I listen to a lot of jazz, especially swing, bebop and hard bop. Because many of these recordings were made in the 40’s-50’s, in medium quality studios, the sonic quality is “ok”, but not something you’d listen to because of the sound quality. For example I was listening to Miles Davis’ “Sketches of Spain” a few days ago on vinyl, and was thinking “wonderful music, what an awful recording”. But it’s kind of all over the place. Most Monk stuff is not well recorded, but most Ahmad Jamal is.
Jazz listening: Is it about the music? Or is it about the sound?
The thread title says it all. I can listen to jazz recordings for hours on end but can scarcely name a dozen tunes. My jazz collection is small but still growing. Most recordings sound great. On the other hand, I have a substantial rock, pop and country collection and like most of us, have a near encyclopedic knowledge of it. Yet sound quality is all over the map to the point that many titles have become nearly unlistenable on my best system. Which leads me back to my question: Is it the sound or the music? Maybe it’s both. You’ve just got to have one or the other!