Golden Age Of Stereo Recording

[MylesBAstor]

I was finally able to track down on the internet a copy of this recommended recordings list from the July 1965 issue of Stereo Review magazine. It took a little searching and ingenuity but it was time well spent. So many great recordings on this list from 1965!

Of special note are the world music recordings including Sasha Polinoff and The Fastest Balakaika in the West. Polinoff back then was a fixture at the Russian Tea Room in NYC. Don't miss the Serrano, or Ali Akhbar Khan (the rarer 45 rpm release has mind boggling sonics!) either.

 

[Another Johnson]

Love the record changer. I still have one that operates. Don’t you hate the sets of disks that are 1-6, 2-5, 3-4 to match the changer?

I remember this list. It was not of much interest to me as a budding music lover. It reminded me too much of the compulsory music appreciation class.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Love the record changer. I still have one that operates. Don’t you hate the sets of disks that are 1-6, 2-5, 3-4 to match the changer?

I remember this list. It was not of much interest to me as a budding music lover. It reminded me too much of the compulsory music appreciation class.

I guess we had different reactions to our music courses. Maybe in part because I had very open minded teachers in HS and college. (My professor in college was part of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music consortium in the 70s.)

As I said, the real gems in the list are the Connoisseur Society and Elektra Records releases. It’s hard to find a bad recording of Manitas de Plata, Ali Akbar Khan, Ivan Moravec or Ruth Laredo on CS. CS was a real audiophile label like Mercury and others using the newly released Ampex machines running at 30 ips and David Jones was an engineering genius (he also did Waltz for Debby/Sunday at the VV and others). I tried many years ago to track him down for an interview but was sadly unsuccessful. The best sounding of the CS records are the original cream/gold labels; the later black labels and other reissues just aren’t on the same level.

The Moravecs are among the finest piano recordings and playing one will find! I love his renditions of Beethoven (check out his Moonlight recording), Debussy and Chopin! I was lucky enough to see him back in the 90s and it was amazing what Moravec could coax out of the piano. Such delicacy and power at the same time.

Besides the Serrano and Polinoff, the one stereo release of Sabiccas on Elektra is to die for.

 

[Another Johnson]

I guess we had different reactions to our music courses. Maybe in part because I had very open minded teachers in HS and college. (My professor in college was part of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music consortium in the 70s.)

As I said, the real gems in the list are the Connoisseur Society and Elektra Records releases. It’s hard to find a bad recording of Manitas de Plata, Ali Akbar Khan, Ivan Moravec or Ruth Laredo on CS. CS was a real audiophile label like Mercury and others using the newly released Ampex machines running at 30 ips and David Jones was an engineering genius (he also did Waltz for Debby/Sunday at the VV and others). I tried many years ago to track him down for an interview but was sadly unsuccessful. The best sounding of the CS records are the original cream/gold labels; the later black labels and other reissues just aren’t on the same level.

The Moravecs are among the finest piano recordings and playing one will find! I love his renditions of Beethoven (check out his Moonlight recording), Debussy and Chopin! I was lucky enough to see him back in the 90s and it was amazing what Moravec could coax out of the piano. Such delicacy and power at the same time.

Besides the Serrano and Polinoff, the one stereo release of Sabiccas on Elektra is to die for.

Yes, I agree … they are wonderful. And the adult me has several of these recordings.

We had a compulsory music appreciation course in 8th grade. In retrospect, it could have been quite good. A fellow named Floyd Whickham once wrote “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” Maybe someone else wrote it first, but without doubt, it is true. In 8th grade I was not yet ready. In high school I was on a science and math track. That was my professional track through life.

At one time I thought that you had to either love your job, or get paid enough to indulge your hobbies. Later I decided that loving your job, at least until you had enough accumulated to leave it, was critical. 9 years past retirement, I think I read this right … at least for me.