Tag Archives: deep groove

Vinyl Spotlight: The Randy Weston Trio (Riverside 2515) Original 10″ Pressing

Collection Favorites >

Personnel:

  • Randy Weston, piano
  • Sam Gill, bass
  • Art Blakey, drums

Recorded January 25, 1955 at Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey

1 Zulu
2 Pam’s Waltz
3 Solemn Meditation
4 Again
5 If You Could See Me Now
6 Sweet Sue

Selection:

“Zulu” (Weston)

About a year ago when I first sat down to work on my Rudy Van Gelder presentation, I compiled a playlist on Spotify of albums the engineer recorded that I had yet to hear. Among those were about a dozen recordings done between 1953 and 1955. Unlike other Van Gelder dates from around this time that are drenched in spring reverb, these recordings feature the dry room sound of Van Gelder’s Hackensack living room, an entirely unique sonic signature that you won’t hear coming out of any other recording studio at that time.

Among those albums was this set by Brooklyn pianist Randy Weston, a giant of the keyboard and, standing six-foot-seven, a giant in real life too. In a way, this is “the poor man’s Herbie Nichols”. I don’t mean to discredit Weston in any way when I say that, nor to make any sort of pseudo-scholarly comparison of the two, but while this LP costed a fraction of what an original Nichols ten-inch on Blue Note would (catalog numbers 5068/9), it boasts the same smokey sound, which surely has much to do with the fact that the albums were only recorded four months apart in 1955 and both are Hackensack trio dates featuring Art Blakey on drums.

These early Riverside ten-inches weren’t mastered very hot, so I was lucky to find a clean and quiet copy. And while Van Gelder did not master this album, he manages to make himself heard as the date’s recording engineer nonetheless.

I recently finished Robin Kelley’s Thelonious Monk biography and was delighted to learn of Monk’s close relationship with Weston. I don’t necessarily hear an influence of one on the other, but I’m not a jazz scholar either. My favorite tracks here are the more upbeat ones where Blakey favors sticks over brushes (“Zulu”, “Sweet Sue”, “Solemn Meditation”). Hopefully as I continue to expand my modern jazz palette I will find more gems like this from the early to mid ’50s, an era in the music’s recorded history that has perhaps been somewhat overlooked due to the fact that the classic twelve-inch LP format hadn’t yet arrived as the industry standard.

Vinyl Spotlight: Tal Farlow Quartet (Blue Note 5042) Original 10″ Pressing

Collection Favorites >

Personnel:

  • Tal Farlow, guitar
  • Don Amone, guitar
  • Clyde Lombardi, bass
  • Joe Morello, drums

Recorded May 11, 1954 at Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey
Originally released August 1954

1 Lover
2 Flamingo
3 Splash
4 Rock ‘n’ Rye
5 All Through the Night
6 Tina

Selection:

“Rock ‘N’ Rye” (Farlow)

For Collectors

I don’t exactly remember what piqued my interest in this LP. I think it started when I came across a copy of Gil Melle Quintet, Volume 2. Tal Farlow is on that LP. I also think I was just getting into ten-inch LPs and Rudy Van Gelder’s earliest Hackensack recordings. This album is rare in any format. On Spotify there’s only one track buried in an obscure Farlow compilation, and only two tracks are readily available on YouTube. But the tracks I was able to preview sounded good so I sought the album out. White guys playing jazz guitar may have originally steered me clear of a record like this back when I was an ignorant novice collector, but I’m glad I got over my preconceptions and gave this album a chance.

I originally bid on a vinyl-only (no jacket) copy of this last summer on eBay. Though it was described EX, once I got it I only graded it strong VG. But I got such a good deal it didn’t matter (I did, however, politely share my opinion of the seller’s grading with them). Then last month, I caught the collecting bug (yet again), and in the midst of doing some virtual shopping I searched Discogs for a copy that might have a nice jacket. It turned out that the only copy for sale on there had VG vinyl and a VG+ jacket, and not only that, the seller’s store was a 20-minute bus ride away from me in Queens. So I headed out to Ridgewood that weekend and got the record at a discount. A couple weeks later I sold the vinyl from that copy to break even on what I originally paid for the first record, and universal balance had once again been restored.

