Tsuyoshi Yamamoto's Autumn in Seattle on FIM UltraHD

One day last week, I suddenly had a hankering for a new CD from First Impression Music (FIM). I've purchased three or four of Winston Ma's discs over the last year or so--usually while I'm exhibiting at trade shows and I need something cool and different to play for the show attendees--and the sound quality is always phenomenal. I look at some of these audiophile discs I've been listening to lately--Blu-ray audio from 2L Recordings, CD/SACD hybrids from Analogue Productions and these hi-rez redbook CDs from FIM--and I realize I've been listening to these more than I've been listening to vinyl. So I wanted more.

I went straight to the First Impression Music website and found that nearly everything was available online, including a few titles I thought were no longer available. I placed an order for Tsuyushi Yamamoto's Autumn in Seattle on UltraHD and within four days the disc was in my mailbox! Not bad. I could easily make a habit of ordering, I don't know, one per month this way. These discs just sound so wonderful--I've never heard the upper frequencies of a digitally-reproduced recording sound so pleasing and effortless.

So I picked Autumn in Seattle because it's Tsuyushi Yamamoto, and my Three Blind Mice LP of his Midnight Sugar is the best-sounding jazz recording I own--maybe even the very best-sounding recording I own, period. (For the record, the Tsuyushi Yamamoto Trio's Misty is also pretty spectacular, and I own that on LP as well.) On the other hand, I checked out the tracks and this is a collection of standards--and not the type of standards I really enjoy. We're talking "The Way We Were," "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" and "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing," which all have the potential to sound incredibly cheesy in this day and age. Then again, the idea of Yamamoto-san doing an album of Bacharach sounds mighty cool as well.

Truth is, the results are better than I had imagined. I did have to grit my teeth a little during the more fanciful parts of "Raindrops," but the rest of this album's full of strong, solid jazz performances that just sound gorgeous. I do think Midnight Sugar is a much stronger recording, which is strange because Autumn in Seattle is a far more modern recording--originally recorded and released in 2001, it was remastered and reissued in FIM's UltraHD format in 2011. On the other hand, the fact that Midnight Sugar and Misty originally came out in the mid-'70s might also explain why it's the better recording, especially according to us analog troglodytes. But that certainly doesn't mean that Autumn in Seattle doesn't sound absolutely stupendous--because it does--those two older albums are just that special.

I'm kind of hooked now. It was so easy to order through the website, and I think shipping may have been free--or at least really cheap. The CD was $41, and a little over $43 was charged to my credit card. I think $41 may be the top of the line--there's plenty of selection in the $20 to $35 range.

By the way, I listed to this CD with a great pair of mini-monitors, the MAD 1920S. I've been listening to so many BIG speakers every since we moved to Colorado because we have such a big room now. We have so many quality mini-monitors such as the MADs, the Trenner & Friedl ARTs, even a pair of Rega RS1s that I've only used a couple of times. Over the next few weeks I'll be "getting back to my roots" and listening through mini-monitors.

Shota Osabe Piano Trio's Happy Coat on FIM Hi-Rez CD

Oh, the temptation of having a convenient source of high-quality audiophile music just a couple of doors down from your exhibit room. That was my dilemma at last month's Rocky Mountain Audio Fest--the First Impression Music (FIM) room was two doors down, and it was so easy to run down there for a few minutes and choose a title to play in our system. I've talked about FIM before--I've reviewed both the hi-rez redbook CD versions of the Three Blind Mice sampler and Getz/Gilberto here and here. In the last two years I've brought both of those amazing CDs to every trade show I've attended. They're spectatcular demo pieces that never fail to hypnotize the show attendees.

I kept it down to two FIM CDs--The Shota Osabe Piano Trio's Happy Coat and the Jacques Loussier Trio's The Best of Play Bach. I could have easily bought every title they had for sale--easily 40 or 50--but that would have cost a fortune. (They were on sale at the show for $30 to $60 each.) Dan Muzquiz of Blackbird Audio, our dealer that we were representing at the show, wound up buying at least six or seven. Once you listen to the smooth yet extraordinarily detailed sound quality of these hi-rez redbook CDs, it's hard to keep your credit card in your wallet. They're downright addictive.

I bought the Jacques Lossier Trio CD (which I'll review next) because it was the recommendation du jour--so many rooms at RMAF were using it. Sure, it's spectacularly dynamic and the performance is legendary, but Happy Coat was the one that ultimately won my heart. At first the Shota Osabe Piano Trio sounds like a typical Three Blind Mice group...until you see that pianist Osabe-san is joined by Ray Brown on bass and Harold Jones on drums. What makes this 2002 resording so special is that it was Ray Brown's second to last recorded performance--he died 123 days after this was captured in a Japanese studio. This album of standards (including "In the Still of the Night," "This Is All I Ask," and even "I Saw Her Standing There") is full of warmth and richness, so much so that the first thought that popped in my head upon my initial listen was "round as a plum." Happy Coat is absolutely juicy and sweet and comforting.

Here's how good the sound quality of this 2008 remastered version of Happy Coat is: it became a default disc for me at RMAF. Whenever I couldn't decide what I wanted to play next, I just put it in. I knew it would sound great, it would mesmerize the crowds and I could concentrate on other business. In most cases, however, I was compelled to forget about business and sit down and listen and enjoy. Happy Coat makes me very happy indeed.