Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo I'm Just Gonna Say It

I like Benny Goodman. Just goofin off this weekend, I listened to a top 50 Big Band/Swing deal on Itunes. I repeatedly found my toe tapping to Benny - and some Glen Miller too. So, I purchased "The Essential Benny Goodman". I think my dad liked that type of Jazz....anyway.....there it is.

Wow.


I can't believe you said that out loud!

This thread is enthusiastically approved by me.

Big band jazz is some of the greatest LIVE music you can experience, IMO. And Axioms can make those recordings come alive.

I confess that I like walkie's .

Thanks for the confession. If you have not already done so, try Duke Ellington (I particularly enjoy Blues in Orbit ).

Since we're all being open and everything....I too, have a confession I'd like to make.....


Mark likes The Captain and Tennile.


There. I said it. I feel better now.

Funny you should post this, I was listening to a cd yesterday I borrowed from my dad, Glen Miller Gold. It is fun/odd to hear music from a source with pops and crackles in the mix.

If you replace The Captain and Tennile with The Carpenters, I would have to admit that you would be somewhat right!

Although their music is way too easy listening, I have to admit that I think Karen Carpenter had an amazing voice.

And I admit as much in an old thread I started called Guilty Pleasures.

Then Sean, wanting to be just like me, started this thread.

I kind of feel the same way about the Carpenters, Mark.

That is, unless you're just trying to set me up, in which case I don't like them at all....

Yes, but I'm sure you prefer them when they're standing still---and within arms' reach-----so you can fondle them or punch them, nes pas.

No. It's not, really. Otherwise, I'd never have replaced my original mono Meet the Beatles.

Pops and crackles = funkill.

There, I said it!

. Oui, oui .

Absolutely, Karen Carpenter had that lovely throaty contralto voice with a bit of a rasp in it, dead-on pitch, much like the Canadian equivalent, Anne Murray. What was that huge hit for Karen C, "Rainy Days and Mondays".

Tragic story for Karen Carpenter.

Alan

Ok, Ok, less than a page before untracking....THE funny thing is I was watching Sinbad on the comedy channel. At the end of the routine, he challenges the young'uns in the crowd that they don't know what "Real, Live Music" is. So, he brings out a band and tells them they can tell their kids some day that they heard "Real, Live Music" at the Sinbad Show. They play guitars and drums and piano and that is it. What makes that the funny thing is that I had been thinking the night before that people from my generation know guitars, drums, and piano but not the horns, and woodwinds and the "bass fiddle" (that the axioms allowed me to pick out).

So...Tom, where did you see The Big Band Sound?

Well, various times, not often enough.

There's a local outfit called Rich Wetzel's Groovin' Higher Jazz Orchestra that takes no prisoners. I've enjoyed them at a number of venues.

I remember seeing the Woody Herman Big Band about 30 years ago = at Disneyland. That was extraordinary. Woody was recently deceased, but the band was still amazing.

I used to attend summer outdoor jazz festivals in the area where I saw some great acts - including Joe Williams in both big band and small ensemble settings. He made a big impression on me. I've seen The Basie Band, Lionel Hampton, and lots of smaller, local/regional groups.

I dig it.

I just wanted to be cool, okay!!!


::runs away crying::

I used to watch the Captain and Tenille's tv show when I was a kid and I love them. I think Tenille sang on a Floyd album.

I remember watching that show as well.

I think it's great when Carpenter and Captain fans come out of the closet...so to speak. I'll admit to having Lulu on my Ipod.

I may be turning this into truth or dare, but last year I (re)bought Paul Revere and the Raiders greatest hits, as well as the Turtles greatest, the Rascals and the Raspberries.
Davey, Dozy, Mikey, Beaky, Mick and Tick are still on my get list. Oh, and Sopwith Camel.

If I can, I prefer to bypass the greatest hits and get the originals. There's just something about greatest hits albums I don't like. Perhaps it's because they played it over and over when it was popular, or because I sometimes like the less known stuff they did better than I like the more popular stuff. The last one I bought was Chicago's greatest hits. I just don't like this CD, but I do like Chicago.

I agree.

But I don't like Chicago.

I'm probably there too, just didn't realize it. Was blaming it on the CD.

Yep.....too cold and windy.

I agree, Cat. But, thing is, there will never be cd re-releases of so much of that 60's, 70's stuff.

If all that's available (and, hopefully, remastered--decently) is a greatest hits, then there's not much choice. Luckily, lots of 'em do sound better than the original LP's from which they were taken.

Maybe that's why I get so disappointed in the CD's I buy of older music. I also noticed that on the double CD's of stuff I buy, the older music is on first CD and newer on 2nd CD. CD #2 always seems to sound better.

Better or louder?

I started buying the Tears for Fears remasters that came out a while ago. But after comparing the new Songs from the Big Chair to the original CD release, it was louder, but lost a lot of dynamics. Just wish I could find an original The Hurting now.

