On numerous occasions, listening to a general jazz playlist covers too broad a range of emotions. In these instances I want a playlist that captures the mood perfectly. Over the years I have made several playlists of this sort for my own personal use and now I’m sharing them with you! In addition … More→
Truth be told, these United Artists mono pressings from the early to mid ’70s are hit and miss, having heard more than one that suffered from significant non-fill problems. But this particular copy made it through that inconsistent manufacturing process unscathed. United Artists pressings also seem to have a gentler top end than a lot of… More→
Since its introduction in the 1950s, the stereo audio format has become an inseparable part of listening to recorded music. This two-channel standard has been implemented on such a universal scale, the terms “stereo” and “audio system” are virtually interchangeable today in everyday language. The original theory of sound recording was a little … More→
Deep Groove Mono is very excited to announce the release of a project that has been in the works for quite a while now. After many hours of research and curating, I am releasing my “Showtune Standards” playlist on Spotify! The idea for this playlist came from the realization that many of my … More→
So far on Deep Groove Mono, we’ve covered original pressings, Liberty pressings and early ’70s United Artists pressings of classic albums released by the beloved Blue Note label. This ’70s copy of Hank Mobley’s No Room for Squares with the all-blue label and the white (sometimes black) lowercase “b” logo is more or less… More→
Generally speaking, I don’t know the Impulse catalog very well, and accordingly I have a harder time keeping track of the ‘first-first pressing’ melee associated with the label. Thus I’m not really sure if this is a ‘first-first pressing’ or just a ‘first pressing’, but it has the Van Gelder stamp of approval and, more importantly, it plays… More→
Deep Groove Mono is excited to announce that it is now sharing playlists on Spotify! The idea for this has been brewing for a while now, but the creation of the Thelonious Monk original recordings discography prompted me to create a Spotify playlist for the recordings in that database and to share it … More→
When I first began listening to Thelonious Monk, it didn’t take me long to pick out my favorite songs. As I explored his discography more though, I realized that he recorded most of his compositions multiple times over the course of his life. Wanting to hear every version of each, I created a … More→
Although Liberty pressings of most classic Blue Note albums are not original pressings, they still have the potential to sound great. They may lack the Plastylite “P” found in the runout groove of most originals but they do usually brandish the Van Gelder stamp in the runout groove, indicating that they were made from the same master lacquer… More→
After a couple years of collecting on a budget, the reality of the situation starts to sink in: you won’t be acquiring a first pressing of a holy grail like Kenny Dorham’s Quiet Kenny any time soon. What makes an album a holy grail? Simply put, a combination of being very rare and very in demand. More specifically, in the case of this… More→