Not new by any stretch of the imagination and an album that will be familiar to many I’m sure, but this version on Naxos and downloaded in 128FS DSD… all 7.8 Gig of it … zipped!… is really rather worth talking about.  

Musically this record is not in question…the tunes are brilliant in a traditional jazz kind of way, but it’s the way this is recorded, the noise of the audience and the ambience you get from it that sets it apart. It was recorded in 1976 at a club called Jazzpuben Stampen, oft’ referred to as the Pawnshop, in Stockholm, Sweden and is tremendous in getting you “there”…right there in front of the band and being part of the audience. 

There’s loads of twaddle talked about hifi giving you that “being there” feeling, but this record, played on a great system, and particularly in this hi-res format, sounds like you are there like few other records I’ve had the pleasure of hearing.  To get the 2 x HD transfer the original 15ips CCIR master tape was played on a Nagra IV-S tape machine, which was the same used to record the original (I love this kind of attention to detail) using a tube preamp and posh silver cables…. This DSD version was done using a dCS905 and dCS Vivaldi clock.

Buy this for the music if you don’t have it already (it’s very accessible even if you are not into jazz) and buy it to show the people that come round your house that shelling out on a great hifi is really worth the money. As near to a live event in the sitting room as I have ever experienced and very, very, very addictive stuff!!! I can’t stop listening to it!

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Stuart Smith