{"product_id":"basiebasie_plays_2610-2","title":"Basie, Count - Basie Plays Hefti (2-pack) - White Hot Stamper","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e*NOTE:\u003c\/strong\u003e There is a mark that plays 8 times lightly at the start of track 2 on side 1 of disc 1, \"Has Anyone Here Seen Basie.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the followup to the smash Basie album The Atomic Mr. Basie, an album we would love to make available if we could ever find a clean, good sounding copy to play. The liner notes tell the story of this album well. Click on the \u003cstrong\u003eReviews\u003c\/strong\u003e tab to read them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBasie was recording like a madman back in the late 50s and even all through the 60s. In 1958, the year of this release, he put out seven (7!) albums on the Roulette label.  We've played quite a number of them over the years and found relatively few with audiophile quality sound.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eIncluding the original Roulette pressing of this very title.\u003c\/i\u003e We've only heard a few, and had only one for our shootout, but it was awful enough to make us swear off buying more, especially considering the prices vintage jazz albums are going for these days. Hard and sour brass, no real top or bottom, it's the sound of a poorly mastered Old Jazz Record, fine for the consoles of the day, not so good on today's advanced stereo systems. Emus seems to be the only way to go.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe sound is tonally correct, Tubey Magical and above all \u003ci\u003enatural\u003c\/i\u003e. The timbre of each and every instrument is right and it doesn't take a pair of golden ears to hear it. So high-resolution too.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd of course we absolutely loved the music. I had a chance to see the Basie Big Band perform a while back at Disney Hall and a fairly large chunk of the music and arrangements they play these days are Neal's, practically half I would venture to guess. Meaning simply that Hefti's music has clearly stood the test of time. Play this album and you're sure to see what I mean.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of Basie Plays Hefti Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe most Tubey Magic, without which you have \u003ci\u003ealmost\u003c\/i\u003e nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%221958%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1958\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural tonality in the midrange -- with all the instruments having the correct timbre\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTransparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo doubt there's  more but we hope that should do for now. \u003ci\u003ePlaying these records is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above,\u003c\/i\u003e and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find pressings that sound as good as these two do.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eA Big Group of Musicians Needs This Kind of Space\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne of the qualities that we don't talk about on the site nearly enough is the SIZE of the record's presentation. Some copies of the album just sound small -- they don't extend all the way to the outside edges of the speakers, and they don't seem to take up all the space from the floor to the ceiling. In addition, the sound can often be recessed, with a lack of presence and immediacy in the center.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOther copies -- my notes for these copies often read \"BIG and BOLD\" -- create a huge soundfield, with the music positively jumping out of the speakers. They're not brighter, they're not more aggressive, they're not hyped-up in any way, they're just \u003ci\u003ebigger\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eclearer\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd most of the time those very special pressings are just plain \u003ci\u003emore involving\u003c\/i\u003e. When you hear a copy that does all that -- a copy like this one -- it's an entirely different listening experience.\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat We're Listening For On Basie Plays Hefti\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eEnergy\u003c\/strong\u003e for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThen: \u003cstrong\u003epresence and immediacy\u003c\/strong\u003e.  The instruments aren't \"back there\" somewhere, lost in the mix. They're front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe Big Sound\u003c\/strong\u003e comes next -- wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThen \u003cstrong\u003etransient information\u003c\/strong\u003e -- fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eTight, full-bodied bass\u003c\/strong\u003e -- which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNext: \u003cstrong\u003etransparency\u003c\/strong\u003e -- the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eExtend the top and bottom\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003ci\u003evoila\u003c\/i\u003e, you have The Real Thing -- an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eHi-Fidelity\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat do we love about these vintage pressings? The timbre of every instrument is Hi-Fi in the best sense of the word. The unique sound of every instrument is reproduced with remarkable fidelity. That's what we at Better Records mean by \"Hi-Fi,\" not the kind of audiophile phony BS sound that passes for Hi-Fidelity these days. There's no boosted top, there's no bloated bottom, there's no sucked-out midrange.\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is Hi-Fidelity for those who recognize the real thing when they hear it. I'm pretty sure our customers do, and whoever picks this record up is guaranteed to get a real kick out of it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eOur Famous 2-packs\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOur 2-pack sets combine two copies of the same album, with at least a Super Hot Stamper sonic grade on the better of each \"good\" side, which simply means you have before you a pair of records that offers superb sound for the entire album.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAudiophiles are often surprised when they hear that an LP can sound amazing on one side and mediocre on the other, but since each side is pressed from different metalwork which has been aligned independently, and perhaps even cut by different mastering engineers from tapes of wildly differently quality, in our experience it happens all the time. In fact it's much more common for a record to earn different sonic grades for its two sides than it is to rate the same grade. That's just the way it goes in analog, where there's no way to know how a any given side of a record sounds until you play it, and, more importantly, in the world of sound everything is relative.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSince each of the copies in the 2-pack will have one good side and one noticeably weaker or at best more run-of-the-mill side, you'll be able to compare them on your own to hear just what it is that the Hot Stamper sides give you. This has the added benefit of helping you to improve your critical listening skills. We'll clearly mark which copy is Hot for each side, so if you don't want to bother with the other sides you certainly won't have to.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eVinyl Condition\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMint Minus Minus  and maybe a bit better is about as quiet as any vintage pressing will play, and since only the right vintage pressings have any hope of sounding good on this album, that will most often be the playing condition of the copies we sell. (The copies that are even a bit noisier get listed on the site are seriously reduced prices or traded back in to the local record stores we shop at.)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThose of you looking for quiet vinyl will have to settle for the sound of later pressings and Heavy Vinyl reissues, purchased elsewhere of course as we have no interest in selling records that don't have the vintage analog magic of these wonderful originals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you want to make the trade-off between bad sound and quiet surfaces with whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing might be available, well, that's certainly your prerogative, but we can't imagine losing what's good about this music -- the size, the energy, the presence, the clarity, the weight -- just to hear it with less background noise.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Basie, Count","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":68001596014888,"sku":"basiebasie_plays","price":399.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/files\/basiebasie_plays.jpg?v=1792947517","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/basiebasie_plays_2610-2","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}