Cleaned and static removed - today is the the first chance I have had to give these first two in the series a proper listen. WOW! What do I say. I'm totally blown away, almost literally by Dexter on 'Doing Alright', these sound superb and possibly outclass the Tone Poets sonically. Many of those great moments from these when the HiFi totally disappears and you are one with the music. When played at realistic volume (I like loud) on 'Doing Alright' Dexter is in my room and I have never heard his sense of attack and big tone conveyed so well. Freddie is little further back in my room on the right and his horn is beautifully 'descibed' within the sound stage. Just the right amount of plate reverb added by Van Gelder.
Then you have the wonderful detail on this mastering extending into both the lowest and highest frequencies. Listen to how well this highlights the communication between George Tucker, Bass and Al Harewood, Drums on 'Society Red' even with them both positioned well back behind the soloists and my front wall you can hear the detail in Harewood's brush work. I think on some lesser Blue Note masterings and pressings I might have thought in the past that what I was hearing was tape hiss or noise. If there is a slight down side to masterings that are this good it's that these, and the Tone Poets, very accurately reflect what's on the master tape, so I find Horace Parlan's piano a bit 'weak', a pity as he adds nice contributions. I think this is what 'Elephantears' and I were picking up on the Tone Poet Sam Rivers with regard to balance. I think perhaps Rudy Van Gelder did not like piano players and only gave them more prominence if they were the leader, then he probably had to
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Interesting then to compare the above with 'Taking Off' where Herbie Hancock leads, the same type of line-up and some of the same musicians with Dexter and Freddie, but these with left / right positions reversed. An equally great, but differently balanced recording with the two horns a little further back in the mix and Herbie more forward and with more 'weight' to his piano. It seems there was much more of a decision by Van Gelder to treat this like a Ensemble rather than giving emphasis to a couple of great soloists backed by a rhythm section. Fully justified as some great playing by all.
My pressings of these two are both flat and noiseless, pretty much up there with the Tone Poet RTI's. It's only the sleeves on those that stand out as better, but the 80's are OK and costs needed to be saved somewhere and I can live with that as they are much cheaper. If the rest of the series is as good as these two then I'm in for them all, even if I already have another pressing of the album as I doubt it will be as good. I can't recommend these highly enough.
