I've been listening to some of my favorite recordings this weekend and was wondering what others on Audiogon felt were there favorites. We have all seen the Stereophile "Records to Die For", The Absolute Sounds recommended list, Music Directs' list, The Golden Ear, etc. now I'm hoping to assemble the Audiogon "Recordings To Die For". Please list your five favorite recordings, the ones you listen to over and over or play for friends. I would assume the sonic quality is excellent in that this is an audiophile site. The performance and enjoy ability should also be excellent. Please leave your top five, even if they are already chosen so we can discover the very top for the Audiogon listeners. ALSO PLEASE REFRAIN FROM CRITICIZING OTHERS OPINIONS AND JUST LEAVE YOUR FAVORITES!
August 2002: I have compiled a summary and a full printer-friendly list of all of the recommendations below. click here to view summary
You guys got great taste, there's a number of titles I've got give a listen. Thanks.
1. Miles Davis: "Kind of Blue" 2. Dinah Washington: "The Dinah Washington Story" 3. Billie Holliday: "Her finest Studio Recordings" 4. Joni Mitchell: "Hejira" 5. Diana Krall: "When I look in your eyes"
"Bridge of Sighs" - Robin Trower "Machine Head" - Deep Purple "Surfing with the Alien" - Joe Satriani "Crystal Planet" - Joe Satriani "Paranoid" - Black Sabbath "Heaven and Hell" - Black Sabbath "Hell Bent for Leather" - Judas Priest "Van Halen" - Van Halen "Led Zeppelin IV" - Led Zeppelin "Music of Barrios" - David Russell "Villa-Lobos" - Manuel Barrueco "Music of Joaquin Rodrigo" - Pepe Romero "All the World's a Stage" - Rush "Permanent Waves" - Rush
Handful of all-time favorites from my jazz/jazz fusion collection:
Antonio Forcione - Tears of Joy Chick Corea - Now He Sings, Now He Sobs Antonio Forcione/Charlie Haden -Heartplay Bob James - Grand Piano Canyon Bruce Hornsby - Camp Meeting (w/ Christian McBride & Jack DeJohnette) Skywalk - The Bohemians (GREAT underrated band fronted by Graeme Coleman)
Miles Davis - Someday My Price Will Come LP Pretenders - The Isle of View CD Eric Dolphy With Booker Little At The Five Spot Vol. 1 CD Gelder Remaster Chicago Symphony/Reiner - Pines of Rome LP/XRCD pretty good Getz Au Go Go Stan Getz Quartet Live at Cafe Au Go Go with Astrud Gilberto
1) Kruder Dorfmeister "The K&D Sessions" 2) Coldplay "Parachute" 3) Amon Tobin "Bricolage" 4) Bach Cello suites (played by Pierre Founier) 5) William Orbit (Pieces in a modern style) 6) Ninja Toon compilation "Xen" 7) Radiohead "OK Computer" 8) Pink Floyd "Wish you were here" 9) Rolling Stones "Let it bleed" 10) Duke Ellington "Greatest hits" with Black & Tan Fantasy
Dave Brubeck Quartet - Take Five (Remastered CD or LP) Holly Cole - Temptation Miles Davis - Kind of Blue (Remastered CD or LP) The Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik The Dave Mathews Band - Under the Table and Dreaming
Honorable mention:
Cannonball Adderley - Somethin' Else (Remastered CD or LP) Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington - The Complete Sessions Patricia Barber - Cafe Blue Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz  Jazz Samba (CD reissue or Original Verve LP) Tracy Chapman Eric Clapton - 361 Ocean Boulevard (Remastered CD or LP) Bruce Cockburn  Speechless Larry Coryell, Badi Assad, and John Abercrombie - Three Guitars Miles Davis - A Tribute to Jack Johnson (Remastered CD or LP) Duke Ellington - Blues in Orbit Bill Evans Trio - Portrait in Jazz (Remastered CD or LP) Bela Fleck - Tails from the Acoustic Planet Floratone Bill Frisell - The best of Bill Frisell, Vol. 1 - Folk Songs Peter Gabriel - Us Joe Henderson - Lush Life Jane's Addiction - Nothing's Shocking Janine Jensen - Vivaldi: The Four Seasons Violin Concerto Nora Jones - Come Away With Me Rickie Lee Jones (LP) Rickie Lee Jones - Pop Pop K.D. Lang - Ingenue Led Zepplin - III (Remastered CD or original LP) Led Zepplin - Houses of the Holy (Remastered CD or original LP) Los Lobos - Kiko Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Mark O'Connor, Stephen Foster - Appalachian Journey Charles Mingus - Ah Um (Remastered CD or LP) Joni Mitchell - Hejira Willie Nelson - Teatro Nirvana - Nevermind Madeleine Peyroux  Careless Love Pearl Jam - Vs Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon (thick vinyl) Rage Against the Machine Return to Forever - Romantic Warrior Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raising Sand (CD version) Markus Roberts - Deep in the Shed Steely Dan - Gaucho (Remastered CD or 180g vinyl) Steely Dan - Aja (Remastered CD or 180g vinyl) Sublime The David Grisman Quintet (Original 1976 LP) The Be Good Tanyas - Blue Horse Weather Report - Sweetnighter Cassandra Wilson - New Moon Daughter
Hey guys, I just got a stunner. I know we audiophiles don't think of christmas music as audiophile quality but..............!!!!
