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traditional song in the ancient Aymara
language of the Indians of the Andes,
and it is at once majestic and moving.
Well before this third recording came
out, I heard Bïa sing it in concert. Which
leads me to my final recommendation. If
she’s singing anywhere near you, go by
dog sled if you must, but…just go.
Soular Energy
Ray Brown Trio/Gene Harris
Pure Audiophile PA-002
Rejskind: It was maybe a dozen years
ago. Ray Brown was in a Montreal
church for a solo concert — how often
have you seen a bassist doing a couple of
hours of solo music? He recalled the first
time he had played Montreal, in 1948.
After his gig, he had gone to a late night
bar to listen to a phenomenal young
pianist. Impressed, he asked the young
man to come touring with him. “Sure,”
said the young pianist.
“Great. I’m Ray Brown. What’s your
name?”
“Oscar. Oscar Peterson.”
Peterson would, of course, turn out to
be one of the greatest jazz pianists of his
era, and the the most famous of Canada’s
jazz musicians. The tour stretched across
an incredible five years.
Brown must have been 73 when I last
saw him, not long before his death. He
was playing as well as ever, and it was
clear that he was still having the time of
his life. Was he the greatest bass player
of the jazz age? I’d be tempted to say so,
though my impression of him is altered
by the fact that he played with the best
musicians of the jazz world: Peterson of
course, but also drummer Shelly Manne,
guitarist Laurindo Almeida, and the LA4
(of which Manne and Almeida were
members as well).
I wasn’t familiar with Gene Harris,
who plays piano on this 1984 recording,
but Brown said he was one of the great
ones, and that’s good enough for me.
Besides, the proof is right here in these
grooves.
And they’re some grooves! The
Concord Jazz label over the years did
some of the finest jazz recordings in
the world…finest for the sound, and
not only for the (admittedly fabulous)
artists. Stan Ricker did the half-speed
mastering of this double LP, and clearly
got everything just right. The pressing is
done on transparent blue 180 gram vinyl,
and it is as close to perfect as vinyl can
get. Even the lead-in grooves are quiet,
perhaps because the disc doesn’t have
that stupid raised “GruvGard” edge,
originally conceived to keep stacks of
records apart on a changer.
Fortunately, the music deserves star
treatment. Brown, Harris and drummer
Gerryck King have a fine rapport
together. Indeed, according to the original
jacket notes, none of it is the result of
rehearsal. This is an improvised album,
though that may not be evident from
the quality of the playing and the sheer
togetherness of the trio. When more
than one take was recorded, it came out
quite differently the second time. That
gave the producers of this double disc
the opportunity to include alternative
takes that are more than repetitions of
the main ones. Cry Me a River, which is
both the second track on Side A and the
first track on Side D, is quite different
the second time, but it is a tribute to
the excellence of these musicians that
neither sounds more “right” than the
others. You’ll recognize several of the
pieces without looking at the jacket: Take
the A Train, Teach Me Tonight and Sweet
Georgia Brown among others. What Ray
Brown and his friends do with them is
downright thrilling.
Soular Energy
Ray Brown Trio/Gene Harris
Hi-Res HRM2011
Rejskind: It’s a happy coincidence that,
only three weeks after I received that
excellent double LP, in came this DVD
version from Hi-Res. It is nothing less
than fabulous. Which will bring up the
inevitable question: does digital finally
beat analog?
The answer is that, if this doesn’t,
nothing will. Like the superb LP, this
24 bit 96 kHz digital recording sounds
amazingly coherent at the bottom end,
which is good because that’s where Ray
Brown does his work. The other extreme
of the spectrum is perhaps even better
than that of the LP. It is so clear and at
the same time so natural that you don’t
even think about whether the speakers are
doing their job right. And the dynamics,
as with other Hi-Res recordings, make
Red Book CDs sound like distant echoes.
So, of course, does the excellent LP.
You lose something, you gain something.
The digital disc doesn’t have the
bonus tracks of the double LP. On the
other hand, it does have a second side,
containing a 192 kHz DVD-Audio version
(the 24/96 side can be played on any
DVD player).
By the way, the box carries the
HDCD logo, which suggests that there
must also be a Red Book layer for CD
players. There isn’t, but the digital mastering
from the original analog tape was
done in HDCD, to improve the definition
even more. Certainly the result is
as good as one could possibly wish.
Amadeus (Director’s Cut) DVD
Abraham/Hulce/Jones
Étiquette numéro
Rejskind: Why are films about classical
composers so wretched? Why are they
so stupidly scripted, so poorly cast, so
incompetently directed? Across the
decades, films about Liszt, Chopin,
Tchaikovsky, Grieg and a host of others
have contributed mightily to convincing
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 67