Your favorite sounding jazz records

inverseroom · Post by **inverseroom** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 4:02 pm

I was just listening to the new Radiohead again, and while "Nude" was on, I thought, "Brad Mehldau is working on his cover of this song...right...this...minute."

That got me thinking...this board doesn't talk about jazz too much...maybe because most jazz records don't treat the studio as an instrument. Recorded jazz seems to mostly be about capturing the performance. But at least one Mehldau record, "Largo," is a real engineer's record--it's engineered by Thomas Biller, anyone here know him? Fantastic, amazing album, I think I have actually posted about it here before.

I also think Bill Evans' "Sunday At The Village Vanguard" is one of the best sounding records in any genre, ever made. Nothing fancy, just perfect clarity and presence.

Any jazz records you like, particularly for the way they sound?

drumsound · Post by **drumsound** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 4:30 pm

I've always loved Miles' Kind of Blue. It was done at the old Columbia 30th Street studio that was a converted church. Of course there's also the Rudy Van Gelder stuff, I'm a bit of a Coltrane freak and a lot of his output came out of RVGs house.

Babaluma · Post by **Babaluma** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 4:54 pm

i love the natural sound on coltrane's "a love supreme", loads of dynamics, the sax jumps rights out of the speaker on the left side! have no idea how it was recorded though.

crow · Post by **crow** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 5:18 pm

I happened by a garage sale the other day while walking my dog, and picked up a copy of Duke Ellington's treatment of the Nutcracker Suite. Not only is it a super fun record, but when I dragged my turntable into the studio to put it on CD for a friend, I was blown away by how awesome it sounded. Very hifi without sounding sterile; huge and clear. i highly recommend it.

One of my favorite sounding Jazz cd's is the Sonny Rollins RVG edition volume 2. suddenly, i'm wondering why i never got volume 1. gotta go!

dumbangel · Post by **dumbangel** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 6:04 pm

Late 50's to mid 60's jazz records is my favourite kind of sound. I call this 'vintage clean' as engineers like Rudy Van Gelder were after perfect transparency and authenticity, but had to pass sound signal through many if not all tube equipped stages (from tube mics to tube tape recorders). The result is a very smooth and slightly colored tone but still pretty accurate. I don't have much interest for recent jazz records generally because they don't have that charm ('Largo' sounds more like a nicely recorded pop album to me).

RVG had the cleanest sound of early 60's jazz I reckon, although Columbia (Miles Davis, Brubeck, Montgomery?) was very close. From looking at pics from his studio, I noticed he used small diaphragm condenser mics on pretty much every instruments, and some of them like piano or contrabass don't have enough body I think.

Actually, the best sounding jazz album for me is 'MJQ's Blues on Bach' from the mid 70's. Smooth Nevesque bebop. I also dig Lalo Schiffrin's Marquis de Sade album. It has the most beautiful drum sound I know.

lapsteel · Post by **lapsteel** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 6:10 pm

I second Kind of Blue.

cgarges · Post by **cgarges** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 6:20 pm

I really love the ECM stuff. And anything Joe Ferla touches is just fantastic. The classic Rudy Van Gelder stuff is cool, but to me, representative technology got better, so sonically, I prefer modern-sounding jazz records. Not to knock RVG or anything. His stuff was great, but it's not a sound that I go for when I record jazz. I think that equally impressive was the stuff that Tom Dowd did, most notably that fantastic session that gave the world both Coltrane Plays The Blues and My Favorite Things.

I also totally have to give a thumbs-up to Tchad Blake for his work on the first few Bad Plus albums. Those are really exciting records from an engineering standpoint because of their innovative stature. Aside from Largo, there really weren't any good jazz recordings done with interesting engineering up to that point. Of course, now that Tchad's done it, everyone will start doing it and the engineering will get in the way of the music and jazz records will become totally cliche and uninteresting as a result. But at least we have those records to reference.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

auralman · Post by **auralman** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 6:58 pm

+1 on Joe Ferla love. That guy is awesome, and he sold me my monitors.

I think Oliver Nelson's The Blues and the Abstract Truth sounds pretty great.

I love most things Dan Kopelson does, the records he did with Craig Street are really deep. And Danny is just a good guy.

I don't know if it's jazz or not, but Michael Hedges got pretty amazing sounds.

+1 on Kind of Blue.

Monk Jr's tribute to his dad, Monk on Monk is pretty damn wonderful, Rudy Van Gelder there.

Whoever recorded Sinatra at the Sands did a damn good job (Count Basie orchestra, Quincy Jones arrangements. Yo.)

That's what I can think of right now. I always go to jazz records when I need engineering inspiration. Even crappy jazz records kill me sonically.

digitaldrummer · Post by **digitaldrummer** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:01 pm

Dave Brubeck - Time Out.

I guess I just love that drum sound...

??????? · Post by **???????** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:16 pm

drewbass · Post by **drewbass** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 8:14 pm

coltrane plays the blues. one of my all time favorites. i flip out everytime i hear it. mainly because it's a blues album, jazz-blues, but coltrane defines blues for us in so many different ways on this album. every song is is completly different, yet, each is still a blues.

inverseroom- it's true what you said about jazz albums striving to catch a record of what happened in the room, live. but there is a lot of recordings with steve swallow- a bassist- that reflect the studio as an instrument -or- his studio as his instrument. he became frustrated with the results he was getting and taught himself to engineer.

he eventually used the studio as a compositional tool. he'll record a solo, transcribe the parts that resonate with him, re-learn them, incorporate them into the next pass and continue until he gets a solo that he likes. improvising being a fast motion type of composition- he slows it down again, but makes it sound completely organic. we talked about this a lot. i ended up going back and listening to all of his recordings in a very different manner.

in this way he is very much a recording artist, in addition to being a master improvisor/composer/bassist.

drew

vernier · Post by **vernier** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 8:39 pm

roscoenyc · Post by **roscoenyc** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 8:58 pm

miles davis live at the blackhawk

b3groover · Post by **b3groover** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 9:09 pm

Since I play Hammond, I have a ton of organ records. The old Jimmy Smith late 50's Blue Notes are really dirty, but have such a great vibe. The 60's stuff is cleaner and very natural sounding.

The best modern organ records have been recorded by Jim Anderson (head of the AES), David Baker (rip) and James Farber. There are a handful of recordings by Larry Goldings' trio that are just beautiful.

T-rex · Post by **T-rex** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 9:27 pm

I hate to list the obvious but definitely Kind of Blue and Time Out. They sound great, especially the remastered versions. Love Supreme and John Coltrane's Lush Life are both amazing. I have the sampler of Miles Davis Live at the Plugged Nickel that is fabulous. You can hear the cash register ring during one of the ballads.

I also love Bill Stewart's first Blue Note release although I can't think of the name right now. That sounds great! His cymbals, snare and toms define great sounding modern jazz drums to me.

I pretty much hate anything Delfeao Marsalis engineers even though musically I generally love anything that Brandford, Wynton or Jeff "Tain" Watts plays on.

Message Board

Your favorite sounding jazz records

Your favorite sounding jazz records

Who is online