Check this one out. Chris Botti: "December" Stunning in many ways.. Its light jazz but it has almost everything that we want and you will her it on every cut.
Hey Brainwater...if u liked manu katche, I highly recommend
1. Christian Scott: Anthem. the 24 yrd old trumpeter wunderkid 2nd album out this yr...kinda like Miles Davies meets Radiohead.
2. Brian Blade Fellowship: Season of Changes.. drummer like Manu...played w/ Joshua Redman, Joni Mitchell, Pat Metheny among others...great compositions and features another young cat Kurt Rosenwinkel (gtr) , his best playing IMO, better than his own solo records
3. Nick Bartch's Ronin: Holon: Swiss pianist, zen like a bit but funky too. Very well recorded...ECM.
4 McCoy Tyner: Guitars....the old man teams up with Marc Ribot, John Scofield, Derek Tucks, Bela Fleck...some it works, some doesn't but always interesting...bonus DVD shows about 1/2 of the recording session which is very illuminating.
My recommendation would be "Autumn Thunder, 40 years of NFL Music". If you are a fan of NFL Films music, this is for you! It has a collection of 10 CDs with some of the greatest music written for football (maybe ever!).
Some of the best selections were written by the great Sam Spence. Familiar songs like " Big Game America","Roundup", "Ramblin' Man from Gramblin'", "The Over the Hill Gang" and many more that are too numerous to mention. Many fans have asked about these recordings through the years and also include other musicians such as Tom Hedden and Dave Robidoux. Highly recommended for your tailgate or on a quiet evening! One word of caution: the packaging is not up to snuff and leaves much to be desired but the music more than makes up for it. If I am not mistaken it was released as well on LP for the vinyl people as well.
Gordon Goodman's latest-recoding The Phat Pack-comes as a cd and dvd.The dvd played through my system using the direct mode-straight from my modwright denon 2900 to the amps-is like nothing you have ever heard-the most incredible big band sound ever.The songs are excellent and surround mix is the best I have ever experienced.
Yes, Nimbus does have a few Indian classical recordings that are "warm" (i.e., capture ambience and hall acoustical charateristics - most of you know but in the rare instance that you don't). Water Lily Acoustics label also has some cool Indian classical & fusion recordings.
Believe it or not, there are some older unreal (or is it too real?), warm Amjad Ali Khan sarod recordings as well. This is not necessarily true for the other old Indian recordings - hence the specific example. Since Indian classical recordings NEED to be directional to "feel" the tabla on the left (right of the performer) and main performer in the center or right - the separated mics and old-world-classic Stereo affect without mixing works really well.
For vinyl selections it usually something like this: Nirvana - Unplugged in NY Die Rohre (THE TUBE) - TACET music sampler Tracy Chapman - Tracy Chapman Leo Kottke - My Father's face Jack Johnson - In Between Dreams
For CD's: Patricia Barber - Cafe Blue Tutti! - Reference Recordings Diana Krall - Live in Paris Jazz at the pawnshop Norah Jones - Come away with me
1. Rodney Crowell "The Outsider" 2. Rosanne Cash "Rules of Travel" 3. Bobby Hutcherson "Happenings" (RVG remaster 2006) 4. Elgar "Violin Concerto" with Ralph Vaughn Williams "The Lark Ascending" (Hilary Hahn, DG 2004) 5. Tomas Stanko "Suspended Night"
Listen to these five back to back and you will either love your system or sell everything and start over.
