Congratulations on 50 years in Business! What an accomplishment! Think of all the lives you've touched. Employees, customers, vendors, youtube junkies! LOL It's people like you who make America great!...for people like me. Thank you very much! I hope to tour your facility some day just so I can say thank you in person. Have a wonderful day!
At least eight microphones where used to record Jazz at the Pawnshop. Four U47 (fets i think), 2 KM56, a M49 (in omni), one unnamed. The two main mics (U47) in ORTF facing the stage. A studer mixer, two Dolby A 361 noise reduction units and two Nagra IV recorders, used alternately since the seven-inch reels only lasted for 15 minutes at 38 cm/second where also used. It's a fantastic album and swings like...!! It's also available to download as DSD!
It's made in Sweden, Stockholm in Gamla Stan (Old Town). If you want to impress with your Swedish pronunciation it's Jeart Palmcrantz. The musicians are really world class too.
Yes, its recorded in a bar thats called ”Stampen” (eng pawnshop) in Stockholm Sweden which still is open every night and a place to listen to jazz and try some drinks.
I'm not an audiophile but theres something about mid to late 70s recordings, whenever the topic arises I immediately think Of Super Tramp. Maybe an audiophile can enlighten me if that period is an actual thing.
Must agree, fabulous recording, it’s just so big!! Also Tears for Fears -The Seeds of Love and for something more contemporary Goldie- Timeless all absolute behemoths!
@@thomhagan8297 I've always thought so. "Typical" recordings were excellent and it only went up from there. I'll take an original LP with the haze of 40 years of abuse over a mishandled remaster any day.
I can only add one thing...modern lossless CD (or better quality) streaming is so awesome and in seconds you have whatever music easily added to whatever playlist you use for a particular purpose. From Paul giving me the title to me playing the track it is only a few seconds. In my teens in the late 1970s, I could spend most of a Saturday to bike down to the local record store and buy some vinyl disc, where often only one or few of the tracks were really awesome. Here I am decades later and I keep getting blown away with how much fun it is to focus on the music when streaming. Having around 100 million tracks to browse between is insane. Now Friday evening I am finishing some work and just randomly found some music by Medwyn Goodall perfect to play in the background. All my music discs and tapes are collecting dust together with all my movie DVDs and tapes.
Can you take them down to the local charity shop? I and many others like me would love to have them to play in our hifi systems or upload in lossless format into our digital music players.
there's something about having unlimited access though, you kinda tend to make less discoveries especially if you let the algorithm guide you. back in bbs days when you could only get .mod files you would find really wonderful music you would never have otherwise heard. now you could come across a bunch of them on even streaming platforms, most you can't(need to go on special sites for them), but likelihood of going through them for some random person is very low. likewise back when mp3's became available you could download most mp3's you came across and give them a spin to see what the music is, in just couple of years that became unfeasible. and I do mean back when mp3's became available as that only encoder you could find would run in dos and take an hour and winplay3 was still the only good sounding player and people somewhat widely believed that you simply couldn't fast forward a mp3 because the player couldn't do it. anyway rambling story but came across spin doctors 2 princes as the first mp3 on a random warez ftp site, the kind of random warez ftp site that was hosted on a random companys hacked ftp server. I don't remember how I found the player software, I think it was on the same site alongside the song. then for sometime later you would copy every mp3 you came across and get introduced to a lot of wonderful music that way, it was the music people thought was worth sharing too so there was a certain quality filter with that (like this is way before napster, before variable bitrates). oh well I once as a kid also bought an u2 album(on cassette) thinking it would be more techno-like. didn't like it either. but the discovery happening like that is gone now and that's kind of a shame, with the unlimited library you get access to now - the access isn't actually unlimited either, there's just so much stuff that you tend to think about that it is, lots of stuff that had limited radio play even still missing on streaming platforms.