I’d only grade this vinyl, the original vinyl, strong VG visually, and it has a few pops here and there but nothing repetitive so it is indeed a very strong VG; playback is VG+ for the most part — groove wear is rarer on records like these with quieter arrangements — and I’m very happy to have this record for the price I paid.

For Music Lovers

This is a gorgeous early Hackensack living room recording from April 1954, and additionally a unique quartet combo of two guitars, bass, and drums. It is also one of those rare records that I genuinely enjoy listening to from start to finish. The Farlow compositions (“Splash”, “Rock ‘N’ Rye”, “Tina”) are buoyant bits of songwriting. “Rock ‘N’ Rye” listens like a jazz song with a hook, and employs fun use of artificial reverb at the end to make it sound like Farlow and co-guitarist Don Amone are retreating to a cave to jam the night away whilst never abandoning their instruments. “Flamingo”, the record’s ballad, is a sweet tune where Farlow puts his virtuous playing down for a take, opting for some pretty, minimalist plucking. The album is cool and quiet but manages to remain generally upbeat and thus makes for good listening in a multitude of settings.

If you’re interested in owning a copy, a relatively rare United Artists ten-inch pressing from the ‘70s exists. Perhaps it will be a bit easier to acquire one of the Japanese Toshiba reissues from the ‘90s, either the twelve-inch or ten-inch version. Japan also reissued the album on CD. Unfortunately, my understanding is that all of these reissues embody some measure of master tape issues, but options are obviously limited to listen to this great music.

Vinyl Spotlight: Workin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet (Prestige 7166) Original Pressing

Collection Favorites >
  • Original 1959 pressing
  • “Bergenfield, N.J.” address on both labels
  • Deep groove both sides
  • “RVG” stamped in dead wax

Personnel:

  • Miles Davis, trumpet
  • John Coltrane, tenor saxophone
  • Red Garland, piano
  • Paul Chambers, bass
  • Philly Joe Jones, drums

All tracks except “Half Nelson” recorded May 11, 1956
“Half Nelson” recorded October 26, 1956
All tracks recorded at Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey
Originally released December 1959

1 It Never Entered My Mind
2 Four
3 In Your Own Sweet Way
4 The Theme [Take 1]
5 Trane’s Blues
6 Ahmad’s Blues
7 Half Nelson
8 The Theme [Take 2]

Selections:

“It Never Entered My Mind” (Rodgers-Hart)

“Four” (Davis)

This hobby is all about patience. Several years back, a friend of mine who is almost exclusively a collector of rock and disco twelve-inches randomly scored an EX original pressing of this album for 30 bucks at a shop in Troy, New York, just a 15-minute drive up the Hudson from my native Albany. Try as I have to pry it from his hands over the years, he’s never budged. A pinch of jealousy toward his steal may have then influenced me in the coming years to pass up countless copies of this album that I felt weren’t the right combination of condition and price (I don’t think I’ve ever seen a copy of this album for $30 in any condition). Recently I finally found a VG+ copy that, while priced over double what my friend paid, was still fair nonetheless. Upon previewing playback at the store, I found a passage of very light ticks in one spot, but after running the record through my Spin Clean, I was astonished to find that the ticks went away. (As much as I adore the Spin Clean, this was a first!)

Being one of four legendary albums Miles and company recorded for Prestige in 1956 in order to quickly fulfill his contract with the label before moving over to Columbia, this copy of Workin’ now complements my copy of Cookin’ (Relaxin’ and Steamin’ I can take or leave). These recordings represent a “sweet spot” in engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s tenure at his Hackensack, New Jersey home recording studio: lifelike mono sound that creates a natural sense of space with instruments balanced to perfection. “It Never Entered My Mind”, a patented, gorgeous Miles ballad complete with the sweet sounds of the leader’s muted trumpet, will perk up the ears of just about any music lover (my rock-and-disco-collecting friend included), and “Four” has all the ingredients of a hard bop classic. As with Cookin’, Philly Joe Jones’ drums sound incredibly natural at times and thunderous at others, and I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of the more structured style of improvisation John Coltrane sported in 1956. This combination of world-class musicianship paired with a charming, minimalist monophonic presentation firmly places these sessions near the top of my list of favorites.

