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Both were re-issued at the turn of the millenium by Columbia/Sony/Legacy. Phil Schaap produced both and unearthed AMAZING sources, better than any used before, at least for CD and most Lp issues.

Phil also had a hand in the sound. SHRILL, BRIGHT, PIERCING, PINCHED sound. The music is so great, the presentation, liner notes, historical information, everything is done SOOO well, it's just so f***ing annoying how bad this sounds. If someone had only ripped out the damn parametric/smacked Phil's hands everytime he tried to click on the EQ function of his workstation, this would've been perfect.

I ended up re-burning these CD's to fix the EQ, and in the case of the Goodman set, some de-clicking (Schaap did NO de-clicking whatsoever, and he makes it clear in the notes - I hate denoising and excessive cleaning, but a de-clicking filter set to a VERY light setting would've removed most of the pops and had no effect on the music. He didn't even do that, and there are a ton of loud, obvious pops, the kind that are very easy to remove).

The thing about that Newport '56 disc is that half of the original LP was originally 're-recorded' the next day. So his ungodly-sounding reissue is the only way to hear the entire original set. Still, if you just want it for Paul Gonsalves' solo in Dimenuendo and Crescendo in Blue (among the best jazz solos ever recorded), you can probably find it nicer-sounding on an old LP.

I have the Ellington, haven't heard the Goodman. Not having heard other versions of this, I just assumed that's what those tapes sounded like. The stereo sync-up is certainly fascinating, even if it really isn't very directional most of the time (and things slip into mono here and there).

MK, I take it the Goodman set is not in stereo?

Yeah, the Goodman set is all mono. It's kind of like an audience recording, except the mic's hanging way up over the orchestra, so plenty of Carnegie Hall's ambience - the advantage is that it makes the clicks SO much easier to take out.

The new Ellington liner notes say Gonsalves did not play 'off-mic,' just into the wrong mic, so they supposedly found the tape (a Voice of America broadcast) that was lower in fidelity, but had Gonsalves coming in much clearer. Not sure how it compares with the original Lp, but it's pretty cool how it's all reconstructed.

So, MK, what EQ setting do you use to 'correct' the Ellington set?

FYI, in case it isn't clear, the VOA broadcast is in the left channel, the Columbia recording in the right channel.

I played around with it, but I think it was something like -2 db at 6k, -3 at 8k, and -4 at either 12 or 16k. I basically tapered off the top.