I did some comparisons of original cd's vs. their remastered counterparts with audacity and as Chris mentions, they are just louder but with the cd's I looked at the dynamics were still intact. An overlay of the waveforms were mirror images, just one was a few db louder. Unfortunately not all remasters are of this quality, it is very much hit and miss.

Yeah, there's no harm in someone loading the data from the full disc into ProTools and picking normalize at -6 dB. That'll make playback louder for the same volume setting, but leave the dynamics intact.

All too often before that step they'll increase the compression. That'll make the playback level louder still, but sacrifice dynamics. So many of the "remasters" are done that way.

Of course there are exceptions. The new release of Pretty Hate Machine. Trent did a good job of actually extracting more dynamic range from the multi-tracks. But this is a complete remix.

I had hopped the same for the more extreme remix of Pearl Jam's Ten, but it was a casualty of the loudness war.

Does hopping work better than other forms of enticement?

Or perhaps you are a member of the 7th Day Advent Hoppists.

I've pretty much pre-decided that any new release (or remastered release) is going to suck unless it's Jazz or Classical....

C'mon, Mark. Now why would such effort be put into only the recordings to which people will never listen.

And besides, I've got some pratty shatty classical recordings. Jazz was for hepcats, beeboppers and junkies. Aren't all those people dead now?

Amazon just shipped "The Very Best of the Coasters" to me. I was wild about the single "Searchin' when I was a teen. Played it really loud at all my parties (big corner-loaded horn system). In mono, kids, MONO! (But it was hi-fi). Saw the Coasters at a touring rock 'n' roll show along with Jackie Wilson and others.

Cheers,
Alan

Isn't great to have lived to an age that premits calling 40-somethings "kids?" You go, Alan!

And did you eventually replace them in stereo for fitty cents more? That was the $ difference in the early 60's.

Benny Goodman kicks major musical arse.

Big band was the rock and roll of it's day.

I think because so much modern music is prefabricated and processed (like cheese) to sound like perfect, plastic crap, that older recordings have more air and vibe and sound much more pleasing to the human ear.

I'm pretty certain I will end up an even grumpier old man, playing scratchy old 78's on a Victrola...

Wax tubes are where it's at, dude.

Personally, I'd like to hear some Simon and Garfunkel remastered. The mastering on the CDs I have is just plain terrible.

The cd re-release of The Hurting sounds horrible compared to the vinyl (which sounds great ).

The 80's suffer the most with cd remastering. A lot of early digital gear was starting to creep into the recording chain but it was still being tracked to analog tape... so 80's music originally released on vinyl always has a punchy warmth (especially synth based music) that the cd reissues lack.

Unfortunately, cds of remastered 80's music typically sound thin and brittle but did not sound that way originally.

Lmao!

Yeah, I know an old audio guru that is convinced that wire recording is the only true "pure" way to capture sound.

Aaaaannnndddd... this is different from swearing by analog recording how? <throws some alcohol on the fire>

Yeah, Ken; I can't bear to part with my Edison wax cylinders, especially after paying $10,000 for the custom-made "high-end" player for them. Nothing beats that all-analog "warmth" in the sound.

Bob, you won't have any more "shatty" classical CDs if you simply get the ones that I've suggested here.

I only listen to post-WWII Russian avant-garde pieces for string quartets. Watchya got?

Remember when DGG was almost always a sure thing? I was always partial to totalitarian recording engineers.

Edison wax cylinders? that's some pretty hifi 'parafin'alia.

Geez, Adrian, that's baaaad.... !

With firepower like this, Adrian, it'll be nearly impossible for you to be out-punned.

Evidently.

OK...I finally got to sit down and listen without interruption (spouse)....after about 5 vocals, I got up and googled "Benny Goodman female vocal" and up popped Peggy Lee. I know some may say I am a babe in the woods on this but........Don't get much better than her sultry vocals with the jazz sound....

Bob, unless Shostakovich(nos. 3-15)is "avant-garde", you got me beat.

At the risk of retracking this thread...

RIP, Sir George Shearing.

In his honor, I am enjoying this terrific 1959 big band set from Newport courtesy of Wolfgang's Vault.

Shearing was perhaps the most articulate pianist of his (or any other) era. I was fortunate to see him in a trio setting with Joe Pass and Joe Williams; one of the best shows of my life.

Don't go gettin' all heady over it. I'm sure he never saw you .

No, really, I'm sure.

Yeah, Shearing was a great jazz pianist, and a fine accompanist as well. Sorry to hear he passed away. Just yesterday I was listening to a wonderful live recording of Mel Torme accompanied by the George Shearing quartet. It's a really clean, natural recording with an amazing bassist as well. The CD is in my mega-changer and a pain to locate, but I can check the label if you're interested. Torme and Shearing are at the peak of their abilities on this CD.

Alan

Did you ever see (witness) the Mel Torme movie with, was it Sherri North?, where he was a "teenage" badboy streetracer? He springs his girlfriend from reform school after she pushed her sister off a cliff to get to Mel. That hottie.

It's wonderfully bad.