High Rez Jazz Selections (1 Viewer)

[Perry Jonkheer]

Hello,

I have recently gotten into Jazz and would love for some of you guys to recommend some really good high rez jazz discs. I bought a SACD compiled of Monk and Coltrane but the sound quality is quite bad and a waste of $21.

Basically I'm just looking for something with great sound quality with some of the more popular artists like Chet, Coltrane, Miles, etc...

Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Thank You.

PJ

 

[Danny Tse]

Here're my top 2....

Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time Out

Miles Davis: Kind of Blue

 

[PaulDA]

Joe Henderson--Lush Life: The Music of Billy Strayhorn SACD MCH.

I'm a big fan of Miles, Monk, Coltrane, Baker, Rollins etc. You will NOT be disappointed by the Henderson disc.

It deservedly makes the top 100 essential jazz albums/cds in the Rough Guide to Jazz.

 

[Mike Broadman]

I would definitely suggest starting with the "classics." Quite a few on SACD. The only downer is that some are expensive.

First I would suggest getting a bunch of Fantasy SACDs. They are priced like regular CDs, generally sound pretty good and contain some fantastic music, mostly jazz. Some of the best titles are:

Monk meets Mulligan
Miles Davis- Relaxin'
Kenny Burrell and John Coltrane
Monk's Music
Monk w/ Coltrane
Art Blakey- Caravan
Bobby Timmons- This Here
Bags Meets Wes
Bill Evans Trio- Portrait in Jazz and Explorations
Coltrane- Lush Life
Wes Montgomery- Incredible Jazz Guitar
Vince Guaralid Trio- two Charlie Brown SACDs
Cannonball Adderly Quartet in San Francisco
Eric Dolphy- Out There
Wynton Kelly- Kelly Blue
Quintet (Parker, Mingus, Dizzy, Roach, Powell)
Monk- Brilliant Corners
Art Pepper + 11 and Gettin' Together
Oscar Peterson- Skol
Modern Jazz Quartet- Django
Sonny Rollins- Sound of Sonny
Chet Baker- In NY
Cannonball and Milt Jackson- Things are Getting Better
Benny Carter- Jazz Giant
Nat Adderly- Work Song
Sonny Rollins- Tenor Madness

The Analogue Production SACDs are pricier but generally even better sounding:

Miles Davis- Cookin'
Bill Evans- Waltz for Debby and Sunday at the Village Vanguard
Vince Guaraldi- Black Orpheus
Sonny Rollins- Saxophone Colossus
John Coltrane- Soultrane
Monk- 5 By Monk By 5

Mobile Fidelity are as pricy as AP and they have great SACDs of:
Miles Davis: Steamin'
Sonny Rollins + 4

note that all of these are hybrid stereo SACDs. Sony has some really nice sounding SACDs, some of which are surround, all of which are non-hybrid, the best of which are "Kind of Blue," "Miles Smiles," "Sketches of Spain," "In A Silent Way." They have a ton of Miles, Brubeck's "Time Out," Mingus' "Ah Um," Monk's "Straight No Chaser," Herbie Hancock's "Headhunters," Weather Report's "Heavy Weather" and "Mysterious Traveler." There are also Miles SACDs available only as imports from Japan. Those are too expensive for me, especially since they're not hybrids.

Universal also put out some single layer titles. The one I would recommend is Coltrane's "A Love Supreme."

 

[Rachael B]

Try some fusion & pop jazz like Monty Alexander's MONTY MEETS SLY & ROBBIE or IN MODERN TIMES by Spyra Gyro or David Sanborn's TIMEAGAIN or one of the two Pieces Of A Dream Sack-Dee's or WILL & Rainbow's HARMONY with quest vocalist Phoebe Snow or Kelli Flint's wonderful vocalizations for Dave's True Story's UNAUTHORIZED or Aaron Neville's STANDARDS.

If your Chet was Chet Baker get CHET on Analogue Productions SA-CD, pronto!

 

[Perry Jonkheer]

Wow, thanks for all the recommendations everyone...

Looks like I have some $$$ to spend now.

 

[Rich Malloy]

My two personal favorites (performance/sound quality):

Charles Mingus "Mingus Ah Um" -- brilliant in every way, and still one of the finest sounding SACDs I've heard.

Bill Evans Trio "Waltz for Debby" -- ditto, with warm lush analog-y sound

 

[John Garcia]

Patricia Barber - any of the SACDs (stereo hybrid, Mofi). Cafe Blue and Companion (which is live) are my favorites.

 

[Allen Hirsch]

I just started getting SACDs in the past month or two. Haven't had a "bad" jazz disc yet, but I also did some online searches to "weed out" what wasn't so hot, in some cases. (A lot of the "classic" stuff I already had on CD I haven't bought or tried on SACD yet.)

