD/SACD Hybrid

"Mono kicks ass!"

Bob Clarke was right. As soon as I brought the Analogue Production CD/SACD reissue of Ella and Louis Again into our room at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest earlier this month, I knew Chad Kassem had another winner on his hands. Between Chad's Analogue Productions record label, 2L Recordings and FIM, the audiophile market is flooded with great reissues right now. It's certainly risky to play mono recordings at trade shows--one of those sit-down-for-three-and-a-half-seconds audiophiles might drop by and then proceed to tell his all his buddies that the sound in the room was compressed and that the soundstage seemed awfully narrow. For me it takes a few seconds for a mono recording to register in my brain--especially one that sounds as good as this one. Listening to a beautiful mono recording like Ella and Louis Again is like viewing an Ansel Adams print. Sure, it's in black and white, but look at all that amazing detail!

I've been joking for the last few weeks that among audiophiles, this seems to be the Year of Ella Fitzgerald. Once I purchased the Analogue Productions CD/SACD of Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie! a few months ago, it seems like I've been hearing her everywhere--not just at trade shows. Part of the reason, I suppose, is because there are so many great Ella reissues out on audiophile labels right now--including this disc's predecessor, 1956's Ella and Louis, which Chad released not too long ago. I've jumped on the Ella bandwagon as well, and I've been a sucker for all things Satchmo for at least the last decade, so buying this exquisite 1957 mono recording seemed to make perfect sense even if the occasional show attendee didn't quite get it.

Yes, this album kicks ass. Look at the line-up...aside from Ella and Mr. Armstrong, you have Ray Brown on bass, Oscar Peterson on piano, Louis Bellson on drums and Herb Ellis on guitar. Does it get any better than this? When you hear an excellent recording with stellar performers creating one-of-a-kind performances, you're instantly shoved into a time machine and transported to back to the recording event. When the recording is in mono (or even on a pristine 78 rpm disc), those quaint technologies add a stunning patina to the surface. It's like seeing a daguerrotype of a long-dead historical figure and seeing through the scratches and the blemishes and saying to yourself, "My God, that's really them!"

It certainly helps when someone comes along a squeezes even more life out of the artifact while gently wiping off a layer of dust. I'm sure there are plenty of vinylphiles like me who would rather have a mint copy of the first Verve pressing of Ella and Louis Again, but I'm sure that would cost a fortune. For $30, you can have something that either comes awfully close, or completely
surpasses the original, depending on your format prejudices.

The Battle of the Shelby Lynnes

"Oh, no. I think I screwed up. This is an SACD."

Despite the fact that I'm trying to become educated about all the competing digital formats these days, I can still come off as a knucklehead at times. At the recent New York Audio Show, I went down to the marketplace to buy something interesting to play for the attendees--something that has become sort of a tradition for me. I headed straight for Acoustic Sounds because they've been steering me right lately, especially when it came down to that Sam Cooke LP I bought at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest last October. Since we weren't playing vinyl at NYAS, I was looking for a show-stopper of a CD, something like the Lim hi-rez discs I purchased at AXPONA New York almost two years ago. The Acoustic Sounds booth was stacked to the rafters with LPs, however, and little silver discs were few and far between. But I saw something that caught my eye: Shelby Lynne's Just a Little Lovin'.

I already had an LP copy of this back home. That's an interesting story in and of itself--Colleen and I got it in trade from Jeff Joseph of Joseph Audio for a rare vintage Apple t-shirt. Jeff warned us that the LP was just a garden-variety pressing from the original release, not Chad Kassem's well-received remastering for Acoustic Sounds. I played it several times, however, and thought it possessed excellent sound quality. In addition--and this is a tribute to Jeff, an avid LP collector--this copy was pretty close to pristine. I thought to myself, "If the regular version is this good, I wonder how good Chad's version is!"



So I scooped up what I thought was the CD version of the Acoustic Sounds JALL and headed back to my room. In the elevator I removed the wrapper and then started seeing the SACD logo everywhere. "Crap," I thought, "this isn't going to play in our system." We were using the splendid MSB Platinum Data IV transport, which is NOT a universal player. I thought wow, I just blew $30 for nothing. I didn't want to return it to Chad and look like a doofus, so I started thinking about how I could sell it on eBay and cut my losses once I got home. Needless to say, it played perfectly with the MSB transport. I figured that the MSB had a few more features than I realized, so I thanked my lucky stars. The disc turned out to be a major hit at the show, one of the two or three CDs I played whenever I wanted to really "wow" the room.

