{"product_id":"monk_brill_2607-1","title":"Monk, Thelonious - Brilliant Corners - White Hot Stamper (Quiet Vinyl)","description":"\u003cp\u003eIf you're looking to demonstrate just how good a 1957 All Tube Analog recording can be, this incredible copy should be just the record for you. Talk about Tubey Magic. The liquidity of the sound here is positively uncanny. This \u003ci\u003eis\u003c\/i\u003e vintage analog at its best, so full-bodied and relaxed you'll wonder how it ever came to be that anyone seriously contemplated trying to improve it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo recordings will ever be made like this again, and no CD will ever capture what is in the grooves of this record. There is of course a CD of the album, but those of us in possession of a working turntable could care less.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of Brilliant Corners 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:%221957%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1957\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\u003eOld and New Work Well Together\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis reissue is spacious, open, transparent, rich and sweet. It's yet another remarkable disc from the Golden Age of Vacuum Tube Recording Technology, with the added benefit of mastering using the more modern cutting equipment of the 70s. We are of course here referring to the good modern mastering of 40+ years ago, not the dubious modern mastering of today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe combination of old and new works wonders on this title, as you will surely hear for yourself on these excellent sides.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe were impressed with the fact that these pressings excel in so many areas of reproduction. What was odd about it -- odd to most audiophiles but not necessarily to us -- was just how rich and Tubey Magical the reissue can be on the right pressing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis leads me to think that most of the natural, full-bodied, lively, clear, rich sound of the album is on the tape, and that all one has to do to get that vintage sound on to a record is simply to thread up the tape on the right machine and hit play.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe fact that nobody seems to be able to make a record that sounds this good these days tells me that I am, in fact, wrong to think that such an approach would work. It just seems to me that somebody should have been able to figure out how to do it by now. In our experience that is simply not the case in the modern world of vinyl reissues, and has not been for many years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat We're Listening For On Brilliant Corners\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 Players\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBass - Oscar Pettiford and \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22Paul-Chambers%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePaul Chambers\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDrums - \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22Max-Roach%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMax Roach\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePiano - Thelonious Monk\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTenor Sax - \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=title:Sonny+Rollins\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSonny Rollins\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAlto Sax - Ernie Henry\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTrumpet - \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22clark-terry%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eClark Terry\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\n\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 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 Monk album a \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22jazz-masterpiece%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMasterpiece\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e. It's a recording that should be part of any serious 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":"Monk, Thelonious","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52056376738088,"sku":"monk_brill","price":699.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/files\/monk_brill.jpg?v=1783443660","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/monk_brill_2607-1","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}