{"product_id":"daviskindo_2606-3","title":"Davis, Miles - Kind of Blue (Red Label) - Super Hot Stamper (With Issues)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e*NOTE:\u003c\/strong\u003e On side 1, there is a mark that plays 9 times at a light to moderate level at the start of track 1, \"So What.\" There is another mark that plays 5 times at a light to moderate level about 1\/2\" into track 2, \"Freddie Freeloader.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eScores of differently mastered versions have been cut over the years, but to find one that’s lively and dynamic yet still communicates the relaxed nature of this music is a trick that few of them can pull off. These sides did just that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen the band really starts cutting loose on \"So What,\" you’re going to lose your mind! The sound is open and spacious with a wonderful three-dimensional quality that gives each musician a defined space. You can easily tune in to one member and follow their contributions as the band stretches out.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of Kind of Blue 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:%221959%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1959\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 the record 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 a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eQuick Listening Tests\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is an easy one. Just listen to the trumpet at the start of \u003cstrong\u003eFreddie Freeloader\u003c\/strong\u003e. Most copies do not fully convey the transient information of Miles' horn, causing it to have an easily recognizable quality we talk about all the time on the site: smear. No two pressings will have precisely the same amount of smear on his trumpet, so look for the least smeary copy \u003ci\u003ethat does everything else right too\u003c\/i\u003e. (Meaning simply that smear is important, but not all-important.)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn track one, side two, the drums in the right channel are key to evaluating the sound of the better copies. The snare should sound solid and fat -- like a real snare -- and if there is space in the recording on your copy you will have no trouble hearing the room around the kit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNext check the cymbals. No two copies will get the cymbals to sound the same, so play a few and see which ones sound the most natural to you. The most natural will be the one with the best top end.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen Adderley comes in hard left, his alto should not be thin, squawky or stuck in the speaker. The best of the best copies have the instrument sounding full-bodied (for an alto) and reedy. The reedy quality tells you that your pressing is highly resolving and not smeared.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat We're Listening For On Kind of Blue\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\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\u003eThe Giants Who Created Kind of Blue\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBass – Paul Chambers\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDrums – Jimmy Cobb\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c!--Searches are correct--\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePiano – \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22bill-evans%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBill Evans\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePiano – \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22wynton-kelly%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWynton Kelly\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTenor Saxophone – \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22john-coltrane%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJohn Coltrane\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAlto Saxophone – \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22cannonball-adderley%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCannonball Adderley\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIrving Townsend was the producer, \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22fred-plaut%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFred Plaut\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e the engineer for these sessions that took place on various dates in March and April, 1959, in Columbia's glorious-sounding \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%2230th-street%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e30th Street Studio\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's yet another remarkable disc from the Golden Age of Vacuum Tube Recording.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eEngineer Extraordinaire\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFred Plaut was a recording engineer and amateur photographer. He was employed by Columbia Records during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, eventually becoming the label's chief engineer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePlaut engineered sessions for what would result in many of Columbia's famous albums, including the original cast recordings of South Pacific, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story, jazz LPs Kind of Blue and Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis, Time Out by Dave Brubeck, Mingus Ah Um and Mingus Dynasty by Charles Mingus.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eCBS 30th Street Studio\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCBS 30th Street Studio, also known as Columbia 30th Street Studio, and nicknamed \"The Church\", was an American recording studio operated by Columbia Records from 1949 to 1981 located at 207 East 30th Street, between Second and Third Avenues in Manhattan, New York City.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt was considered by some in the music industry to be the best sounding room in its time and others consider it to have been the greatest recording studio in history. A large number of recordings were made there in all genres, including Miles Davis' Kind of Blue (1959), Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story (Original Broadway Cast recording, 1957), Percy Faith's Theme from A Summer Place (1960), and Pink Floyd's The Wall (1979).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eRecording studio\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHaving been a church for many years, it had been abandoned and empty for some time, and in 1949 it was transformed into a recording studio by Columbia Records.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"There was one big room, and no other place in which to record,\" wrote John Marks in an article in Stereophile magazine in 2002.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe recording studio had 100 foot high ceilings, a 100 foot floorspace for the recording area, and the control room was on the second floor being only 8 by 14 feet. Later, the control room was moved down to the ground floor.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"It was huge and the room sound was incredible,\" recalls Jim Reeves, a sound technician who had worked in it. \"I was inspired,\" he continues \"by the fact that, aside from the artistry, how clean the audio system was.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eMusical Artists\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMany celebrated musical artists from all genres of music used the 30th Street Studio for some of their most famous recordings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBach: The Goldberg Variations, the 1955 debut album of the Canadian classical pianist Glenn Gould, was recorded in the 30th Street Studio. It was an interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations (BWV 988), the work launched Gould's career as a renowned international pianist, and became one of the most well-known piano recordings. On May 29, 1981, a second version of the Goldberg Variations by Glenn Gould was recorded in this studio, and would be the last production by the famous studio.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJazz trumpeter Miles Davis recorded almost exclusively at the 30th Street Studio during his years under contract to Columbia, including his album Kind of Blue (1959). Other noteworthy jazz musicians having recorded in this place: Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Dave Brubeck.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1964, Bob Dylan and record producer Tom Wilson were experimenting with their own fusion of rock and folk music. The first unsuccessful test involved overdubbing a \"Fats Domino early rock \u0026amp; roll thing\" over Dylan's earlier, recording of \"House of the Rising Sun\", using non-electric instruments, according to Wilson. This took place in the Columbia 30th Street Studio in December 1964. It was quickly discarded, though Wilson would more famously use the same technique of overdubbing an electric backing track to an existing acoustic recording with Simon \u0026amp; Garfunkel's \"The Sound of Silence\".\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eVinyl Condition\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMint Minus Minus 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 other 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 recordings.\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\n\u003ch3\u003eA Must Own Jazz Record\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe consider this Miles Davis album his \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22jazz-masterpiece%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMasterpiece\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e. It's a Demo Disc quality recording should be part of any serious audiophile jazz collection.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOthers that belong in that category can be found \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22core-jazz-collection%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ehere\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Davis, Miles","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52034678882600,"sku":"daviskindo","price":299.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/files\/daviskindo.jpg?v=1780943590","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/daviskindo_2606-3","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}