I picked up a copy of A Love Supreme yesterday. It's a fabulously dynamic recording: I literally got goosebumps hearing Coltrane's sax coming through so forcefully.
It interesting to compare with the Tone Poets - the sound is less balanced for me. They seem to have accentuated to upper registers so there's tremendous presence on the drums, for example, but also a lot of audible tape hiss during the quieter passages. The bass is much less clearly defined - it's something I love abut the Tone Poets - and at times feels out of focus compared to the clarity of the sax and drums. The piano gives a mix of these, amazing attack with the right hand but less in the lower.
That is interesting. As ever I’m convinced it is down to what you compare to, and for me the reference has to be the original US 1st press RVG cut, which sadly I do not have. I do however have quite a few original US Impulse pressings, or very close relatives, e.g. my original Canadian Spartan Impulse of Ballads which has the RVG stamp, plus the aforementioned US original of Ascension. With both of these, and my 1967 Japanese King pressing of ALS Coltrane is way forward, extraordinarily present and ‘in the room’.
These really are incredibly forceful records, and I’d argue a lot of reissues since have almost attempted to rewrite the narrative and end up turning what to my mind is full-tilt spiritual protest music rammed full of emotion, anxiety and aggression, into something overall far more bland rounded-off and domesticated. Almost a ‘whitewash’ with as much political load in that term as you wish to read. The Acoustic Sounds ALS reverses that trend to me, and whilst it lacks the simply extraordinary ‘in the room’ presence of my sadly battered original Canadian copy of Ballads it does bring a lot of the bite back, bite that I am personally convinced should be there.
Anyway I liked the ALS so much I went back and bought the Louis & Oscar and Getz Gilberto. I have no reference point for the Louis & Oscar, so it just stands as a really nice pressing of a great album I’d never heard before, and I haven’t got round to the Getz Gilberto yet beyond having a quick listen to Girl From Ipanema, which sounded decent to me; brighter than I was expecting, Astrud hard left (not always a given), bass and sax not overblown as they so often can be with this track. Certainly a rather crisper and tighter view than I’m used to, though maybe a bit too ‘clean’, I need to play the rest. Anyway I think they are really good reissues and well worth the asking price. Considering they are only three times the price of some DOL or whatever pirated crap with zero quality control or access to source tapes and are presented in proper vintage style covers they are a bargain.
I’ve not got any Tone Poet Blue Notes, which I guess is a serious oversight that needs correcting.
PS Real vinyl geeks should have a good close look at the AS ALS front cover; the crop of the photo is altered from the original, it is zoomed tighter in on Coltrane. Not sure why they did this, but it has been the case for several other reissues too. Certainly different to the US 1st press (and my Japanese copy).
