Slightly OT: The Ultimate Recordings

[barry guerrero]

Jack Sheldon: "Listen Up"
Jack Sheldon: "Freaky Friday"
Art Pepper +11 (w/ J.S. on trumpet)
Curtis Counce Group: "Carl's Blues" (also w/ J.S. on trumpet)
Cutris Counce Group: "You Get More Bounce With Curtis Counce" (also w/ J.S. on trumpet)
Beatles: "Rubber Soul"
Beatles:  "Revolver"
Shelly Manne: "My Fair Lady" (arranged by John Williams, with vocals by Irene Kral and Jack Sheldon. You can only find this on vinyl). This is not to be confused with the more famous Andre Previn "My Fair Lady" release (which isn't nearly as good, in my opinion).

Art Blakey "Jazz Messengers" (the one on Columbia that has Horace Silver's "Nica's Dream", with Donald Byrd on trumpet and Hank Mobley on tenor)

Hoarace Silver: "Cape Verdean Blues"
Herbie Hancock: "Canteloupe Island"
Herbie Hancock: "Speak Like A Child"
Tony Bennett and Bill Evans together (there were two albums)
Columbia's Jo Stafford box set
Door's Greatest Hits
Herbie Mann: "Great Ideas Of Western Mann" (with Jack Sheldon on trumpet and H.M. playing bass clarinet - which he plays far better than Eric Dolphy)

anything with Monozil Brass (an outrageously great brass ensemble from Austria)
Philip Jones Brass Ensemble (anything with John Fletcher on tuba)
Floyd Cooley: "The Romantic Tuba"
Roger Bobo, tuba: "Bobissimo! - The Best of Roger Bobo"
Samuel Jones: Sym. 3/Tuba Concerto (Chris Olka, tuba; Gerard Schwarz/Seattle S.O./Naxos)
John Coltrane: "The Gentle Side of J.C."
John Coltrane: "Blue Trane"
Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane together (especially "Lush Life")
Sonny Rollins "Way Out West"
Sonny Rollins "Saxophone Colossus"
"Art of the Vienna Horn" on Naxos (Wolfgang Toemboeck, Viennese horn in F)
Vienna Horns (self titled disc, now out-of-print)
"The West Coast Jazz Box - An Anthology of California Jazz" (label: Contemporary)
Mary Erickson, tuba/John Sheridan, piano: "My Very Good Friend"  (THE best jazz tuba cd I've yet to come across)
Sinatra: "In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning" (the only Sinatra disc I truly love)
Diana Krall: "All For You - Tribute to the Nat King Cole Trio" (D.K. in just a trio setting, no strings)

Also, a dvd that I have of old "Mersey Beat" artists performing 'live' for some public television fundraiser (not sure what it's called now). I like all that old Mersey side stuff.

.    .    .   anyway, "these are a few of my favorite things", other than Mahler

[James Meckley]

On Amazon the review for the Mahler 5 praises the performance but absolutely thrashes the sound quality, how ironic.

The type of recording made by Water Lily Acoustics—two high-end microphones placed properly to cover the entire orchestra—can sound stunningly real when played back on a properly set up, high-end system (or even on your Sennheisers), but often disappoint the owner of a mid-fi (or worse) system used to hearing typical multi-miked, heavily EQed commercial recordings. Perhaps that's what's going on here.

[justininsf]

On Amazon the review for the Mahler 5 praises the performance but absolutely thrashes the sound quality, how ironic.

The type of recording made by Water Lily Acoustics—two high-end microphones placed properly to cover the entire orchestra—can sound stunningly real when played back on a properly set up, high-end system (or even on your Sennheisers), but often disappoint the owner of a mid-fi (or worse) system used to hearing typical multi-miked, heavily EQed commercial recordings. Perhaps that's what's going on here.

I was thinking the same thing as well, the reviewers didn't make any mention of their equipment or setup like most would do in an audio quality review of a recording.  Based on the Svetlanov I got today, I'm going to get both recordings just out of curiosity.  Plus both are great pieces!

Are you much of an audiophile?  The farthest I've ever went is with headphones, once you get into speakers and whatnot it can get quite pricey.

[Clov]

Since we'd opened into non-classical:

Lonesome Road - Earl Hines and his Orchestra version - on album - 'A Monday Date'

Much Coltrane is just too morose for me, I do love Equinox and Central Park West on his Rhino hits collection.

It is often lighter jazz I fancy, A favorite would be Dorian Dance from Brubeck's 'A La Mode'

[justininsf]

I've enjoyed this album quite a bit over the past few years:

http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Song-Oscar-Peterson-Japan/dp/B00005NF5X