When I got home, I found that my lucky streak had continued: my Unison Research Unico CDE player, which plays only CDs, had no trouble with this SACD. That's when I realized that most SACDs these days have a redbook CD player layer on them--the labels are just getting lax in mentioning this on the cover. Sure enough, upon closer inspection there was a tiny little "compact disc" logo in the lower corner.



Once I knew I could play the disc, I decided that a comparo was in order. The Acoustic Sounds SACD sounded so good at NYAS that I thought it could easily beat the non-Acoustic Sounds LP. To a certain extent, I was right. The bass guitar on the opening title track was far deeper and more fleshed out than on the LP. The dynamic contrasts, therefore, were just a shade more vivid. But with the first gentle touch of the ride cymbal, I noticed that the decay on the LP was longer and had more texture.

These basic signatures carried on throughout the rest of the comparison--the SACD was more quiet in the quiet passages (and this album revels in its quiet moments), and the bass was more authoritative and realistic. The digital version also sounded less grainy through the upper midrange and lower treble. But the LP contained so many sonic epiphanies--moments where the music just sounded far more real and convincing and delicate. Overall, I'd have to say it was a toss-up; I think both sound wonderful. I guess the ultimate version must be the Acoustic Sounds LP version--the best of both worlds.

Sam Cooke's Night Beat on Analogue Productions 45rpm LP

When Chad Kassem of Acoustic Sounds tells you that a record will change your life, you tend to reach for your wallet. That's exactly what I did last week at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest after Colleen and I visited Chad at the AS booth in one of the big ballrooms on the ground floor. Colleen and Chad have known each other for years, so I started rummaging through the bins for LPs--I like to blow my allowance for one really nice LP at every trade show I attend--while they caught up.

I had it narrowed down to about thirty or forty awesome possibilities when suddenly I found Sam Cooke's Night Beat in one of the bins (the $50 bin, natch). I had rekindled my love and admiration for Mr. Soul last year when I reviewed the HDTracks download of Ain't That Good News for Stereolist, so naturally I picked up Night Beat and noticed it was the 2009 Analogue Productions 2-LP reissue cut at 45 rpm. That's when Chad stopped talking to Colleen and looked over at me as if I'd just picked up a loose Faberge Egg off the carpet. That's when he said what I said he said. And that's when I broke out the credit card.

We took it back to our RMAF room and showed everyone else what I had purchased, ostensibly for demonstration in our system. Everyone nodded solemnly in agreement. Bob Clarke, who has a gift for understatement, said, "Yeah, that's a great one." My copy of Night Beat lost its virginity on one of the best-sounding analog rigs I've had the privilege to play: Unison Research Giro turntable and arm, Transfiguration Phoenix cartridge and PureAudio Vinyl phono preamplifier. By the end of the first song, "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen," I realized that this 1963 classic was going to be used at a lot of trade shows from that point on. In fact, it was the only LP I played during the last hour or two of the show.

While Night Beat ranks among the most amazing vintage albums in my collection, right up there with my DCC pressing of Nat King Cole's Love Is the Thing and the Classic Record reissue of The Royal Ballet Gala Performances, at times this album shrugs off the studio artifacts from fifty years ago and sounds absolutely modern in its clarity and immediacy. The Nat King Cole album, for example, truly shines in the way it projects Nat's vocals into the room with authority and presence, but the string orchestra sounds compact and slightly canned in contrast.

But listen to the round, full double bass in songs such as "Lost and Lookin'" and "Fool's Paradise" and you can feel the flesh on the strings and the air inside of the wooden body of the instrument. In "Mean Old World," the tiny bell rings true as if the percussionist was sitting next to you, keeping time in person. I haven't even mentioned Sam's hopeful, transcendent voice. Suffice it to say that it's relaxed and effortless within the mix and doesn't sound shoved forward as in many recordings of the time.

Fifty bucks isn't exactly cheap, but this is one of the rare instances where I've laid down some serious green for an LP, listened to it and said, "It was worth every penny." Think about every time you bought something rare on eBay or at a used record store and then sighed in disappointment once the needle hit the groove. This is a sure thing, and if you're an audiophile who doesn't already own this, you should. Thanks, Chad.

Great article on Chad Kassem's new record pressing facility

There's a great article on the Acoustic Sounds website regarding Chad Kassem's new record pressing facility. Written by David Clouston of the Salina Journal, the article even goes as far as to say: "Driving the market is an increasing demand for the superior quality of music that vinyl LPs provide over the more popular CDs."

Outstanding, Chad! Good luck with the new venture! You can read the article at http://store.acousticsounds.com/index.cfm?get=page&PID=513.