Vinyl Spotlight: Olio (Prestige 7084) Original Pressing

  • Original 1957 pressing
  • “446 W. 50th ST., N.Y.C.” on both labels
  • Deep grooves on both sides
  • “RVG” stamped in dead wax

Personnel:

  • Thad Jones, trumpet
  • Frank Wess, flute & tenor saxophone
  • Teddy Charles, vibraphone
  • Mal Waldron, piano
  • Doug Watkins, bass
  • Elvin Jones, drums

Recorded February 16, 1957 at Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey
Originally released in 1957

Selection:

“Blues Without Woe” (Charles)

It’s rare that I hang on to a record in VG condition, but this record has a couple things working for it: 1. Despite the pops and ticks, it has no groove wear, 2. I got it for (the vintage jazz record collecting equivalent of) a dollar bin price, and 3. The music and performances are both spectacular. Like my copies of Saxophone Colossus and Coltrane Live at Birdland, this was a “jazz genre section” find. Unfamiliar with the music, the price tag made me walk it over to the listening station to give it a try, and I wasn’t expecting such great performances and such a sweet sound.

For several months I grappled with the choice of keeping it or selling it, and lately I decided it’s here to stay. The compositions are all top-notch, mostly written by the tag team of Teddy Charles and Mal Waldron. The sound of the recording hearkens back to the days of lo-fi recording, drums softly set back in the mix (although the bass is maybe a little too low) and the soloists are loud and clear up front, providing a unique take on late 1950s jazz recordings. And the solos are fantastic, from “leader” Thad Jones (the leader of these Prestige “jam sessions” is never clear, save their name being first on the cover) to Charles to Waldron to the most gifted Frank Wess, who plays with a breathiness undeniably reminiscent of Lester Young. Thad Jones had a unique tone and was inventive on the level of Sonny Rollins, and Frank Wess plays with unbeatable swing (this record made me realize what I miss with the avant-garde: swing). We also get to hear a young, swinging Elvin Jones on drums, a rare occasion considering the splashy, liberated rhythmic style he would develop and own in the post bop era of the ’60s. Everyone is on point when it’s their time to shine, and though these Prestige dates often get a bad rep for lacking the care and preparation that went into sessions on labels like Blue Note, one can’t help but conclude that this group knew what they were doing when they stepped into the studio that day.

The album maintains a high quality of writing and musicianship throughout. Opening with “Potpourri”, which features Frank Wess on flute, the group then shifts to “Blues Without Woe”, an uptempo hard bop masterpiece. The first side concludes with “Touché”, a lazy summer jazz walk most exemplified by the harmony of Charles’ vibes and Wess’ flute. Side two opens with “Dakar”, a Charles composition with harmonic chaos in the spirit of Thelonious Monk’s “Evidence”. From there the band slows things down with a reading of the Gershwin standard “Embraceable You”. Thad Jones is his usual ballad-sweet self, and Wess plays a resonating, breathy solo. The album’s final cut, Charles’ “Hello Frisco”, ends things without exclamation, though we still get an inspired solo from Waldron, a pianist who we hear tirelessly working out ideas record after record.

At the end of the day, a cheap original pressing that plays without groove wear or skips is a record worth listening to, especially if the music and performances are as captivating as they are here.

Vinyl Spotlight: George Wallington Showcase (Blue Note 5045) Original 10″ Pressing

Collection Favorites >
  • Original 1954 pressing
  • “767 Lexington Ave NYC” on both labels
  • Deep groove both sides
  • Plastylite “P” and “RVG” etched in dead wax

Personnel:

  • Dave Burns, trumpet
  • James Cleveland, trombone
  • Frank Foster, tenor saxophone
  • Danny Bank, baritone saxophone
  • George Wallington, piano
  • Oscar Pettiford, bass
  • Kenny Clarke, drums

Recorded May 12, 1954 at Audio-Video Studios, New York City
Originally released November 1954

1 Frankie and Johnnie
2 Baby Grand
3 Christina
4 Summertime
5 Festival
6 Bumpkins

Selections:

“Baby Grand” (Wallington)

“Summertime” (Gershwin)

For Collectors and Engineering Nerds

I am fascinated by the extent to which even a mere encounter with an original pressing of a jazz record can heighten my interest in the music. My first experience with classic Blue Note LPs came by way of the Blue Note album cover book and later the website Vintage Vanguard, hosted by what is assumed to be a Japanese collector who has long owned every Blue Note LP in the 5000, 1500, and 4000 series. It was then that I first came across the super-hep cover art for this album. Its typography, artwork, and bold teal background — clearly a byproduct of the early modern art movement of the early 1950s — was a style unlike the minimalist design and sans-serif fonts of Reid Miles’ later work for the label. Although I have grown to adore the ways in which the former style contrasts with the latter, it was an aesthetic that took some time to warm up to. Through all this, I couldn’t begin to imagine a cooler looking cat than Wallington as he appears on this cover. Cigarette in hand, the septet leader was 29 at the time of recording but somehow manages to not look a day over 19, his crew cut and small-check shirt a proclamation of his “in-ness”.

