Jazz

Crosspost from the Pre-Order thread:

DJ-Kicks - Kamaal Williams
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Kamaal Williams - DJ-Kicks - Kamaal Williams. Vinyl LP, CD. Bleep.

Buy DJ-Kicks - Kamaal Williams by Kamaal Williams on Bleep. Available on Vinyl LP, CD. Download MP3, WAV, FLAC.
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papaharzi said:
I hope this is the right place to add my request...

I've received my first Tone-Poet pressing yesterday (Lee Morgan - Cornbread), and I'm stunned, the whole package is superb. The gatefold cover, the quality of the vinyl, and most importantely the sound. For me it is fantastic.

I'm really just starting to get into jazz, and with every new record my fascination increases. Good for my vinyl collection, bad for my wallet.

I do have quite a good stereo system, which on one hand delivers superb sound quality, however, on the other side is quite revealing in terms of bad pressings, bad recordings, bad mastering or any other issues with the source material. Saying that I need and want good pressings to fully enjoy the whole package. And I do not collect records just for the sake of having a big valueable collection, no, I get myself albums/recordings for the sake of listening to them.

Long story short, I'm looking for good affordable pressings of some albums on my want-list, preferably M/NM. I hope you guys can help me out. I already learned the hard way with labels like DOL and WaxTime, and with the crappy BlueNote 75th anniversary series. That stuff won't end up anymore in my collection. I know about Speakers Corner Records, Analogue Productions, Music Matters and some japanese pressings. But most of those are out of my financial reach at the moment, unfortunately.

At the moment I'm looking for following albums:
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Moanin
Cannonball Adderley - Somethin' Else
Charles Mingus - Mingus Ah Um
Dexter Gordon - Go
Hank Mobley - Soul Station
John Coltrane - Blue Train
Kenny Burrell - Midnight Blue
Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder
Oscar Peterson Trio - Night Train

Would be awesome to get some recommendations here... thanks in advance...
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Check out the DeAgostini Jazz at 33 1/3 series for quite a few of those albums. They are cheap (especially if you are in Europe) and I think they sound quite nice for the price. Soul Station, Go, Blue Train and I believe they might have done Night Train but I can’t remember off the top of my head.

Moanin seems to be a bit difficult to get a good pressing for a cheaper price since it is popular. In terms of older pressings, I usually just look for Van Gelder in the dead wax. I also agree with @Selaws in that you can often buy an early pressing of Blue Notes that may be marked VG (as Long as there are no feelable scratches) and they still play very nicely.

The BN 80 and Tone Poets are great as others have said but they seem to be more expensive in Europe. I’d stay away from the BN 75th series personally.
 
This might be of interest to some of you. Its a 'hidden jazz club' which uses pop-up spaces. Tickets are really really sought after and sell out pretty quick. The announce the musicians on the day of the event (Binker Golding is a regular) and its an intimate setting (the one in the link is the waterloo, London location - a small stepped space in the vault below a railway line. Its voted in the top 5 Airbnb global experiences which is pretty damn impressive. Lots of location and it sounds like theres a new location in Paris, @Skalap

Waterloo Hidden Jazz Club - Airbnb
 
Selaws said:
This might be of interest to some of you. Its a 'hidden jazz club' which uses pop-up spaces. Tickets are really really sought after and sell out pretty quick. The announce the musicians on the day of the event (Binker Golding is a regular) and its an intimate setting (the one in the link is the waterloo, London location - a small stepped space in the vault below a railway line. Its voted in the top 5 Airbnb global experiences which is pretty damn impressive. Lots of location and it sounds like theres a new location in Paris, @Skalap

Waterloo Hidden Jazz Club - Airbnb
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Thanks! I'll give a better look at this later today :)
 
Thanks guys for your answers

Mr Moore said:
For guaranteed good quality presses at decent prices of these classic titles I really have found the Japanese imports the best way to go. I look out for them on eBay and they tend to run between £20-£30 each (often less if they are missing the OBI and/or insert) in the UK when they crop up. King are suggested to be superior to Toshiba but I've honestly found them both to be stellar in both sonics and packaging.
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That sounds like a really good idea. So far I've only checked Discogs for those japanese pressings, and they do have quite a high price when shipping gets included. But I'll check eBay as well.

I do have one japan pressing, which I got cheaply on a convention, nearly new including OBI (Charlie Rouse - Bossa Nova Bacchanal), it sounds fantastic...

kafunis said:
Music on Vinyl have a good Mingus,some of the Blue Note 75 were alright, but I don’t have any of those other records on BN75, if you get from amazon you can always return if they are a dud. You could pick up most of those titles on CD for cheap if you don’t want to spend the big money for Audio pressings, maybe that’s an option and if you find something that you love than spring for a good pressing of that, or listen on YouTube /streaming if you just want to check out a particular album.
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I do have a couple of Music On Vinyl releases, that sound really good for the money, I'll try to get that Mingus pressing. With BN75 I already had my issues, I don't wanna try anymore...

