Rummaging through the Jazz section of my second-hand record shop today I came across a 1964 copy of Dizzy Gillespie's "The Cool World" film soundtrack album in unplayed condition. (Minty cover also.)
I love the way that Philips announce it is in "Hi-fi-Stereo" in big letters on the front of the cover and the rear and with huge typeface on both record labels.
Despite the condition, I had it Keith Monks cleaned on the shop's own machine just in case it's few plays may have been in a smoke filled room with a bunch of 'hep cats' (probably now hep replacement great-grandcats) smoking something naughty all over those black grooves back in 1964!
Why is old vinyl so much blacker and shinier and more solid? (You could bang nails in with this thing.) And the sound! Bl##dy Wow! Those old engineers were geniuses. I have played the whole thing, both sides, twice in the last couple of hours and just cannot believe it. I have no Jazz CD that comes within a country mile of the excitement on this LP. I can hear every single breath, foot-tap, brushed cymbal as if these dudes were right there and the impact of Dizzie's trumpet is electrifying. I could not move (I may have temporarily lost the power in my limbs, not sure.)
All of my second-hand vinyl is chosen very carefully for it's condition, I am very picky. But this was a revelation. I have a few 180gm vinyl 'audiophile' re-issues that this 1964 standard issue would shame (apart from the amazing re-issue of John Mayall Blues Breakers 'With Eric Clapton' LP from Vinyl Lovers which is right up there.)
It is not often I am jealous of the technology from when my father was a young man but I am jealous of his generation being able to go into any record shop and buy LP quality like this as a matter of routine.
By the time I was a record purchasing teen in the 1970s, the vinyl quality was atrocious. Thin nasty stuff - so thin it was almost transparent - made from recycled vinyl (all the rejected Austin Allegro steering wheels that were too circular I suspect) because of the 'oil crisis'.
Then the 1980s when vinyl quality improved a bit - to the extent that you could no longer find bits of the press operator's *** butts embedded in the plastic - but not a great deal. Then of course CD came along so vinyl manufacturers no longer cared except in Germany where they continued to make fairly good pressings because... well because they were German and didn't know any better than to do the thing right I suppose.
I love the way that Philips announce it is in "Hi-fi-Stereo" in big letters on the front of the cover and the rear and with huge typeface on both record labels.
Despite the condition, I had it Keith Monks cleaned on the shop's own machine just in case it's few plays may have been in a smoke filled room with a bunch of 'hep cats' (probably now hep replacement great-grandcats) smoking something naughty all over those black grooves back in 1964!
Why is old vinyl so much blacker and shinier and more solid? (You could bang nails in with this thing.) And the sound! Bl##dy Wow! Those old engineers were geniuses. I have played the whole thing, both sides, twice in the last couple of hours and just cannot believe it. I have no Jazz CD that comes within a country mile of the excitement on this LP. I can hear every single breath, foot-tap, brushed cymbal as if these dudes were right there and the impact of Dizzie's trumpet is electrifying. I could not move (I may have temporarily lost the power in my limbs, not sure.)
All of my second-hand vinyl is chosen very carefully for it's condition, I am very picky. But this was a revelation. I have a few 180gm vinyl 'audiophile' re-issues that this 1964 standard issue would shame (apart from the amazing re-issue of John Mayall Blues Breakers 'With Eric Clapton' LP from Vinyl Lovers which is right up there.)
It is not often I am jealous of the technology from when my father was a young man but I am jealous of his generation being able to go into any record shop and buy LP quality like this as a matter of routine.
By the time I was a record purchasing teen in the 1970s, the vinyl quality was atrocious. Thin nasty stuff - so thin it was almost transparent - made from recycled vinyl (all the rejected Austin Allegro steering wheels that were too circular I suspect) because of the 'oil crisis'.
Then the 1980s when vinyl quality improved a bit - to the extent that you could no longer find bits of the press operator's *** butts embedded in the plastic - but not a great deal. Then of course CD came along so vinyl manufacturers no longer cared except in Germany where they continued to make fairly good pressings because... well because they were German and didn't know any better than to do the thing right I suppose.
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