Album Reviews

If you already own Sunday at The Village Vanguard and Waltz For Debby you have two album's worth of material from that magical afternoon and evening of June 25, 1961 that the producer Orrin Keepnews deemed worthy of releasing.

If you are interested in experiencing the afternoon and evening sets in their entirety (or as close to that as possible) you can do so on a 3 CD set issued in 2003 or now, on a 4 180g LP box set just issued by Concord Music from the same masters, cut to lacquers by George Horn and Ann-Marie Suenram at Fantasy Studios.

Most amazing about these recordings revered by jazz lovers since 1961 and in print ever since (for reasons written about too often for repeating or speculating about here), is that they were made using a 2 track Ampex tape recorder placed table side by substitute recording engineer David Jones, filling in for Ray Fowler, Riverside's regular remote engineer. Keepnews refers to the equipment as "...primitive barely-1960s recording equipment" but I challenge you to find a current live recording that sounds as "live", 3-dimensional, transparent and texturally satisfying as this one.

This Mosaic-like reissue resulted from a request from Japan in 2002 by Victor Entertainment's Hiroshi Suruga. Assembling the recordings in chronological order and re-inserting the deleted between song patter and even a song interrupted by a power outage required a digital transfer done at 44.1k/24 bit, which was probably the highest resolution then available. It was from those files that this 4 LP set was sourced.

Analogplanet wrote about this set when it was first announced.

More than enough has already been written about the music so let's get to the point: if you own the two LPs, you own the cherry-picked best from the recorded sessions. If you must have more, then this 4 LP, well-produced box set is worth considering.

The 4 LPs were cut from the 24 bit, 44.1kHz digital master and plated and pressed at RTI. For your $99.00 you get the 4 LPs in a nice box but the original LP covers are MIA, which is appropriate since this is not them. Instead you get new cover art, the same for all four LPs but with differing two color presentation, along with a full sized booklet with notes by producer Keepnews written for the original 3 CD release and by reissue producer Bill Belmont.

The booklet includes backstage photos of the trio as well as images of the tape reels and boxes and one of a display advertisement for the Village Vanguard showing the headliner Lambert, Hendricks & Ross and below in tiny print "Bill Evans Trio". Also included are Bill Grauer Productions, Inc. "RECORDING DATA SHEETS" reproduced in full color, a contact sheet of black and white photos and a iconic Evans photo reproduced on heavy stock. Priced at $99, this represents reasonably good value for the money if you really need to hear it all. But do you?

That's something only you can answer. Hearing outtakes and alternate takes did not in my opinion produce any revelations and it can easily be argued that the cherry-picked best were included in the two original LPs that have never been out of print.

So how does it sound? It would be difficult to ruin a recording so transparent, pure and richly-textured and this reissue does not. I compared it to the Analogue Productions 2000 reissues mastered by Doug Sax and to the later double 45rpm reissues mastered by Kevin Gray at AcousTech Mastering and here's what I found: though the new reissue from 24 bit/44.1k digital sounds very good, it does not match the transparency and three-dimensionality heard on the AAA reissues. Were producer Belmont to sit here and compare for himself, I can't believe he would disagree. The digitalized drum textures can't begin to compete with the AAA versions: the cymbals don't shimmer as cleanly, the attack isn't as nuanced and the depth and 3 dimensionality are simply not as believable.

While the pressings are pristine and the music set against a black backdrop, the blackness is enhanced on the AAA LPs and sound somewhat grey on the digitized version. It's just not as transparent but without comparison, the new version sounds very good.

If you want to break down why the piano sounds better on the AAA versions it's a matter of graceful attack, generous sustain and lengthy decay versus not quite as good on all three parameters. In terms of cymbal shimmer, no contest. Ditto drum textures and attack subtlety. There's more "there there" on either of the analog versions. Tonally the digitized LPs can't be faulted though there's less shimmer to cymbals and the piano's attack and harmonic envelope simply cannot compare.

The AAA versions can sound "real", the digitized version sounds like a very good recording but it lacks the AAA versions' believability, transparency, three-dimensionality and air. Still, "for digitized analog" it sounds pretty good.

As between the double 45s pressed at Pallas mastered by Kevin Gray at AcousTech and pressed at Pallas and the 33 1/3 LPs mastered by Doug Sax and pressed at RTI, I was somewhat surprised to find that the latter sounds far more transparent and open compared to the double 45s. Some say the same 45rpm mastering pressed at RTI sounds more open on top but i didn't have them to compare to these new digitized LPs.

These were magical performances and recordings. Do you need the complete multiple sets? Only you can answer that question. Analogue Productions plans on soon issuing UHQR editions of the two LPs on 200+ gram vinyl.

Listening through to the four LPs didn't (for me) produce any new insights into the music and in fact, after a while it tended to "drone"—but that's also true listening to most Mosaic "complete" boxes, though I'm somewhat more thankful for some of those.