Digitally I use Tidal, I don't even have a CD player 😁 But I wanna have my favourite music on vinyl, since it is a complete different listening experience for me.

Selaws said:
I would certainly check out the current Blue Note 80 series, they’re really good pressings and cheap. Not to purposely go against what @kafunis has said but I personally wasn’t a fan of the BN75 series, they had a lot of issues in sound quality but fortunately they seemed to have upped their game for the BN80.

I completely agree with @Mr Moore, I have a handful of King and Toshiba pressings and they are all unbelievably good. It’s possible to add an alert to eBay and you will get daily emails when new listings are added, so try that and when they pop up for a good price you will be one of the first to know.

I would also add that, especially with Blue Note, a lot of early pressings play incredibly well even with heavy surface marks. As long as the marks aren’t deep, they often are minor in terms of the audio, even with a system that picks up these things. That allows you to pick up records in lower conditions for much cheaper. I often pick up records on certain labels that are considered g+ or vg that play 1 or 2 grades up. Also, unless you prefer the whole package to be in top condition, look out for early pressings which have the record itself in decent condition but with a lower grade sleeve. It’s all about the music after all.
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I'll get my first BN80 in a few days (Kenny Dorham - Una Mas) - can't wait. Tone Poet is awesome too. BN75 - no more.

Yeah, I already heard many good things about the old Blue Note pressings (before they were sold). However, with all records that I've checked so far (mostly more popular ones) the prices for VG+ is above my price range. I'll check again for VG and try that.

kafunis said:
Yes Japanese pressings from the 70’s are great as well, but you mention that you were aware of them but felt they were out of your price range, well worth looking out for and should be quite a bit cheaper without obi.
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I'll take a look out for older japanese pressings as well, thanks.

MikeH said:
Check out the DeAgostini Jazz at 33 1/3 series for quite a few of those albums. They are cheap (especially if you are in Europe) and I think they sound quite nice for the price. Soul Station, Go, Blue Train and I believe they might have done Night Train but I can’t remember off the top of my head.

Moanin seems to be a bit difficult to get a good pressing for a cheaper price since it is popular. In terms of older pressings, I usually just look for Van Gelder in the dead wax. I also agree with @Selaws in that you can often buy an early pressing of Blue Notes that may be marked VG (as Long as there are no feelable scratches) and they still play very nicely.

The BN 80 and Tone Poets are great as others have said but they seem to be more expensive in Europe. I’d stay away from the BN 75th series personally.
Click to expand...

DeAgostini Jazz at 33 1/3 - a very good suggestion, thanks.


Thanks guys for your input, now I do have a lot of things to search for...
 
papaharzi said:
Thanks guys for your answers



That sounds like a really good idea. So far I've only checked Discogs for those japanese pressings, and they do have quite a high price when shipping gets included. But I'll check eBay as well.

I do have one japan pressing, which I got cheaply on a convention, nearly new including OBI (Charlie Rouse - Bossa Nova Bacchanal), it sounds fantastic...



I do have a couple of Music On Vinyl releases, that sound really good for the money, I'll try to get that Mingus pressing. With BN75 I already had my issues, I don't wanna try anymore...

Digitally I use Tidal, I don't even have a CD player 😁 But I wanna have my favourite music on vinyl, since it is a complete different listening experience for me.



I'll get my first BN80 in a few days (Kenny Dorham - Una Mas) - can't wait. Tone Poet is awesome too. BN75 - no more.

Yeah, I already heard many good things about the old Blue Note pressings (before they were sold). However, with all records that I've checked so far (mostly more popular ones) the prices for VG+ is above my price range. I'll check again for VG and try that.



I'll take a look out for older japanese pressings as well, thanks.



DeAgostini Jazz at 33 1/3 - a very good suggestion, thanks.


Thanks guys for your input, now I do have a lot of things to search for...
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I believe Superior Viaduct has put out some nice Mingus as well that is on the cheaper side! Good luck in the hunt!
 
Selaws said:
@phramenma beat me to it, so I will add this to the mix:

Oscar Jerome - Live In Amsterdam. I have been lucky enough to see him perform live a few times now and he is so so so good. I would say that the only other current jazz guitarist to top him is Shirley Tetteh (in my opinion). This should be a great album

Oscar Jerome – Live In Amsterdam | Sounds of the Universe
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Kokoroko's jazz guitar wiz - no further reading necessary... ;)

EDIT: Just learned about a new club in my town and might be seeing him in early November. 🍻
 
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