Jazz

Portland Sheriff said:
Does anyone have any experience w/ the reissues by Jazz Workshop? Seems like a legit label and there are some positive comments on Discogs. I’m looking at Mal Waldron “The Quest,” which has two “sounds great to me” reviews.

I know they’re going to be digitally sourced, and I’m not expecting audiophile reissue quality, but that’s not a requirement for me. For example, I’ve been happy w/ the couple Music on Vinyl reissues I have (most recently, Monk Straight, No Chaser), and MOV is not AAA or grouped w/ the usual-suspect audiophile labels.
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If I'm not mistaken this is the Spanish label? I have seen quite a few UK based people post these over on a Facebook group, but to be honest I believe they make use of the dodgy European licencing laws to get around not paying the artist's families or labels, essentially grey labels. I imagine they are CD sourced but don't quote me on that.
 
Totally a grey market label taking advantage of out of copyright titles. No royalties or licensing fees are paid.

Obviously, grey market labels cannot get access to master tapes of even digital copies. They have to resort to commercially available sources. Those may be CD, but more often than not are needle drops, because the CD version is still well under copyright protection, while the original vinyl pressings are not.
 
For those who haven’t seen the craft Contemporary series leaked so far, here’s a little more info:

Contemporary Records Acoustic Sounds Series
Six key albums from the Contemporary Records catalog reissued on 180-gram vinyl!

Titles featuring Art Pepper, Barney Kessel, Benny Carter, Hampton Hawes and Shelly Manne
Featuring all-analog mastering by Bernie Grundman
Pressed at Quality Record Pressings

Stoughton Printing gatefold old-style tip-on jackets

Continuing Craft Recordings' 70th Anniversary celebration of Contemporary Records!

Craft Recordings and Acoustic Sounds are proud to announce the Contemporary Records Acoustic Sounds series, which begins with six album releases from the Contemporary Records catalog, celebrating 70 years of the legendary jazz label. The releases are supervised by Chad Kassem, CEO of Acoustic Sounds, the world's largest source for audiophile recordings.

Each title, originally engineered by Roy DuNann and/or Howard Holzer, features all-analog mastering from the original tapes by legendary engineer Bernie Grundman (himself a former employee of the label), as well as unsurpassed audiophile pressing on 180-gram vinyl at Quality Record Pressings, presented in a Stoughton Printing old-style tip-on jacket.

The series highlights gems from Contemporary's extraordinary catalog and features artists who both defined and expanded the sound of West Coast jazz.

@JohnnyCashFan
 
Selaws said:
If I'm not mistaken this is the Spanish label? I have seen quite a few UK based people post these over on a Facebook group, but to be honest I believe they make use of the dodgy European licencing laws to get around not paying the artist's families or labels, essentially grey labels. I imagine they are CD sourced but don't quote me on that.
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Yeah, they can be mastered from CDs. From a Jazztimes article:

“Lower-quality EU-based labels have no access to master tapes and thus use questionable digital sources, including CDs. … High-quality EU labels including SAM, Speakers Corner, Gearbox, and Alto Analogue also cut vinyl from master tapes. But if cost is an issue, consider product from these inexpensive, digital-to-vinyl labels: Wax Love, Wax Time, Jazz Images (which creates beautiful alternate album covers using rare photos), Jazz Wax, DOL, Vinyl Lovers, Doxy (not Sonny Rollins’ label), Vinyl Passion, Jazz Time, Green Corner, and Pan Am.”

Personally, I don’t plan to ever buy another DOL pressing again. It’s a Russian outfit long suspected of using CDs to master vinyl records. I did slip up and buy a DOL copy of Kenny Burrell’s “Midnight Blue”. The Blue Note Classic reissue is far superior.

jazztimes.com

Jazz and the Vinyl Renaissance - JazzTimes

Ken Micallef examines jazz and the vinyl renaissance, explains the controversy over digitizing, and offers practical tips for would-be LP collectors.
jazztimes.com jazztimes.com
 
Angsty said:
Yeah, they can be mastered from CDs. From a Jazztimes article:

“Lower-quality EU-based labels have no access to master tapes and thus use questionable digital sources, including CDs. … High-quality EU labels including SAM, Speakers Corner, Gearbox, and Alto Analogue also cut vinyl from master tapes. But if cost is an issue, consider product from these inexpensive, digital-to-vinyl labels: Wax Love, Wax Time, Jazz Images (which creates beautiful alternate album covers using rare photos), Jazz Wax, DOL, Vinyl Lovers, Doxy (not Sonny Rollins’ label), Vinyl Passion, Jazz Time, Green Corner, and Pan Am.”

Personally, I don’t plan to ever buy another DOL pressing again. It’s a Russian outfit long suspected of using CDs to master vinyl records. I did slip up and buy a DOL copy of Kenny Burrell’s “Midnight Blue”. The Blue Note Classic reissue is far superior.

jazztimes.com

Jazz and the Vinyl Renaissance - JazzTimes

Ken Micallef examines jazz and the vinyl renaissance, explains the controversy over digitizing, and offers practical tips for would-be LP collectors.
jazztimes.com jazztimes.com
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Now I know why I don't pay attention to Jazztimes. Recommending straight up unauthorized pressings with no royalty payments? Basically - bootlegs? Fuck that, if cost is an issue, stick to CD.