A rare album in any format, I kept it on my radar for many years simply on the strength of the cover art without having ever actually heard it. That changed when I saw an original pressing on the wall of a local shop last summer. It looked clean and the price seemed fair but it still made me proceed with caution. When I got home later I scoured the web for sound clips. Nothing on Spotify, but a few songs appeared sporadically on YouTube. Though I’m not usually a fan of bigger bands, I gave this album a chance and it grew on me after several listens. But when I went back to the store the next day to audition the record, I found a series of loud ticks in one spot so I decided it wasn’t worth the (EX) asking price.

Days later I had a twelve-inch Japanese reissue in my hands by way of another local store, and I have fond memories of playing that copy on many late mornings last summer (“Summertime” being the obvious mood-setter). But I never liked the way Michael Cuscuna arranged the track listings on these reissues, the outtakes of which aren’t included at the end of the original program but placed back-to-back with their respective counterparts. Needless to say, this made for repetitive listening away from the turntable so I eventually got my hands on the ten-inch Japanese reissue, which only included the original program.

The story of how I acquired this particular copy is unfortunately not as fun as others I’ve told of late and can be reduced to a single four-letter word: eBay (womp womp). The seller graded both jacket and record VG+. Normally being skeptical of this grade, I noticed that the auction ended on a weekday afternoon and the seller accepted returns so I decided to take a chance. Later that week I emerged victorious for about 60% of my high bid.

When the LP arrived days later, I was pleased to find that it was conservatively graded. There were some marks but it played through most without a sound, and I was floored by the fidelity. The sound was magnetic, and I’ve played it countless times since. The instrument balance is exceptional (Leonard Feather, responsible for the album’s liner notes, was not known to comment on recording quality but here even he agrees). It is also a very dynamic recording, each soloists loudest notes really jumping out of the speaker, and the space it creates sounds very natural with no artificial reverb added.

Though it is one of the earliest Blue Note titles to bear Rudy Van Gelder’s initials in the dead wax (an indication that the LP was mastered by him), it was not laid to tape by the mastermind engineer. Though the label had recorded with Van Gelder as early as March 1952 (BLP 5020, Gil Melle Quintet/Sextet), Blue Note regularly rotated between a few recording studios through 1953. The New York City locations included radio station WOR and a studio run by the obscure Audio and Video Products Corporation, also known as “Audio-Video Studios”. The last time Blue Note recorded at WOR was in November 1953 (BLP 5034, Horace Silver Trio Volume 2), and from that point on the label almost exclusively used Van Gelder with a few exceptions. Aside from this Wallington date, recorded at Audio-Video in May 1954, Blue Note recorded there again in March 1956 (BLP 1513, Thad Jones’ Detroit-New York Junction, and BLP 1543, Kenny Burrell Volume 2). Perhaps there was a leak in the Hackensack roof in March ’56, though I’m willing to bet that the size of the Wallington band forced them out of Van Gelder’s Hackensack living room and into a larger space back in ’54.

Not much is known about Audio-Video Studios. It appears to have been located on the corner of East 57th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and Oliver Summerlin, co-founder of Pulse Techniques, Inc. (makers of the legendary Pultec EQP-1 equalizer), was an employee or perhaps even owner of the studio as early as 1949 (sources: Horning’s Chasing the Sound and reevesaudio.com). Other than that, I’ve come to realize that the following famous photo of Clifford Brown was taken by Francis Wolff at the studio on August 28, 1953 during the recording of BLP 5032, Clifford Brown: New Star on the Horizon.

