Collectables Jazz Classics ...

[neveronfriday]

Hi everyone,

in another thread I started on Teddy Wilson, Larry Kart recommended a Collectables release which I am listening to as I type this. Maybe it's just that Wilson's stuff is so hard to come by, but I am simply delighted by this disc ... and the sound quality is way better than I expected, especially on "Mr. Wilson and Mr. Gershwin" (... I don't have the LP that Larry Kart has, so I can't compare and find the small faults he has described in the thread).

Now that I'm checking out oldies.com I find a whole bunch of releases that would interest me, all at a very competitive price.

Now, I've gotten carried away in the past and am wondering, before committing some of my hard-earned cash, if you can give me some general comments re experiences with other releases by Collectables.

I'm especially interested in sound quality, as always, because I'm fully aware that if, as in Teddy Wilson's case, the original recording was of fine quality, a reissue like this one can't be all that bad. So, did I just get lucky or are Collectables uniformly good (not great, but good) in regard to sound quality? Any other comments?

Thanks for your input!

Cheers!

[neveronfriday]

More:

I'm especially interested in their Tommy Dorsey/Jimmy Dorsey/Dorsey Brothers stuff, maybe the double Basie release (Blues By Basie / One O'Clock Jump), Go! and Kelly At Midnite by Paul Chambers & Wynton Kelly, some of the Jimmy Giuffre releases, .... too many to mention.

Cheers!

[Claude]

I mainly have experience with Atlantic material that Collectables licensed and seems to have remastered themselves. (I posted a long detailed review of those on the defunkt BNBB board).

I was generally disappointed. The best CDs sounded merely acceptable, but some are really bad, mainly because they used noise reduction software which left audible artefacts. I first bought the Giuffre stuff on Collectables before finding a Mosaic set. The difference in sound is important, some albums were almost unlistenable on a good hifi set because one can hear strange artificial noises on top of the clarinet. The Mosaic set has more tape hiss, but sounds natural.

Another bad transfer is John Lewis' "Jazz Abstractions" (with Ornette Coleman!). There are many drop outs, and at some time one channel completely dissappears for 20 seconds. Buy it only if you need the music.

On the other hand, the "2 albums on 1CD" reissues of Paul DEsmond RCA albums sound quite good. Not as good as the latest remasters, but at least they haven't fiddled with the tapes and seem to have taken the CD masters from the first RCA reissues.

[mikeweil]

I'm especially interested in ..... Go! and Kelly At Midnite by Paul Chambers & Wynton Kelly

I think in this case the Kelly/Chambers VeeJay Mosaic will give you the best sound, and all the alternates are worth attention, great rhythm teams throughout.

[king ubu]

yep, and the Giuffre stuff should be bouth in the Giuffre Mosaic, as long as that one's around.

I have very few of the Collectables (one Chris Connor I found very cheap, and the Blakey Night in Tunisia/Lerner & Loewe set) - and one reason is sound is suspect to me, too.

ubu

[brownie]

I usually avoid those Collectables reissues. I don't like the sound on the ones I have heard.

The only one I'm happy with is the 'Lars Gullin' which gathered two very hard to find albums (one Atlantic, one East-West) I could not get in their original form.

I can understand the interest in the Collectables releases since I reissue a lot of interesting material. But when I compare the Collectables sound with the originals I have, there's no match.

And on the Gullin CD they put out, one track from the East-West album is missing.

[Noj]

I have been very happy with Collectables reissues of Rahsaan Roland Kirk among others...are there sound quality issues with those? I never heard them in any other incarnation, so I have nothing to compare them to.

[Little High People]

does anyone have info on the philly joe/elvin 2-fer and the mingus double cd (can't remember the titles) (not just quality but content)?

[king ubu]

I have been very happy with Collectables reissues of Rahsaan Roland Kirk among others...are there sound quality issues with those? I never heard them in any other incarnation, so I have nothing to compare them to.

I have the Kirks in their 32jazz incarnations, and 32 is not exactly known for stellar sound, either, so nothing much to choose of!

Enjoy the music! So many great things to be found on those Kirk dates!

ubu

[Leeway]

I have the Chico Hamilton Collectable. I thought it sounded pretty good. It certainly didn't sound bad to me. Offhand, I don't think I have any other Collectables.

Then again, I don't have any argument with 32 Jazz either. For example, I have a number of 32 Jazz Woody Shaw CDs, and they sound good to my ears. And some terrific music there.

[Harold_Z]

Nothing has bothered me on the ones I've bought. I'm not an audio fanatic but I do have likes and dislikes in the matter and these are fine for me.

[Larry Kart]

Deus -- Glad you like that Wilson set. It was a revelation to me, and I already had the Mosaic. About Collectables sound in general, I think it's hard to generalize. I'm pretty sure they do some noise reduction sometimes, but on the others Collectables I have (the Gullin, Art Farmer's "Sing Me Soft of the Blues" etc., an Elvin Jones on Atlantic compilation), either I don't have the LP originals with which to make a comparison, or my LP originals are in sad shape). By and large, I'd say that if the material appeals, take a chance. We're not likely to see any of this stuff repackaged/remastered again for some time, if ever.