@@clickbeetle2720 I pay US$9.99 per month for Amazon Music Unlimited. That’s US$120 per year. For this money I have access to around 100,000,000 songs that will play near instantly in CD quality or up to 192kHz 24 bits UHD lossless FLAC. You can just pick by album and play music exactly as if it’s a CD or vinyl album. Unlike physical albums, there are no data errors and no scratch sounds or other audible artifacts. As I’m audiophile I spend a lot more money than US$120 on my audio gear per year. Just my recent KEF LS60 cost me US$5000 or similar to more than 40 years of streaming. Before I could easily spend US$120 per month on just buying vinyl or CDs. When you have access to 100 million music tracks on streaming simply by searching artists or song title, you don’t come empty handed ever. You always easily find music you’ve never heard and in many cases music that is surprisingly good. I bought my first turntable in 1978 and started collecting vinyl discs since then. I got my first CD player in 1985 (Denon) and it was one of the best at the time. Also the year I bought my Stax electrostatics headphones and was so amazed about CD quality even in 1985. Today streaming can do the same and even better. And yes, streaming was bad before limited to crappy MP3 compressed music. I hated that also. But today is totally different.
I have many audiophile tracks, from Folk, Jazz, Electronic, EDM, Rock and Gregorian Chant. Each have their own intensity, range of frequencies and demands of the system. Jazz at the Pawn Shop is a fabulous Album
We have a shop in San Antonio that has been around since at least 1970 and maybe longer. Bill Case Sound morphed in to Bjorn’s Audio Video. I bought a Dual turntable and Sherwood S71A receiver there in 1970! It’s so cool to have a legacy business like that.
Back circa 1974 I was buying my first “full audio system”. Best equipment for the time. My test album, and still a favorite was Joni Mitchell’s Court And Spark. Great memories whenever I re-listen to it. Gianni❤
Congrats on 50 years. I was one of your first customers having bought your phono preamp off one of those ads in Audio Magazine. Also owned a Model 2 amp as well (much later) which made a few trips back to SLO for repair and upgrades.
Eye in the Sky. For studio recordings it is utter perfection. But there are so many perfect captures from the 70s, the pinnacle era of musical and audio craftsmanship because of the all-round talent and passion for making timeless music. And if you want everybody on the dancefloor, this is your decade.
I’m definitely not a Jazz lover, but I found that on Tidal three years ago, and now I listen to it every month or two. I love to turn all the lights off, and listen to the people in the rooms chatter, the glasses on the table tinkling. It’s like being there.
I dont own it, but have listened to it numerous times and various systems. Jazz at the Pawshop does a surprisingly good job of replicating the experience of listening to live music in a small club setting. If you've ever gone to a few jazz shows at small venues, you'll know what Im talking about.
The Beatles ‘Abbey Road’ has the close-miked sound of John, George and Paul throughout, a wide range of instrumentation and it’s very very familiar to most listeners. Someone mentioned ‘Aja’ too - again, lots of care has gone into capturing the instrument sounds and it has beautifully dense arrangements which a good audio system will clarify and separate out. Lots of comments mention ECM releases - these often captured the ambience of the spaces they were recorded in, and have music quiet enough to reveal great subtleties in the recording.
Aaron Neville "Warm Your Heart" was used as my first foray into CD recordings by my local dealer and it is still one of my favourites. Well engineered from the (non digital!) recording and not only is Aaron's voice a wonder to hear but some of the musicianship is truly great ...
I don't have anything particularly magnificent, just an old pair of KEF towers and a Velodyne 12" sub. "Jazz at the Pawnshop" made this setup come alive and I think I'm addicted now lol!
Thank you Paul for these always informative videos. As a jazz lover and audiophile 😎 I can assure you that there are at least a dozen live jazz recordings that are very well recorded and offer much more involving music, two examples would be: Shelly Manne and his men at the Black Hawk vol 1 to 5, or the more famous Bill Evans trio Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby, which exist in various formats and are very well sounding (the word is natural sounding) even on Red Book CD 😉 Many thanks for your contributions to the Audio Community, Music always!!!
The Pawnshop ”Stampen” is located in the Old Town in Stockholm and is still a jazz pub. I have worked in the building for ten years. The recording can be found on SACD or as high res audio file.
Peter Erskine Trio ‘You Never Know’ on ECM has been my go to since 1994, particularly the track On The Lake - stunning upright bass solo from Palle Danielsson.
It's always amazing seeing Supertramp mentioned as I fell in love the band in the early 90's right along with the audiophile hobby, and for the music more than the "sound" - but the sound was incredible. It's disappointing the band rarely gets mentioned on the music end of things.
As soon as I saw the title of this video I knew it had to be Jazz At The Pawnshop :) The real debate is about which version sounds best: the original, the remastered or the 30th anniversary edition
I'd like to know that too. I have the 30th Ann on SACDs, but have never had a good SACD player. I only had an Oppo BDP95, which was terrible. If another (edit: better) version on redbook CD was out there, I might try to get one.