Clifford Brown at Audio-Video Studios in 1953

For Music Lovers

I became familiar with George Wallington first by acquiring an original pressing of Jazz for the Carriage Trade (Prestige 7032). From there I acquired the Original Jazz Classics CD reissue of George Wallington Quintet at the Bohemia, extremely rare in its original form and originally released by the short-lived Progressive label in 1955. Preceding the others, Showcase was arranged by a 21 year-old Quincy Jones, who met Wallington when they both were playing in Lionel Hampton’s band during a European tour the year before. Jones contributed the swinging “Bumpkins” to this set, with Wallington penning the rest, save the traditional “Frankie and Johnnie” and “Summertime”, a Gershwin standard that gets a reading in the lineage of the “cool” here. “Baby Grand” and “Festival”, the album’s most upbeat tunes, feature standout solos by tenor saxophonist Frank Foster, who cuts through the mix with pinpoint accuracy. Slowing things way down at the end of side 1, “Christina” is a quiet, sweet ballad named after the three year-old daughter of jazz publicist Virginia Wicks.

Quincy Jones

The album has proved a delightful listen start to finish and has resonated with me on many levels. It tastefully tows the line between swing and bop throughout, making it a refreshing break from the hard bop sets that comprise most of my collection. There’s not a weak track on either side — I had a very difficult time narrowing my selections down to three. The band sounds incredibly tight and must have been well rehearsed before they stepped into the studio that day. I also appreciate the limitations of the ten-inch format as reflected in how succinct all the takes are. Surely a carryover from the 78 era and that format’s very short runtime of three-and-a-half minutes tops, in 1954 bands must have still been in the mentality of making every musical statement count with efficiency and precision, something that wouldn’t change until the twelve-inch LP format became the standard the following year. The shorter program length here works to the group’s advantage and it makes each listen that much more special.

Vinyl Spotlight: John Coltrane, Blue Train (Blue Note 1577) “Earless NY” Mono Pressing

Collection Favorites >
  • “Earless NY” mono pressing ca. 1966
  • “RVG” stamped in dead wax

Personnel

  • Lee Morgan, trumpet
  • John Coltrane, tenor saxophone
  • Curtis Fuller, trombone
  • Kenny Drew, piano
  • Paul Chambers, bass
  • Philly Joe Jones, drums

Recorded September 15, 1957 at Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey
Originally released November 1957

1 Blue Train
2 Moment’s Notice
3 Locomotion
4 I’m Old Fashioned
5 Lazy Bird

Selections:

“Blue Train” (Coltrane)

“Moment’s Notice” (Coltrane)

For Music Lovers

I’m surprised by how many people recommend this album to jazz novices because I don’t necessarily find it to be an “accessible” listen. Slowly it has become one of my favorite jazz albums but I didn’t like it initially and ignored it for quite some time. I find Coltrane’s solos here challenging, and this next comment may not be something most people can identify with, but I initially found many of the melodies to sound “major” in terms of scale and thus maybe a little old-fashioned (no pun intended) at a time when I was looking for something more edgy and “minor”.

Growing out of my fashionable pessimism phase, I’ve come to appreciate older-sounding jazz numbers. But there’s a sort of hidden darkness looming in between the heads of the songs here. “Moment’s Notice”, an album favorite of mine, is the prime example of this: its happy, soulful theme seems to deceitfully change from major to minor key at the renewal of each chorus.

One by one, I grew to adore every song on this album. “I’m Old Fashioned”, a standard written by songwriting juggernauts Jerome Kern and Johnny Mercer, initially sounded like a cookie-cutter ballad but ultimately won me over. On “Lazy Bird”, trumpeter Lee Morgan’s quiet introductory proclamation of the theme is a welcome break from the sheer power of this all-star sextet. But what hasn’t already been said about the album’s mega-classic title track? The simple 24-bar theme is one of the most famous intros in all of jazz, and Coltrane’s solo has been exhaustively picked apart by scholars. No more than forty seconds after the album’s first notes sound, the leader launches this Molotov cocktail at the listener. It was too intense for me as a jazz newcomer, but over the years I feel I have grown to better understand Coltrane’s music, and today I marvel at the flurry of notes played here. In my view of jazz history this marks the beginning of Coltrane’s revolution: uninspired by what he was hearing at the time, it is the moment when the saxophonist took his instrument and proclaimed to the jazz world, “Enough is enough, it’s time to push this music forward.”

