AAA Vinyl

Donald Rumsfeld once famously said "You go to war with the army you have not the army you want". While reissuing Miles Davis' iconic Kind of Blue is hardly as consequential as invading a country, in context of our little musical and sonic world it probably is.

So it's important to keep in mind a few things: one is that Mobile Fidelity had to work with "the army it had", which was Battery Studios' Mark Wilder's 1997 three-to-two-track mix down to analog tape produced playing back the three track tape on a pristine all tube Presto deck and using a GML custom line mixer and producing a flat transfer at 15IPS using Dolby SR onto an Ampex ATR 102.

Greg Calbi used that mix to produce the lacquers for the 50th Anniversary blue vinyl version and that is what Mobile Fidelity used here.

Photo of three track alternative master during playback at Battery Studios

So when Mobile Fidelity says it has used "the original master tapes" giving credit to "Remix engineer Mark Wilder", we know, despite the "message board" rumor mongers, that this was sourced from analog tape and not from digital.

We do know though that in the process of doing the first transfer from three track to two for Sony's 1992 gold CD, Wilder discovered a tape speed discrepancy produced by the main recorder's having run 1.25% slow during the original recording session for some of the songs, which produced a final original LP that played back side one faster than was accurate. The second back-up machine ran at the correct speed so Wilder used those back up tapes for all subsequent transfers, thus producing the correct pitch throughout, though the result was not "accurate" to the original pressing.

For more about all of this read former Stereophile writer John Marks' encounter at Battery Studios with the three track master tape here.

And be sure to read the analogplanet.com review of the recent mono mixdown from the three-track tape produced for a Record Store Day reissue, because both the main and back up mono master tapes disappeared at some point from Columbia's tape vault.

But back to our regularly scheduled Kind of Blue reissue review! In 1997 Sony was still being generous with its master tapes and so Classic Records was able to get for Bernie Grundman one of the two three track master tapes—probably the original that had run slow during the recording session on some tracks. Either that, or Bernie purposely sped up those tracks to produce an 'alternative' disc that ran at the original pressing's elevated speed, along with a second disc that ran at the corrected speed.

If you read John Mark's above linked column, you'll learn that while all of the songs were performed and recorded without edits, the producer "slates" (announcements identifying the takes, etc.) tones, and other chatter had been edited out and splicing tape put in to produce the necessary spaces for the vinyl cutting process. However, the original pressings were not cut from the three track tapes. Instead, they were mixed down to two track tapes, with all fade outs performed during the lacquer cutting. For some reason, no one ever talks about or references those original two track tapes.

So Classic's two versions of Kind of Blue—one a double LP set with one LP cut at the original speed and one with the corrected speed versions of "So What", "Freddie Freeloader" and "Blue in Green" on one side and a previously unissued version of "Flamenco Sketches" (the only alternate take of any tune recorded during these sessions) presented at 45rpm on the other side, and the other a four single-sided 45rpm LP set—were cut from the three track master (or alternative master) and mixed "live" to two track, with Grundman applying the fades manually as he cut, which is how the original was produced from a two track mixdown.

Mobile Fidelity cut from a two track mixdown as was originally done and Classic cut directly from the three track—I figure the only time that was done. And of course Classic's cut was produced in 1995, two years earlier than either of the mixdowns that could possible have been used for this new 45rpm reissue. So why 45rpm? As I've previously written, these are licensing deals wherein the label owning the tapes can specify at which speed it is willing to issue a reissue license. So here it's possible that Sony was only willing to do a 45rpm deal, or perhaps Mobile Fidelity had a choice. We probably will never know.

In preparing this review of the sonics only (so much has already been written about the music that more would be superfluous. However I recommend Ashley Kahn's "Kind of Blue: The Making of The Miles Davis Masterpiece"), I compared to this new reissue: two original "6-Eye" pressings

as well as the Classic Records version at both 45 and 33 1/3 as well as two British pressings. One a late '60s orange CBS label edition and a 1998 Absolute Analogue version mastered by Ray Staff from what must have been the tape shipped to England back in 1959. Fortunately this is an album one never grows tired of listening to!

