Needle Time

  James Brown (with Oliver Nelson Conducting Louie Bellson Orchestra) - Soul On Top [KS 1100 USA 2023 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC] The widely anticipated remaster of James Brown's Soul On Top big band album was delayed until earlier this year when originally scheduled for the pre-Christmas market. We don't know the reason for this, perhaps a capacity issue at Third Man Pressing, perhaps somebody didn't like the test pressings, however we do know that somebody wanted the album re-mixed before it was sent to Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sounds to be cut. Why did it have to be re-mixed ....we know that Universal Music move in mysterious ways, so we will never know.  This record was filthy when I removed it from the shrink and out of its cheap paper inner. That was a huge disappointment and likely due to careless cost-cutting at the label, who must have gone to some expense with a RKS cut. Thankfully it did clean up well for this rip. There have been a few stories peddled around the n...

  Oliver Nelson - The Blues And The Abstract Trut h [B0033428-01 USA 2021 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC] Here is another classic from the Verve/Impulse Acoustic Sounds Series. I've been collecting this series for a few years now and if you are just getting into jazz, these and any of the Blue Note Classics & Tone Poet Series releases are the ideal starting points. I was just doing a quick tally against the Discogs listings for these series and was surprised that I have good proportion of them. Maybe one week, we need to have a run of jazz classics, because it will take me a while if I was to just limit myself to Sunday postings. To fully appreciate this rips, I would strongly recommend using a full home audio experience rather than just headphones to do them justice. Cut from the original master tapes by Ryan K Smith at Sterling Sound and pressed carefully onto high quality vinyl at QRP, these just have to sound better than the original releases. Originally released on Impulse Records i...