John Coltrane approaching Rudy Van Gelder’s Telefunken U47 microphone

On a side note, two weeks prior to the recording of this album in mid-September 1957, Coltrane was in the studio as a sideman for the recording of Sonny’s Crib (Blue Note 1576). That album’s title track bears a striking resemblance to the minimal, bluesy progression in “Blue Train”. Was Coltrane inspired by Sonny Clark? Had he taken Clark’s idea and ran with it? We may never know if there was a conscious connection between the two songs in Coltrane’s mind (“Sonny’s Crib” was not necessarily written first just because it was recorded first) but I found it worth mentioning.

BLP 1576, Sonny’s Crib

The choice of lineup on Blue Train is interesting. Coltrane was not known to have a regular working relationship with either Kenny Drew or Lee Morgan (he had recorded with each of them once on separate occasions prior to this date), which leaves open the possibility that Drew and Morgan were suggested by Blue Note producer Alfred Lion. This seems more plausible in the case of Morgan, a regular leader with the label. Though the album proved a grand slam for Blue Note in terms of sales, it was ultimately a one-off recording Trane did for them.

Coltrane, Morgan, and Curtis Fuller (off camera) rehearsing before a take

Critics seem split as to the brilliance of Blue Train. Beyond the title track, I have read reviews suggesting that the album amounts to little more than a run-of-the-mill bop date. The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings, while awarding it four stars, also manages to call it “an overvalued record”. I personally find the music jubilant and adventurous. The pairing of Trane with Morgan doesn’t create a seamless fusion to me, but it’s interesting to hear how Morgan responds to being thrown into such a foreign situation.

For Collectors

My experiences with vinyl versions of this album began many years ago with the 2005 Classic Records mono reissue. Though visually near mint, that copy had significant surface noise (a problem I’ve sadly run into again and again with Classic reissues — not all, but most). After ditching that copy, I spent several years getting more familiar with the material by listening to the 2003 stereo RVG Edition CD before I acquired the 2014 Music Matters mono reissue. I’m not nearly as fanatical about Music Matters as most jazz fans, but the fact that they released this as a single 33 R.P.M. disc in mono got my attention. Mastered by Kevin Gray, it is sonically astonishing. Through all this, I’ve always kept my eye on auctions for the rarer “NEW YORK USA” mono reissues of this with the RVG stamp and ear. These pressings sell for much less than copies displaying some form of the “West 63rd NYC” address on the labels, but I was always outbid.

Speaking of pressings, there is a hotly-contested debate over what constitutes a “first pressing” of this album. While fundamentalists will insist that only copies brandishing the “NEW YORK 23” address on one side should be considered first pressings, these copies are so rare that many collectors are left to conclude that “WEST 63RD” copes without the “INC” or registered trademark “R” must have also been part of that initial run. I side with the latter camp, considering all of these copies firsts, which would make this copy a second pressing (notice my quotes around the word “second” in the description above). Some collectors, including the venerable Larry Cohn, even go as far as suspecting that the New York 23 copies are second pressings. Semantics aside, this is an absolutely stunning copy of this classic and one of the cleanest vintage jazz records in my collection.

The elusive “NEW YORK 23” label

I’m not usually one to sweat the details when it comes to various runs of album jackets, but through a bit of recent research I have come to realize that there is a small difference between the first and second pressings of this jacket despite the “West 63rd Street” address appearing on both: while second jackets have black printing artifacts on the photo of Curtis Fuller, first jackets do not.

Original (left) and second edition (right) jackets

Though engineer Rudy Van Gelder is famous for his high level of sonic consistency, careful inspection will expose a multitude of different approaches both he and producer Alfred Lion took to the recording and mixing processes. Blue Train is an ideal example of this. The dead-black background depicted on the cover compliments the “nighttime” vibe of this recording exceedingly well. This is partly due to the fact that the album was laid to tape not long after Van Gelder acquired his new EMT plate reverb unit. This replaced his old (and frankly, cheap-sounding) “spring” reverb unit, which to the dismay of many jazz fans plagues numerous earlier Hackensack recordings by saturating the soundstage with choppy echoes of horns and drums. And while stereo versions of Blue Train present a rather disjointed soundstage (instruments on the far left and right with the reverb alone in the center), the unified mono presentation of the music here coupled with the roomy decay of the mono EMT plate succeeds at creating a spacious, dark soundstage that’s as far as one might imagine from the natural characteristics of a makeshift living room studio. And while the true-to-life sonic character of that room has appeared on countless jazz recordings and been celebrated for decades, this is a shining example of a time when Van Gelder and Lion decided that the music and temperaments of the artists required a fresh approach.