Labels that seem to have consistently good SACDS (probably b/c of the original recording quality, and quality remastering):

Analogue Productions
Audio Fidelity
Mobile Fidelity
Telarc
Living Stereo
Waterlily

Jazz SACDs where I think the SQ is outstanding:

Patricia Barber: Cafe Blue
Jacintha: Lush Life
Al Dimeola, John McLaughlin, Paco Delucia: Friday Night in San Francisco
Chris Botti: Night Sessions

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Also check out Chesky Records....

McCoy Tyner: New York Reunion
Four Generations of Miles - various
Marta Gomez for Columbian flavored jazz
Anything by Clark Terry and anything by Paquita D'Rivera (cuban jazz)

I also like John Pizzarelli My Blue Heaven quite a bit.

 

[Ted Todorov]

Great recommendations! I have many of those albums on CD, and you guys have impeccable taste

Two questions - -which are the greatest improvements from the Redbook CDs? (I know that many of the above albums have had multiple editions, and there is huge difference between one CD & the next).

Where do you shop? My brief foray into the world of SACD has been a revelation in terms of sound quality, and a bitter disappointment in terms of what is out there (and for what prices). No wonder the format is dead :frowning:

Amazon seems to sell at list price e.g.$28.99 for "Waltz for Debby" -- I mean does it include sexual favors along with the SACD? And the selection at DeepDiscountCD is pathetic.

I walked into J&R, if they had jazz SACD I sure couldn't find them. And their classical selection is pathetic.

Anyway, any shopping tips are appreciated.

 

[Perry Jonkheer]

I have found Amazon to be cheaper than my local B&M stores...

 

[Rich Malloy]

I know... Analog Productions discs are every bit as expensive as Mofi's. It's a shame, really, but I have to say "Waltz for Debby" is one of the most wunnerful sounding live jazz discs I've heard (and the music is amazing). The Sony discs are a better deal, and also sound great.

Ted, I noticed you were asking for classical recommendations in another thread, and for this there are great bargains to be found! Most notably, all the RCA Living Stereo releases, which are $8.99 at Tower when first released (not sure when the next wave is coming), and then $11.99 thereafter (and maybe even better deals elsewhere, CD Universe, DDCD, and the like). Not only are these brilliantly recorded -- some of the very first stereo recordings, many in three-track -- but they are also some of the best performances ever! I'd simply do a search on the RCA Living Stereo SACDs, and pick your favorites... they're not all at the highest level, but there's not a clunker in the bunch that I've heard. All in all, probably the best series of SACDs ever released, and definitely for the price.

 

[Mike Broadman]

A lot of the SACDs issued by Analogue Productions of classic jazz have been re-issued a lot as K-20 and XRCD and other such fancy releases. The SACD is priced the same as the XRCDs and are about the same price but sound better.

For the Columbia SACDs, the redbooks have been remastered and usually sound great. Since the SACDs are not hybrids it is logical to just get the remastered redbooks unless the SACD has a surround track. This has generally been my approach with a few exceptions here and there.

The Fantasy SACDs are priced like regular CDs and therefore are usually the best bargains. Their work is usually not as spectacular as AP, but I wouldn't go so far as to call AP's sonics $15 better either. This is why Fantasy is now my favorite SACD shop and I constantly eagerly await news of their releases.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Indeed Fantasy is a deal since many of their titles were recorded by Roy DuNann who for my money blows Rudy Van Gelder away...the mastering is almost as good on many discs as APO.

 

[Ted Todorov]

What about SACDs of new stuff that was natively recording in DSD? All the we've been talking about have been analog recordings.

I though that most new classical recordings were digital -- do they record in DSD?

Ted

 

[PaulDA]

many of the new classical recording on SACD are in DSD, particularly Telarc.

 

[Rich Malloy]

Certainly, Ted, there are pure DSD recordings, notably the Mahler symphonies from the SFO among others.

But I privilege great performances over DSD purity, which is not to say that a few of the latter aren't fantastic performances, including many of the SFO-Mahlers and several Telarcs.

But I find that I listen to them quite rarely compared to, for example, the RCA Living Stereo and Mercury Living Presence recordings. The music is still king, and a bland performance won't get any better just for being in DSD. But don't think you're losing sound quality: for my money, those early RCA and Mercury's with their minimal miking sound so much richer and more musical than a good many of the pure DSD recordings. Yes, there's the occasional hiss and the textures aren't quite as rich and present as a pure DSD recording would deliver, but they still sound absolutely phenomenal.

And listening to those three-channel stereo recordings... well, let me say that I've had to moderate my anti-center channel views, at least with regard to original 3-channel recordings. They sound phenomenal.

 

[Mike Broadman]

I believe the Chick Corea 3 disc live set, Rendezvous, was a live pure-DSD recording, and it's fantastic. Lots of duets and oollaborations as a celebration of his career.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Almost as good as pure DSD are the analog to DSD recordings. Many of the Chesky jazz SACDs fall into this category.

I believe that the 88s jazz recordings are pure DSD unless I'm mistaken.