Bol

Hello everyone. It's been a long while since I shopped or went to live jazz gigs in Chicago. A London friend who is visiting Chicago want some recommendations for record stores (used jazz vinyl) and live jazz venues in Chicago. Aside from Dusty Groove, what would you recommend? Sorry if I am repeating requests that have been made many times before.

Hi Lon. Good to hear from you too. I remember your telling me about some of your upgrades. None of it really made sense to me at the time, but now I understand. I was chatting yesterday with a colleague who is a huge audiophile. He told me that the next thing is cables! That sounds less daunting and expensive than a new CD player, but who knows? But I shall tread carefully. Thanks for the tip. Alas, I don't do Facebook, and I also just got rid of the electricity converter, so I cannot really plug the old Sony amplifier in any more. Most likely, the next time I travel to the US, I will bring the old amplifier with me and give it to someone.

I never really liked big band jazz, but a new amplifier is prompting me to reconsider. I moved from the US to the UK seven years ago, and brought with me an old Sony amplifier from the 1980's that my sister had given me when she upgraded. I had to use an electricity converter to use it here in the UK. As a Christmas present to myself, I bought a much better amplifier -- Quad Vena II integrated amplifier -- and I now no longer need to use a converter! The chief benefit is the clarity of sound as well as added warmth. I was listening to the first Mosaic Lester Young set the other day, and big band music all of sudden made sense to me. And Lester Young never sounded so good!!! Compared to what I am hearing now, before, big band music just sounded like a sludge of sounds. I am no audiophile, and I never thought an amplifier could make such a big difference. Now, I am thinking about a new CD player! I guess this is a dangerous road to travel on...

Any recommendations as to which issues on vinyl of Fats Waller & Rhythm you'd recommend? Not 78's, but 12" LP's. Thanks in advance.

Yes, they have some really good ones. Unfortunately, I am in the UK, and the shipping would be prohibitive. Not to mention the customs. Sigh...

The Tatrai Quartet's recordings (on CD's) were my first introduction to Haydn's quartets back when I was in grad school in the 1990's! At some point, I moved on the the period instrument recordings and got rid of the Tatrai CD's. But now I like many of the older recordings on modern instruments. So I will check some of these out. Thanks.

I'm getting slightly obsessed with listening to old string quartet recordings on vinyl. The strings sound so much richer and multi-dimensional than on digital recordings. The two sets I've been playing repeatedly are: Schneider Quartet's almost complete recordings (why not Op. 9?!) of the Haydn quartets issued by Haydn Society Records in the 1950s. Vegh Quartet's recordings of the Beethoven quartets issued by Valois in the 1970's If you know old pre-digital string quartet recordings that you particularly love, please recommend them. I am currently trying to get good copies of the Vegh Quartet's Bartok quartets, and eyeing Quarteto Italiano's Schumann quartets. What else?

Does anyone know whether this is from analog source? And any opinions about how good this re-issue is? Thanks in advance.

Thank you for these recommendations. I will look further into them.

I live in London, but am about to spend about 3 months in Chicago. I would like to buy some records while I am there given the greater supply and better prices in the US. Ideally, I'd want to play them as I get them, so that I can enjoy them and also avoid bringing back defective pressings. I remember people with some small suitcase-sized and -shaped record players in the old days. Are any of them good and also still available? Any suggestions? Now, that we're past the pandemic, I plan to go back more often to the States, and I will also be in Japan for a month later this year. So I wouldn't mind a small investment.

I was looking at a re-issue of a record recorded in the 1980's at a store today, and it said on the back that the record was "digitally mastered" by Kevin Gray at Cohearent. Does it make sense to buy records like this?

This collection of short stories has been much written about recently. I'm reading it now, and it is an amazing collection, and Berlin clearly was a wonderful writer. One of the pleasures for me is the fact that Berlin knew jazz, and there are little intrusions/snippets of jazz in these short stories. In one of the stories, a woman's screams are compared to early Ornette Coleman in "The Lonely Woman" days, for example. Another story "Melina" is all about being the wife of a jazz musician. Apparently, Berlin was married 4 times, and 2 of her husbands were jazz musicians.

I'm just getting into this series, and so far I love them. The only complaint I have is about the very thin cardboard used for covers. I wish that Blue Note had pursued a middle path between the thin covers for this series and the downright ridiculous amount of cardboard being used for the Tone Poet series. I also love the fact that the LP's in this series do not suffer from the warping problems that I have been experiencing with the Tone Poets and the Acoustic Sounds LP's. It's dismaying how the German plant producing the Classics does such better job of quality control than the plants in the U.S.

Very helpful. Thank you. The one I have a problem with is from Acoustic Sounds.

I've been buying more vinyl recently, and some audiophile LP's I have bought have a bit of warping. I'm wondering how much warping is OK, and at what point I should try to return the records? Is there some good rule of thumb? Thanks in advance.