EMT reverb plate

It really doesn’t get any better than this when it comes to a vintage jazz listening experience: a clean copy of a classic album with a star-studded, exceptionally recorded cast being presented in monophonic fidelity as originally intended. It’s a time machine back to that cool autumn day in 1957 when jazz giants roamed Rudy Van Gelder’s New Jersey living room, expressing themselves the best way they knew how. This is an album I will cherish when I’m old and grey, and it is sure to get lots and lots of plays from now until then.

Vinyl Spotlight: Lee Morgan, Candy (Blue Note 1590) Original Pressing

  • Original 1958 mono pressing
  • West 63rd address on both labels
  • Deep groove on both sides
  • Plastylite “P” etched and “RVG” stamped in dead wax

Personnel:

  • Lee Morgan, trumpet
  • Sonny Clark, piano
  • Doug Watkins, bass
  • Art Taylor, drums

Recorded November 18, 1957 and February 2, 1958 at Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey
Originally released September 1958

Selections:

“CTA” (Heath)

“Since I Fell for You” (Johnson)

It appears that along with a recent change in my philosophy of collecting has also come a change in my luck. I recently decided to go all in on creating the most authentic vintage mono jazz LP listening experience I could. This meant a new turntable (a gorgeous Garrard 301 which I have already secured), a separate component tonearm fitted to a plinth, and the Ortofon CG 25 mono cartridge. But before I could gather all the components for this new rig, an opportunity presented itself to me that I would have been a fool to ignore.

As a result of my change in philosophy, I have worked to put myself in a position where original pressings of my favorite jazz albums are more within my reach financially. Not too long after making this decision, this copy of Lee Morgan’s Candy popped up in a friend’s Instagram feed. “That seems like a very fair price for that Morgan,” was my first text to my friend, sent without any serious intent to buy. But 24 hours later the record was still on my mind, so I worked on my financials and decided I could make it work — if the record checked out — and two days later I made the 90-minute trip upstate on the Metro North railroad to look at the record first-hand and give it a listen.

Once I had it in my hands, the jacket was indeed a strong VG+ with no splits, and the labels were clean with the assumed deep grooves, “47 West 63rd NYC” address, and lack of registered trademark “R”. I listened to the record in its entirety before making a decision. Overall I would have play graded it VG+ with light surface noise that could be heard more during some of the quieter passages, but no loud or repetitive clicks and no distortion from wear. The record came from the original owner, an Upper West Side native who, according to my friend, remembered it as the first record he ever bought.

After making payment, I got on the train home with reserved excitement. I was honestly banking on the noise quieting down after running it through my Spin Clean (one of the greatest dollar-to-value purchases a collector can make, in my humble opinion). After one cleaning the surface noise settled down and I was quite pleased. But after a few plays I wondered if the simple act of playing the LP may have loosened some of the dirt, so why not run it through the machine one more time and see what happens? And I was happy to find that the surface noise had virtually disappeared in many places.

As for holy grails, I’d say Quiet Kenny, Jutta Hipp with Zoot Sims, and Overseas are near the top of my wish list, but Candy is really my number one, mainly because I find the entire program to be so great. When I first got into jazz, the atypical arrangement of trumpet quartet stood out to me. I love how playful sounding the music is, and the ballads are some of my favorites of all time.

I think Candy is marginalized by jazz critics for its lack of original compositions, but I could care less when the songs are played with such beauty and brilliant execution. It turns out that most of the songs have their origins in the mid-1940s when Morgan was between the ripe ages of seven and eight. The title track was first recorded by Johnny Mercer and Jo Stafford for Capitol Records and reached number 2 on Billboard’s Best Seller chart in 1945. That same year, “Since I Fell for You” was written and recorded by Buddy Johnson for Decca Records. “Who Do You Love I Hope” is a lesser known song written by Irving Berlin for Annie Get Your Gun in 1946, and “Personality”, penned by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke for the play Road to Utopia, also premiered in 1946 with a film starring Dorothy Lamour to follow in 1950.