Firstly, the "magic" on the original pressing cannot be fully duplicated elsewhere in terms of the air and space available when the tape was fresh—even with the 3-2 mixdown and that's taking into account the high frequency "bump" produced when the tape was played 1.25% fast on side one's recorded tracks. The cymbal decay that seems to go on forever on the original isn't there to the same degree on any of the reissues. Drummer Jimmy Cobb is famously quoted as having said about the KOB recording "...you clearly hear the wood of the drumstick against the cymbal." And while you can on all versions, it's best presented on the original. On the other hand, the original is, as Calbi notes, "bright" as was the style of the day.

So the piano whether Evans's or Wynton Kelly's (on "Freddy Freeloader" only), sounds slightly cardboardy, but boy is there air and reverb behind both Adderley's and Coltrane's saxophones, even though as Marks reports, the reverb chamber "send" was only on the center channel on which only Davis and Chambers were recorded.

Going directly from the original to this Mobile Fidelity reissues makes obvious the speed difference—even to someone without perfect pitch. Also obvious is that the piano sounds more like a piano and less "cardboardy". There's plenty of "...wood of the drumstick against the cymbal" just not quite as much, which could be the result of the speed difference and the less bright overall equalization (or lack thereof). There's plenty of reverb around Miles's horn but the instrument sounds somewhat less "brassy". Whether this translates to greater instrumental accuracy or 'dullness' will be system dependent. As is usually the case, the brighter, faster version (the original) will sound more "exciting" but that's not the same thing as "more accurate"!

Moving to the Grundman cut, and comparing "sped up apples to sped up apples" the Classic reissue more greatly resembles the original in terms of air and space and tonality than the Classic resembles the warmer, richer Mobile Fidelity reissue. The Classic's corrected speed side at 33 1/3 more closely resembles the Mo-Fi in terms of tonality but the Classic single sided 45rpm version of "Freddie Freeloader" was definitely more open, spacious and transparent than was the Mo-Fi, but given that the former was cut directly from the three track and the latter was probably from a copy of the two track mixdown (Sony/BMG does not allow original masters off the east coast so Mo-Fi probably lugged its superb Tim DeParavicini designed R2R deck to Battery and made a copy), that is not surprising. On the other hand image focus, especially of the piano was better on the Mo-Fi reissue.

All of these issues that I compared sounded great but the speed issue makes direct comparisons difficult. The original, speed issue and all is "the document" and some people will want that because it is "the the"—though finding a clean copy isn't easy and it will cost you a lot of money! I thought the Ray Staff cut Absolute Analogue edition, cut from whatever source, sounded remarkably close to the original and I've seen those around for not much money.

Twenty years later, the Classic double LP set with both the incorrect and correct side one plus the alternate take of "Flamenco Sketches" is certainly a prize worthy of seeking out as is the four single sided 45rpm issue.

That said, considering the care that's gone into this Mobile Fidelity reissue, the high quality RTI pressing and the reasonably well produced booklet with great studio photos included (glossy, thick paper stock would have been nice instead of the matte finish), this reissue strikes me as a complete success. It does not sound like the original but consider that Mobile Fidelity went to war with the army it had, not the army it might have wanted. I think the "army" was Mark Wilder's admittedly warmer sounding transfer/mixdown and so if that was the case, this reissue is a complete success and as good as can be expected fifty six years after it's original release. I know the folks at Mobile Fidelity worked really hard and spent the money to get this one right.

I wish Mo-Fi would be more forthcoming about this critical reissue so I wouldn't have to be guessing and speculating here, but they were tight lipped, which left me no choice other than to guess about certain facts. And please consider that this was not really a "stereo" recording but rather three mono tracks with some reverb and microphone leakage. Of course it still sounds incredibly spacious and magical but don't neglect the mono version if you can find either an original or the RSD reissue.

BTW: I have the HDTracks high resolution download and it is very, very good but well you know where this is going so I'll let you finish it! As for the "blah" headline, well that was nothing but "click bait". Sorry.