Jazztimes is stupid. ANY label, no matter how big or small, no matter where it is located, has access to licensed high resolution digital transfers at minimum. They just have to pay for it. It isn't a question of being able to access. It is a matter of theft.

And Jazz Images creates "beautiful alternate album covers" using images taken from the internet, again without payment. Beautiful!
 
One only needs to watch a few Ken Micallef YouTube videos to understand how someone that knowledgeable and deep into jazz record collecting/listening/selling is still capable of spewing that kind of garbage about those kinds of labels.

Thanks for the feedback on my initial question. I’d read somewhere that Jazz Workshop does pay royalties, but I can’t remember where and won’t buy from them unless I’m certain.
 
RHANDMJ said:
Now I know why I don't pay attention to Jazztimes. Recommending straight up unauthorized pressings with no royalty payments? Basically - bootlegs? Fuck that, if cost is an issue, stick to CD.

Jazztimes is stupid. ANY label, no matter how big or small, no matter where it is located, has access to licensed high resolution digital transfers at minimum. They just have to pay for it. It isn't a question of being able to access. It is a matter of theft.

And Jazz Images creates "beautiful alternate album covers" using images taken from the internet, again without payment. Beautiful!
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From the looks of the “Jazz Connection” repress, I’d guess that they paid for the images if not the music. The cover looks a whole lot nicer than the original album.

Amazon product ASIN B083WBM4N2
 
Angsty said:
From the looks of the “Jazz Connection” repress, I’d guess that they paid for the images if not the music. The cover looks a whole lot nicer than the original album.

Amazon product ASIN B083WBM4N2
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By original, are you referring to Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers With Thelonious Monk? The Francis Wolff photos they stole for the cover have nothing to do with that well known session, which was done for Atlantic, not Blue Note. To each their own, I prefer original art to cut & paste photoshop jobs.

The Analog Spark vinyl is the way to go.
 
RHANDMJ said:
By original, are you referring to Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers With Thelonious Monk? The Francis Wolff photos they stole for the cover have nothing to do with that well known session, which was done for Atlantic, not Blue Note. To each their own, I prefer original art to cut & paste photoshop jobs.

The Analog Spark vinyl is the way to go.
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Yes, I am referring to that album. I was not addressing the session authenticity of the photos, just the visual design. The album cover caught my eye to the extent that I had to research “Jazz Connection” only to realize that I already owned the album under a different name!
 
Angsty said:
Yes, I am referring to that album. I was not addressing the session authenticity of the photos, just the visual design. The album cover caught my eye to the extent that I had to research “Jazz Connection” only to realize that I already owned the album under a different name!
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Francis Wolff photos will do that. You probably already have a superior sounding copy.
 
RHANDMJ said:
Yes. Hugely.

First, virtually all heavily compressed CD's sound better on vinyl simply because the cutting engineer must use the uncompressed master file. That is a massive advantage.

Second, vinyl, even if digitally sourced, just sounds better. Even the best digital filters are not as good as the simple analog vinyl signal. So getting that filter out of the way is a big advantage.

Third, CD is 16/44 limited. Vinyl sourced from digital will virtually always use a higher resolution file. It could be a 24/48 file (new recordings typically) or a 24/192 transfer from analog. Higher resolution digitally sourced vinyl is better than lo-res CD.

By the way, do you really do shootouts? I do comparisons, but don't get militaristic about it and go shooting anything!;)
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I would recommend checking out the Caropop podcast with Bernie Grundman. I was listening to that last night and he goes into great detail about this topic and really geeks out on the technical side of this. I was reminded of a signal processing course I took ages back with respect to the sampling rate and transients.

Bernie's opinion was that if the digital is well recorded/mastered working with it for Vinyl is great. He might even prefer that sometimes. His conclusion is that "it depends" - the reproduction you are looking for and how it serves the music is key in this regard. Due to the nature of discrete sampling instruments are going to sound a bit more direct but having that sort of fidelity can also be a good thing.

He does deviate thereafter and suggest that you can never have a perfect Vinyl pressing, that pressing plants impact the sound and it's very inconsistent, the cost is high and you're limited in terms of convenience. He therefore ended up advocating for CDs and said he would prefer that in many cases.
 
This one really intrigues me…wish it was cheaper…

us.mrbongo.com

Steve Kuhn – Vinyl LP

Buy from Mr Bongo, shipping worldwide. Ascensionale Records re-issue of Steve Kuhn sought-after self-titled album from 1971, which features Airto & Ron Carter; we recommended. Please note this album is cut at 45 rpm. A1. Pearlie's Swine / A2. Silver / A3. Time To Go / A4. The Heat Of The Moment...
us.mrbongo.com us.mrbongo.com
 
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