{"product_id":"sinatfranc_2606","title":"Sinatra, Frank - Duke Ellington - Francis A. and Edward K. - Super Hot Stamper","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e*NOTE:\u003c\/strong\u003e There are superficial marks on track 1 on side 2, \"I Like The Sunrise,\" that do not play and cannot be heard.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRecorded one year after the remarkable Sinatra-Jobim record that we treasure here at Better Records, Sinatra takes the opportunity to work with one of the greatest bandleaders in the history of jazz, the Duke himself. We had good luck with the stereo originals on the lovely Blue and Green Reprise labels -- they can be as big, rich and warm as Sinatra's legendary Capitol recordings when you find the right pressing, and that's really saying something.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eYou Are There\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe presence and immediacy here are really something. Turn it up and Frank is right in front of you, putting on the performance of a lifetime.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe sound is big, open, rich and full. The highs are extended and silky sweet. The bass is tight and punchy. And this copy gives you more life and energy than most by a long shot. Very few Sinatra records offer the kind of realistic, lifelike sound you get from this pressing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe's no longer a recording -- he's a living, breathing person. We call that \"the breath of life,\" and this record has it in spades. His voice is so rich, sweet, and free of any artificiality, you immediately find yourself lost in the music, because there's no \"sound\" to distract you.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of Francis A. and Edward K. 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:%221968%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1968\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\u003eBooth? What Booth?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNotice that, at least for most of the material, and perhaps all of it, Sinatra does not seem to be stuck in a vocal booth. He sounds like he is actually standing on the same stage as Ellington's band.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhether this is a recording trick -- he's in a booth but the engineer (\u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22lee-herschberg%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLee Herschberg\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e in this case) did a great job creating a sound for the booth that matched the ambience and space of the studio -- or whether he is standing front and center with the band, the illusion is convincing and adds greatly to the \"reality\" of the performance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere are some general guidelines as to what we listen for when playing Ellington's Big Band recordings -- what the better pressings get right and the lesser ones struggle with.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eTransparency\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat typically separates the killer copies from the merely good ones are two qualities that we often look for in the records we play: transparency and lack of smear. Transparency allows you to hear \u003ci\u003einto\u003c\/i\u003e the recording, reproducing the ambience and subtle musical cues and details that high-resolution analog is known for.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(Note that most Heavy Vinyl pressings being produced these days seem to be quite \"transparency challenged.\" Lots of important musical information -- the kind we hear on even second-rate regular pressings -- is simply not to be found. That audiophiles as a whole -- including those passing themselves off as the champions of analog in the audio press -- fail to notice these failings does not speak well for either their equipment or their critical listening skills.)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat We're Listening For On Francis A. and Edward K.\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 vocals 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 note-like 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\u003eRichness and Lack of Smear\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLack of smear is also important, especially on a recording with this many horns, where the reproduction of leading-edge transients is critical to their sound. If the sharply different characters of the various horns (trumpet, trombone, and various saxes) smear together into an amorphous blob, as if the sound were being fed through '50s vintage tube amps (for those of you who know that sound), half the fun goes right out of the music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRichness is important -- horns need to be full-bodied if they are to sound like the real thing -- but so are speed and clarity, two qualities that ensure that all the horns have the proper bite and timbre.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eLee Herschberg, Engineer Extraordinaire\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne of the top guys at Warners and Reprise, Lee engineered this album as well as a great many others for Sinatra. You'll find Herschberg's name in the credits of many of the best Ry Cooder, Doobie Brothers and Gordon Lightfoot albums, titles we know to have excellent sound on the best copies -- not to mention an album most audiophiles know all too well, Rickie Lee Jones' debut. His pop and rock engineering credits run for pages. Won the Grammy for Strangers in the Night even.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe most amazing jazz piano trio recording we know of is on the list as well: The Three (Shelly Manne, Ray Brown and Joe Sample), along with most of the other direct to disc recordings released on Eastwind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe album that gets my vote for Herschberg's Pop Engineering Masterpiece would have to be Michael McDonald's If That's What It Takes. On the best copies, the sound is out of this world.\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 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 Sinatra Album\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a recording that belongs in any serious vocal collection. Others that belong in that category can be found \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22core-vocal-collection%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ehere\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sinatra, Frank","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51894941155624,"sku":"sinatfranc","price":74.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/files\/sinatfranc_2007_1268763819_d231bb6b-6615-4ff5-af57-eeaf66dd16ac.jpg?v=1712327151","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/sinatfranc_2606","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}