{"product_id":"ellinfirst_2609","title":"Ellington, Duke - Basie, Count - First Time - The Count Meets the Duke - White Hot Stamper","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e*NOTE:\u003c\/strong\u003e There is a mark that plays 8 times lightly near the start of track 1 on side 2, \"Wild Man.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a wonderful example of the kind of record that makes record collecting \u003ci\u003efun\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22big-band%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLarge Group Jazz Music\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e is your thing, you should get a big kick out of this one. If you like the sound of relaxed, tube-mastered jazz -- and what red blooded audiophile doesn't? -- you can't do much better than the Ellington recordings on Columbia from this era. The warmth and immediacy of the sound here are guaranteed to blow practically any record of this kind you might own right out of the water.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBoth sides of this very special original stereo pressing are huge, rich, tubey and clear. As soon as the band got going we knew that this was absolutely the right sound for this music. There was almost nothing that could beat it, in any area of reproduction.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of This Wonderful Collaboration Between Two Jazz Giants 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:%221961%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1961\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. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, 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\u003eProduction and Engineering\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22teo-macero%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTeo Macero\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e was the producer, and either \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22fred-plaut%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFred Plaut\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e or Ray Moore were probably the engineers (we can't find the credits to know definitively) for these sessions in Columbia's glorious sounding \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%2230th-street%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e30th Street Studio\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e. It's yet another remarkable disc from the Golden Age of Vacuum Tube Recording.\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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eThe Players\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDuke Ellington, Count Basie – piano\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCat Anderson, Willie Cook, Eddie Mullens, Ray Nance, Sonny Cohn, Lennie Johnson, Thad Jones, Snooky Young - trumpet\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLou Blackburn, Lawrence Brown, Henry Coker, Quentin Jackson, Benny Powell - trombone\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJuan Tizol - valve trombone\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJimmy Hamilton - clarinet, tenor saxophone\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJohnny Hodges - alto saxophone\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRussell Procope, Marshal Royal - alto saxophone, clarinet\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFrank Wess - alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, flute\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePaul Gonsalves, Frank Foster, Budd Johnson - tenor saxophone\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHarry Carney, Charlie Fowlkes - baritone saxophone\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFreddie Green - guitar\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAaron Bell, Eddie Jones - bass\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSam Woodyard, Sonny Payne - drums\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\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":"Ellington, Duke","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52542543069480,"sku":"ellinfirst","price":799.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/files\/ellinfirst.jpg?v=1789926993","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/ellinfirst_2609","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}