I installed high end car stereos for Ken's Car Tunes back in the 90's and our default test track was Mammagamma by The Alan Parsons Project. It was almost flat from lows through mids and into highs. Great for setting up crossover points and EQ's
I’m so happy to be a proud owner of an original mint copy of Jazz At The Pawnshop. At the end of 2023 I discovered a fantastic copy of Jazz Incorporated on vinyl. It is a 1982 pressing on the Dragon label. It happened to have Egil Johansen on drums and engineered by Rune Persson. It is also a fantastic album. Thanks for sharing this information. Take care. Steve
Dire Straits Brothers in Arms is an excellent test album. The Mobile Fidelity Sound CD edition is the best of the several versions I own. The quality of the playing and recording and the songs dynamics and positioning of the instruments in space will let you know the soundstage and detail of your setup. Rock on!
Hi Paul, Thanks for the recommendation. I remembered seeing an original copy on vinyl in my local store, so I went back there and bought it after watching your video. It really is as good as you say! I read somewhere else, that there were two mics in a stereo configuration plus several spot mics. The cables then ran to a temporary studio in the kitchen.
about 15 years ago I visited a high end hi fi shop in Singapore and got to listen to a special presing of Love Over gold on a 250000+ System. That Marimba solo at the end is still one of the best Audiophile tracks I ever heard. I have to give a shout out to the Grace Jones Compass Point sessions, Truly amazing production an clarity
Well, now I have to drag out my SACD of Jazz at the Pawn Shop. I dismantled my Oppo BDP95 many years ago in a futile attempt to improve its sound quality, so can only now listen to the redbook CD layer. But it will be interesting to compare it with the likes of 'Keith Don't Go', which has some amazing dynamics and detail.
The notes are in a chordal order using the “circle of fifths”. Jazz is a more complex chordal arrangement than pop or rock music. As a result, it usually appeals to a more seasoned or sophisticated listener. Symphonic music can also be complex and difficult to listen too. Jazz music being produced today like Robert Glasper and Fourplay are good examples of current jazz and are an easier listen although not jazz in its purist form like early Miles Davis. Some of the best recordings are jazz as they are generally recorded live in studio.
I think your comment may apply to _mainstream_ rock, but rock has moved on; you may want to check out the last decade or so of alternative rock created in Japan, especially the math rock genre and associated fusion rock genres, e.g. the band *paranoid* *void* . They play complex chord arrangements that on paper you think wouldn't work, but sound mesmerising. Jazz has been popular in Japan for a long time and its influences have filtered through into many other genres, J-rock included.
Ha!!! I bought that, of course. The first thirty seconds was always what people would put on. Here, listen to this...piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, HOLY CRAP ENESEMBLE HIT~~~
Fresh off the New Orleans Jazz Fest, and listening to a Spotify stream of Pawnshop on Macbook Pro speakers, I immediately felt like I was back in New Orleans. Even on a laptop, this recording is butter.
For sheer presence out of the gate, and range in fidelity, I lean to Squonk by Genesis and Awaken by Yes. Look forward to listening to your recommendation!
1976, the year I graduated HS and the year Dazed and Confused was set in. Didn't find out about Jazz at the Pawnshop untill about the time that movie came out in 1993.
Jazz at the Pawnshop WAS NOT recorded with a stereo pair of microphones AND there were multiple sessions recorded. The peerless recordings that construct the audiophile favorite Jazz At The Pawnshop were made in Stockholm, Sweden on December 6-7, 1976 by engineer Gert Palmcrantz while producer/record company owner Jacob Boëthius kept a watchful eye over the proceedings. One microphone pair spaced 20 cm apart was responsible for the main pick-up, with a couple of microphones placed to register the "live" atmosphere of the Pawnshop jazz club and a few discrete support mics - all recorded onto a pair of two-track Nagra tape recorders.
Super suggestion. 'Aja' and 'Brothers In Arms', too. On the other end of the spectrum, in the realm of ambience, I was struck by the brown-greyish noise when I visited Los Angeles. Then a song memory came to me. The city of LA sounded like the beach desert beeze-dusty background of The Doors' "LA Woman". Was that on purpose?
Recorded on a Nagra at 15 ips... Not audiophile by todays standards (1% THD), but a state of the art recorder at the time; the much revered Nagra IV was mainly used for film dialog recording, but also used for field recordings of all kinds. This "Pawnshop" recording is a great example of how subjective the quality of audio can be... The Nagra didn't have super low distortion or the flawless frequency response that you'll find in today's gear, but it was capable of rendering some beautiful sounding recordings!