The remaining two songs completing the tracklist would have been more readily recognized by their respective audiences in 1958. “C.T.A”, the only cut on the album with modern jazz origins, was written by saxophonist Jimmy Heath and first recorded by Miles Davis with Heath on sax for Blue Note in 1953 (according to Miles, “C.T.A.” were the initials of Heath’s then-girlfriend Connie Theresa Ann). “All the Way”, the 1957 Academy Award winner for Best Original Song, was written by Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn for The Joker Is Wild, a film about the life of comedian/singer Joe E. Lewis starring Frank Sinatra. Scroll down to hear a Spotify playlist featuring the original recordings of all of these great songs.

Top: Johnny Mercer, Jo Stafford, Buddy Johnson, Irving Berlin, Jimmy Van Heusen, Johnny Burke
Bottom: Dorothy Lamour, Jimmy Heath, Miles Davis, Sammy Cahn, Frank Sinatra

Candy immortalizes the legend of Rudy Van Gelder’s Hackensack home studio, with the album’s sparse arrangement leaving plenty of room for the sound of the engineer’s living room to make its mark on the recording. Sonny Clark’s piano playing takes center stage here and can be heard with startling clarity, and Art Taylor’s drum kit embodies the gorgeous drum sound Van Gelder would regularly get at Hackensack in the 1950s: a slightly roomy, unified sound with soft cymbals and lifelike accuracy in the bass, snare, and tom toms (for this session, perhaps a little too accurate at times: most collectors are aware of Taylor’s infamous squeaky hi-hat pedal during Clark’s leading solo on the title track).

Morgan dressed to impress while recording Candy in February 1958 at Hackensack

The mono presentation of the music, while not exclusively found on the original LP, is less than common. In stereo the music sounds as full as primitive stereo can with Lee’s regular presence on the far left of the spread, but the sparse arrangement here never leaves me feeling that the mono presentation of the band is “crammed into the center image”, as critics of the format often object. What’s more, there does appear to be some tape degradation on my stereo 1987 Capitol/Manhattan CD during “Who Do You Love I Hope”, though this is a nonstarter on all mono issues of the album. Apparently Music Matters did find some sort of a two-track “safety tape” of Candy that was in better condition than the old master, and as a result decided to release the album in stereo for their 33 1/3 R.P.M. series after releasing it in mono for their original 45 R.P.M. campaign.

Other interesting variations in the mono and stereo releases of this album include different piano lines played by Sonny Clark for the intro of “All the Way”. The intro of a different take must have been preferred by the team and thus spliced into the full-track master reel by Rudy Van Gelder. Why the two-track reel did not receive similar treatment is testament to the fact that Candy was only released in mono originally, with stereo being a mere afterthought for Blue Note producer Alfred Lion in early 1958. Additionally, the 1987 stereo CD boasts a reading of “All at Once You Love Her” that is noticeably absent from the original tracklist, which I have to believe was a decision made solely as a consequence of the temporal limitations of the LP format.

Finally, I admit that I understand when collectors express their distaste for this album cover, but I can’t help but love it. As Lee mischievously glances upward at his name hovering above, the young trumpeter’s boyish innocence conveys a sense of awe toward his newfound fame (side note: though it appears to be a shot from the same sequence of photos as the original, Music Matters used a slightly different photo of Morgan for their reissues). Not being sure why Reid Miles opted to neutralize the potentially explosive rainbow of colored candy pieces depicted here with a black-and-white overlay — perhaps he felt it would be too much of a departure from Blue Note’s two-tone theme — it is a juxtaposition that nonetheless succeeds, with the help of Morgan’s presence, at communicating the playful nature of the musical themes within.

Photos used for the original release (left) and Music Matters reissue (right) of Candy

When I first started collecting, I gawked at the prices original pressings of this album would fetch, and I would have never guessed I’d be in possession of a copy so early on in my collecting years. So the collector saying goes, music comes first. I have always cherished the gorgeous music presented here, but I can’t deny that listening to an original mono pressing has caused my ears to perk up and listen more intently, specifically to the charming solos of all the instrumentalists. I couldn’t be more satisfied with this acquisition, and this copy of Candy is now, obviously and without question, the crown jewel of my collection.


Spotify Playlist: Songs That Inspired Candy

Note: If you are not logged in to Spotify on your web browser, clicking the “play” icon above will only play 30-second clips of the songs. Click “Play on Spotify” or the Spotify logo to launch the app on your computer. Click here to open this playlist in your web browser.