Nice-sounding CD, and that's a nice photo of Frank in the Capitol Tower studios. But the photo has no relationship to the 1960 album Nice 'n' Easy, and it predates the album recordings by a year-and-a-half. See this post: —> Frank Sinatra recording at the Capitol Tower. Is this how he really did it? Great pics!!
I think he's focusing on that fact that in stealing from previous digital source, they've created something that's yet another step further from the original source. Whether that's a sound that you or anyone else can live with is a whole other matter.
Listening on Spotify now. It's a lot better than anything on the Joe Pass box. I've liked the other Pacific Jazz sets from Mosaic, but I just can't get into the Joe Pass box.
NP Don Wilkerson - Shoutin' (Blue Note) TOCJ cd, part of the Works 4100 Series. W/ Grant Green, John Patton and Ben Dixon.
I usually try to find photos that relate to the recording session. If I don't find any or, as in this case, I don't have expert knowlege on an artist, I try my best to find a picture that's been taken approximately the year as the album's been released. Provided one shares the opinion that duplicating (or stealing) from a digital source means moving one step further from the original source. I don't think so, but I have other reservations about those grey market CDs and LPs. I do acknowledge their attempt (not all PD labels, but some) to release stuff that's never seen a digital release or that hasn't been released in ages. But most of these labels just throw cheap copies of albums on the market that, in terms of artwork, don't even remotely have anything to do with the original album. And the sound, more often than not, is horrid. I think we can agree that a copy from a regular CD should sound at least OK if mastered correctly, but those CDs and LPs from PD labels sound as bad as they look most of the times.
Honestly, I don't know if one can NOT have that feeling. They are taking the remastering work of one label, and merely copying it onto their own CD's. I think basic laws of the universe would dictate that something always ends up getting lost in the conversion. It's almost like you're saying that dubbing an LP to a CD-R will yield the same audio fidelity found on the LP. We already know that going from master tapes to LP causes some loss in the first place. Why wouldn't a similar loss occur on the digital side???
Because cutting an LP is a mechanical process that inevitably causes loss, irrespective of the analog vs digital discussion, whereas copying from a digital source means duplicating a code of something that's already been encoded. It's like copying ten thousand times the same telephone number. As long as you can read it, you'll always end up calling the right person
When you're copying from an existing CD you're also copying the mastering etc. on that CD and not the original source, so it'll always be at least one step further away from the original source. On top of that some public-domain labels "remaster" the mastering they copied, which to my ears does not improve things - and that's putting it mildly
Additionally, the media copied to plays a part. Even if the copying occurs FROM a legitimate well-pressed CD which is more likely to hold the 1's and 0's properly, the copying is TO a cheap CD material usually used in these cases. To cite an almost classic case, how many times have you inspected a CD pressed in Japan and NOT realized that the CD itself was of higher quality than even most legit CD's pressed elsewhere?
I must get this. There seems to be so many issues of it though. Can you, or anyone, care to compare it to any of the other versions? Thanks!
The only other issue i have is the very first cd issue. In comparison that one seems "thick and rich". . . this one seems open and fast. On my system there's no contest, this is the better sounding of the two for my system and tastes. More depth and "air." And it was cheaper, I probably paid twice for the original cd than I did for this new one, and that was twentieth-century dollars at that.
Lee Morgan ~ Charisma Blue Note Liberty, RVG 1969 Recorded in 1966 Trumpet – Lee Morgan Saxophone [Alto] – Jackie McLean Saxophone [Tenor] – Hank Mobley Piano – Cedar Walton Bass – Paul Chambers Drums – Billy Higgins
Red Garland Quartet ~ Solar with Les Spann, Sam Jones and Frank Gant Recorded in January 1962 Jazzland
If they try to remaster the CD, of course the sound will change, and probably be degraded. But it would have to be a masterful incompetence to screw up a simple copying of the data, and pressing that data onto another batch of CDs. And you are not one step further from the source. You are at the same step as the CD release the PD label copied from. The "quality" of the pressing is an issue, though I don't see why a competent modern CD player could not retrieve the data properly and sound equivalent to the original issue CD. Frankly, I have no experience comparing these, so I'm sure opinions will vary. But didn't our host say it is not the pressing that matters, it is the mastering?
Speaking of trumpeters who died too soon (not that there's an optimal time to die or anything), Clifford Brown was just 25 when he died in a car crash. His work here shows why his death was so deeply felt in the jazz world.