Paul, I always have a great pleasure while watching your auditions. To this very good present theme I would add more: the most difficult tracks to reproduce. For me such a difficult track is Amanda McBroom song "Ghost in this house" from "Midnight Matinee" album. Difficult because of incredable sibilants in refrain: "I am just a ghost in my house...". The hissing sounds sounded awful. I thought maybe CD was badly recorded. Now, after a few cable modifications, it finally sounds perfect. I made at my DIY audio system modifications based on recommended by you cable suggestions: long balanced cables between preamp and monoblocks plus very short speakers cables.
My all time favorite audiophile recording is Harry James' direct to disc "The King James Version". That vinyl just was awe inspiring both musically and technically.
When I was an audiophile, I test drove stereo equipment with a track on Gentle Giant’s Octopus album called Knots. There’s a xylophone solo on it that is the ultimate test in rise time and stereo imaging. And just after that xylophone solo, there’s a very sudden dynamic change with an inch of instruments crashing in at once. Those were the days. The ariston RD11s table with the sure SME arm and a grado signature series pickup… playing half speed mastered virgin vinyl thru my Harmon Kardon discrete amps and the Ohm C2’s.
If you've not heard: Pink Floyd's: Time, from Dark Side of the Moon on SACD in all it's 5.1 surround sound glory. You've been missing out. And if it's too loud. You're too old ;)
Was never in a position to spend the kind of $ it takes for top notch gear. But back in the years when you first started I'd go into the stores where they'd demo this Amp with those speakers and such. The song that got played more than any other, and for my money with good reason, Angry Eyes. Thanks for that one, Kenny and Jim!
Anytime I hear the term “audiophile”, I immediately think of Steely Dan’s “Aja”. I’ve never heard of Jazz at the Pawnshop before but I’ll definitely give it a listen today!
Jazz @ the Pawnshop was recorded in cafe Stampen in Stockholm... it was released on the Proprius label and is still available on vinyl and cd. I think, as a Jazz life registration it is still second to non. The whole atmosphere starts building up as soon as you start playback. Just close your eyes and you are literally inside of the Cafe... The music is fun too, so you can't go wrong!
In the late 1970s, if you wanted to escape into the ambience of a jazz club, that was the album to do it with … but these days, anybody with a bit of talent, some practice, and a good signal path with a Calrec Soundfield mic ( or the like ) … could blow it out of the water.
Longtime (40+ years) industry veteran as A1 and studio rat… I always carry high-resolution audio files for system tuning. My most used tracks are SD - Aja, Toy Matinee - Last Plane Out, and Satriani’s Always With You, Always With Me… the last of which has great shaker bits at the intro that are immensely useful for setting delays, fills and the like. There are others, of course - but these three - all recorded by friends of mine - are my goto tracks.
When a hifi dealer installed my new speakers he brought hires track of Bob Dylan’s Man in a Long Black Coat and Jennifer Warnes Ballard of the Runaway Horse. The Dylan track was so well recorded I use it to show off my new speakers when we have music nights (bring you favourite albums or a list of tracks around along with a bottle to talk about why these are your favourite tracks).
This is so out of left field, but a great test song. My 21YO roommate’s brother built him a pair of speakers: 2 dome tweeters, 2 dome mids and a Philips 15” bottom in each - passive 3-way crossover. He bought a nice Marantz receiver for it. First time we hooked it all up we didn’t have any signal to play so switched on the FM and cranked it. “Crash and Burn” by Pat Travers started up. Great for a test, especially the opening.
When I used to run a PA system many years ago I always eqalised the hall with Eric Clapton's Just One Night. Today at home I use Unplugged. You can't beat a well recorded live album for setting up a system!
I'm new to discovering all sorts of jazz, and found too many albums that I like to pick a favourite, but I will mention one brilliant album from John Surman called "Words Unspoken". Just a beautiful, airy and somehow gentle recording that just carries you away. Only released this year and I'm looking forward to finding the time to explore more of his stuff.
