"Original Jazz Classics"

In regards to this issue, a friend and I who trade great jazz and blues all of the time say to each other "it's the music stupid". So while I appreciate your pain when trying to listen through bad recordings as we all suffer, sometimes one does have to look beyond.

Many of the great performers had little or no financial means to control recording quality, mastering and final pressing. Many died near penniless. These circumstances framed many legends.

Nobody appreciates a great performance, recording and mastering than myself, however the reality is oft less than optimal.

Fair enough. The first thing to say is that most of the Riverside/Prestige recordings are very good as concerns frequency balance and clarity. The stereo recordings are not very good as concerns image, with insturments typically panned hard left and hard right. Many listeners push the mono button on the preamp or use a mono cartridge. The original issues of these, if you have the dosh to afford them, are almost uniformly great. Which brings us to the reissues. The Milestone/Fantasy reissues are the steal of the century and most are just fantastic; far superior, on the whole, to the OJCs. Some of the material was released as double gatefold albums called "twofers". Later, these were reissued by OJC, which are quite variable, as you have found, many sounding fuzzy, for wont of a better word. The Scorpio reissues, mentioned above, can be identified because they are new and shrink wrapped but have no bar code. They suck. Virtually everything Atlantic did was just great, save for some live stuff. The MJQ recordings are a model of their kind. Both original and reissue Atlantics tend to sound great. Same for the Blue Notes, though avoid anything reprocessed for stereo, from digial masters, or Scorpio. Classic records has done a nice job with most of their reissues, the warping issues not withstanding. You can always look for Rudy Van Gelder as the engineer/mastering engineer and his recordings are great with the exception of the ping-pong stereo effect mentioned above. Most of the Japanese reissues of the material are quite good though perhaps a bit light, the French reissues are great and the Italian are variable. Happy hunting.

The OJC's are kid of a crap shoot but they are generally about $10.00 so even if you have a dud its not a huge loss. I have quite a few of them and most are very listenable. If its something I really love (waltz for debbie) Then Im also on the lookout for a better copy (ap fantasy 45 ) but the OJC serves me fine in the meantime and gives me a copy I can play on my "B" system when Im not listening critically. Ive never heard of the scorpio bootlegs, how do you identify them? I buy many "audiophile" pressings and find the reject ratio about the same with the difference being that at $30 to $50 bucks I return those.

I am quite sure if these are in fact licensed (and that's a big if), Scorpio is sourcing the material from digital DATs or cds. Clearly, these are not from the master tapes. Seems to undermine the entire purpose of buying LPs in the first place.

I sure agree about cutting from digital - ugh!

Yes, it's true, at $10/each you can afford to risk and 3 out of 5 good recordings is not bad at all. I don't know if I should send back the other two or not. Hardly worth the shipping.

My copy of Waltz for Deb is Riverside and boy is it just a great recording, just like Village Vanguard. Quiet, dynamic, extended, lovely. Also a $10 record. When I listen to something like that, I always ask myself why the hell we need $50 heavy vinyl/45s.