Red-King Crimson Pawn Hearts-Van Der Graaf Generator Egyptology- World Party Two Doors- Michael Shrieve, Jonas Hellborg & Shawn Lane Spin- Stewart&Gaskin
Name - Artist (Format; Label) Waiting for Columbus - Little feat (LP; Warner Bros) Shootout at the Fantasy Factory - Traffic (LP - Island) Sunday at the Vanguard - Bill Evans (CD; Riverside - a little 'bright' - LP is probably much better) Explorations - Bill Evans (SACD; Riverside) Sound of Sonny - Sonny Rollins (SACD; Riverside) Silver's Blue - Horace Silver Quintet (LP; Epic) Meeting by the River - Cooder & Bhatt (CD, Water Lily Acoustic) Tabula Rasa - Fleck, Bhatt, and Chen (CD, Water Lily Acoustic)
Three that come to mind, one a recent favourite, one slightly older, and finally a gendre-defining classic.
Camille, _Le Fil_
Femme vocal stuff, but not your typical jazz trio "audiophile music". Sung all in French, and the vocals are everywhere -- a lot of the background instruments are vocals too -- the "raspberry" as percussive element is an example of the fun in this album. Nice bass (electric and acoustic), nice dynamics, great voice, highly recommended.
Einstürzende Neubauten, _Silence is Sexy_
Those of you familiar with the artist's name probably remember them as a proto-industrial band (think punks gone "Stomp" and setting fire to things), but really they've gone and done something remarkable: this is an album of actual songs, and they are very good. Sung in a variety of languages (mostly German, some English), and yes it does get slightly raucous at times, but in a rock'n'roll kind of way. But every metal scraping, compressor blast, and rubber mallet thwack is done in the context of making music, and it is surprisingly well-recorded. Again -- nice use of dynamics in a contemporary "pop" context (as opposed to jazz or classical).
Talk Talk, _Spirit of Eden_
Probably the first "post-rock" album, this album has enough atmosphere for an entire career, but alas, they only did two albums like this (the other being [b][i]Laughing Stock[/i][/b]). You wouldn't think a band whose breakaway hit was the synthpop standard "Talk Talk" could do an album with such an unorthodox disregard for rhythm, and yet, here it is. Songs don't have the standard structure of verse/chorus so much as they ebb and flow to the tides of whimsy. Lots of cleanly recorded trumpet and highly distorted harmonica and a bunch of other instruments in between as well as scratchings and scrapings of who knows what and quite possibly the burbling of a nearby brook (alright, it's probably a rainstick, whatever).
And yet, not a single sound is out of place -- every single one is purposeful.
My favorite five are, Alan Parson Project ~ Pyrimid Patty Smyth ~ Patty Smyth Be Good Tayna's ~ Blue Horse Eva Cassidy ~ Songbird (Superb Performance) Willie Nelson ~ Greatest Hits (HDCD version) Excellent.
So far the ones that have passed the test of time are: King Crimson - Discipline, Emmylou Harris - Spyboy, Jayhawks - Tomorrow the Greener Grass, Holst - The Planets, and either Joe Jackson - Live or Martin Sexton - Live Wide Open. When the list is allowed to be expanded to 10 discs,I'll include Marcus Johnson -Live at Blues Alley, Dianne Reeves - In the Moment, Mahler #8, and Rush - Hemispheres.
Speaking of Brian Auger he has a new CD out called "Voices of Other Times" and it is exceptional. Brian's daughter Savannah sings on the CD and his son Karma plays drums; both are very talented musicians. Brian as usual does a superb job playing all keyboards including his Hammond B-3. I highly recommend this CD; every cut is very good.
Artist: Ahmad Jamal Album: Ahmad's Blues Original Release date: September 6, 1958 Label: Verve The whole album is great, but Track 4 (Autumn Leaves) is exceptional.
My sonically superior selections are........................
Pop/Rock
Nils Lofgren - Acoustic Live (CD) Supertramp  Crime of the Century (MFSL-CD) Jennifer Warnes  The Well (CD) Eric Clapton  Reptile (CD) Steely Dan  Two Against Nature (CD or DVDa)
Jazz
Bob Thompson  The Magic in Your Heart (CD) Herbie Hancock  Gershwins World (SACD or CD) Ramsey Lewis  Ivory Pyramid (CD) Pancho Sanchez  Out of Sight (SACD) Louie Bellson  The Art of the Chart (CD)
Contemporary Jazz
Joyce Cooling  Keeping Cool (HDCD) Liz Wright  Salt (CD) Goerge Duke  After Hours (CD) Dan Siegel  Inside Out (CD) Bobby Lyle  Straight and Smooth (CD)
Classical
Fredrick Fennell  Marches IÂve Missed (HDCD) Brahms Haydn Variations  4 Symphonies on Deutsche Grammophon (3-CD) Vaughn Williams  Orchestral Works on Decca (2-CD) John Williams Boston Pops  Summon the Heroes (CD) Oscars Motettkor - Cantate Domino (SACD)
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