Bought the 3 discs after hearing it as a speaker demo in a high end audio shop. Love them on my Magnepans. The "Stampen" jazz club (formerly a pawnshop) in old Stockholm is still alive and they still have a website today. ("Stampen" were the pawn claim "tickets" used) The recordings were remastered after 20 years in 1996, adding a few extra tracks from the master, and a huge improvement. Remastered again a few years later, no so well, maybe because the original analog master had now deteriorated. The original release had liner notes that were Shakespearean prose! A delight to read!
I had the chance to grab a second-hand CD (like new) for just a couple bucks years ago. Truly great recording, indeed! Also from that label the quite impressive Cantate Domino. Sonically another tour-de-force in yet another music genre. Worth checking out.
Funny recall: I saw the Cordesman IRS review and other articles from him in college and mentioned them to a poli-sci friend who had interned in DC. Cordesman was sometimes on TV in the day. Easy match of face and name from the 2 sides. My friend's reactions were that it couldn't be the same Cordesman as if audio reviewing was something to hide like knowledge of adult movies.
One of my favorite recordings for audio quality is the first album by Bread (self titled) on Elektra released 1969 I don't know if it would be concidered "audiophile" but every time I hear it the soumd quality just amazes me. One thing about audiophile recordings in general IMO doesn't matter how great the recording is if the MUSIC isn't your cup of tea the quality doesn't matter much.
A couple of my 'reference' albums are 'So' by Peter Gabriel and 'The Trinity Sessions' by Cowboy Junkies. The latter WAS recorded with the musicians grouped around a single stereo microphone (in an old church).
Trinity is my Go to. One of the only true "perfect albums...start to finish" in my opinion. Love that recording since the day it came out. Truly bliss.
Who would think that a live recording where you can hear people talking, glasses clinking and all manner of extraneous sounds would become so revered, and yet ...
My go to tracks, testing a new stereo or crankingbit when nobody is home are, Phasers on Stun, FM, Boys of Summer, Don Henley and Troy by Snead O'Conner!
In the late 1970’s I worked as stage crew at a large UK music venue. Almost every band, regardless of their particular genre, used Steely Dan’s Aja album during sound checks. And usually the track Black Cow.
Beware the SACD versions, many of them have been remastered and spoiled in the process. One record I came by had a +6db difference in levels which brought up very audible background hiss to the SACD version. It was also EQ:d to emphasize the treble.
For testing, the Hi-Fidelity Stereo shop in Lubbock, TX during the mid 80s most often touted 'The Nylons - One Size Fits All' (amazing vocals), The Sheffield Labs Drum record w/Ron Tutt, Flim & the BB's - Tricycle & Tunnel, & just about anything Dave Grusin produced. I purchased a Denon DCD-1500, NAD 7140 receiver, Boston Acoustics A100 Speakers, AKG headphones & some big fat Monster Cable, ha! It was seemingly the best combination I could afford at the time, but it sounded pretty awesome to me. I still have it all.
I lived in Lubbock for 20 years. I usually went to The Soundwave which is where I bought my first HiFi when they were stopping carrying Audio Alchemy. I got the CD player and preamp with an Adcom power amp and B&W 600s (forget which iteration exactly). I happened to go back a few months later when selling the Audio Alchemy OM150 power amp (I think it was a delayed shipment). Used that system for many years until I got the upgrade bug.
I have a vinyl copy. Heard it first at an audio exhibition in London (must have been early eighties) and can remember the experience even now. I think the equipment included an Oracle turntable, Koetsu cartridge, Audio Research pre and Threshold power amp driving DCM Time Windows. No idea how this would rank in the present era but at the time it was incredible. I don't remember PS audio being available in the UK at the time although it may have been. I need to get my turntable up and running again but when I do this will be one of the first albums I play.
I remember JATPS when it came out and loved it. My present system is digital and sounds pretty good, so I downloaded a couple of cuts from the iTunes Store and was surprised to be disappointed. Although I find most music sounds great I’ve found a few albums that just doesn’t hold up to my vinyl memories.
I found a Jazz at the Pawnshop video on You Tube. A few other people did too. They said Paul sent me! It was a CD version but it did sound very good even on my little desktop computer speakers. I think that simpler is better sometimes. Two Neuman U-47 microphones, and a two track tape machine! Well, I still only have two ears so it's all good.
Vinyl version of Jazz at the pawnshop sounds outstanding. It’s full of goosebumps .. exciting improvisation.. I recently ventured into vinyls .. I listened to that album every day at least 2 weeks. Without hesitation I am going to buy 200$ one step vinyl cut . That’s going to release very soon