[bebopbob]

As for the Art Farmer Interaction/Sing Me Softly of the Blues Collectables CD, is there something wrong with the remastering on "My Little Suade Shoes" or did the original LP contain the same sound "distortion" with regard to the guitar on that piece?

The series itself has brought to light several obscure Atlantic recordings which didn't seem to have much chance of being reissued on CD. My only complaint here is the "pairing" of such artists as Mabel Mercer with Jimmy Giuffre 3 and The Clarke-Boland Band with The Mitchell-Ruff Trio on one compact disc.

[Larry Kart]

I'm pretty sure that guitar distortion problem is on the original LP.

[Muskrat Ramble]

I don't have any of the Collectables releases yet, but I do know that many of the sessions they've re-issued are available on other labels, either as new releases or easily-found used discs. I'm thinking in particular of Rahsaan, Blakey, and Ornette. So, it might be worth considering the various options before buying.

[montg]

I'm especially interested in their Tommy Dorsey/Jimmy Dorsey/Dorsey Brothers stuff, maybe the double Basie release (Blues By Basie / One O'Clock Jump

I had the double Basie release and sold it. It sounded as though it had been recorded in a cave. The new Sony release has most (if not all) of the material on the Collectables release and the sound on the Sony is better.

For what it's worth, I had also picked up the Berigan and Benny Goodman releases of 30s and 40s material and sold both of them as well. It sounded to me as though they had probably been dubbed straight from a 50s lp/reissue. Some of the more recent Colectables releases of older stuff now explicitly mention a remastering engineer (Ken robertson for the Columbia stuff) and so these may sound better. I haven't bought any, however, given my unfavorable experiences.

[mikeweil]

I had the Roy Ayers Collectables and it sounded fine and just as good as the individual Atlantic CDs issued recently.

Their pairings are indeed strange ...

The Clarke/Boland c/w Mitchell/Ruff sounds fine, too.

[neveronfriday]

Thanks for all the comments here. Reading the above, I think I should be a bit careful around this series.

Again, thanks!

Cheers!

[Larry Kart]

Another clue as to what the problems/limitations of some Collectables releases might stem from. Today I bought the John Lewis Golden Striker/Gunther Schuller Jazz Abstractions compilation because my copy of JA went missing some years ago. Comparing the Collectables Golden Striker to my clean old (but mono) original LP was a shock. The CD was harsh, blare-y, almost airless (the original sound edged over in that direction -- that was often Atlantic's house style, as I recall -- but not like this) and lacked low- and high-end definition. Then in the liner notes I saw "special thanks" to two record stores that specialize in o.o.p. jazz, Rochester, N.Y.'s The Bop Shop and Pittsburgh's The Attic. That suggests that the GS tracks (maybe the JA ones too) are dubs from LPs, probably because, even though the stuff is licensed from Atlantic, the original tapes were victims of Atlantic's famous warehouse fire.

[Jim R]

I just stumbled onto this cover scan on a blog. Although this CD apparently came out in 1994, I don't think I've ever seen it. Very "interesting" (cough). The wide-ranging influence of Blue Note LP covers has been documented here before, but this one kind of enters uncharted waters, no? Ah, the wonders of photoshop (note the added mic on the left side of the image)

BTW, don't ask me to listen to this one.

[Noj]

Weird.

As a side note, I sure miss the contributions of deus62 and Muskrat Ramble.

[Guy Berger]

Weird.

As a side note, I sure miss the contributions of deus62 and Muskrat Ramble.

Amen. Though now that deus62 isn't here, I no longer confuse him with ubu.

Guy

[Claude]

deus62 is still here, under a new name

[felser]

A few things to throw into the discussion here. First, Collectables in the old days was always perfectly happy to do a needle drop of an old album for a CD release, and was notorious for releasing some of the worst-sounding CD's ever. They cleaned up their act quite a bit as the years went on, and have put out some terrific-sounding rock CD's in recent times, maybe thanks to CBS/Sony and EMI special products divisions. Second, we're talking about 50's-60's Atlantic recordings here, and it's worth remembering that the reason Coltrane left Atlantic for Impulse! was because he felt the sound quaility of his Atlantic albums was unacceptable. I still cringe when I hear Tommy Flanagan's piano on "Giant Steps". Third, it's easy to say "Get the Mosaic" on everything, but these are real dollars (euro's, yen, whatever) that are being spent here, and are you really going to listen to 'Kelly At Midnight' often enough and get enough marginal difference to pay the inflated OOP Mosaic prices rather than the $10 the Collectables CD will cost you? If money is no object go for it, but how many of us can take that approach?

[etherbored]

and it's worth remembering that the reason Coltrane left Atlantic for Impulse! was because he felt the sound quaility of his Atlantic albums was unacceptable.

is that so? i'd not heard this before...

-e-