Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong – Autumn In New York (1965/Intermusic SA-CD/Super Audio Compact Disc
Hybrid/Top Music International)
Sound/DSD
2.0 Stereo: B PCM 2.0 Stereo: B- Music: B
PLEASE
NOTE:
This Super
Audio Compact Disc is only available from our friends at Top Music
International, has a Compact Disc layer that will play on virtually all CD
players and can be ordered at the link below.
There
have been many great Jazz/Soul/Pop collaborations over the decades, like Marvin
Gaye & Tammi Terrell, Otis Redding & Carla Thomas, Roberta Flack &
Donnie Hathaway, not to mention other one-time duets or duet albums, but before
all of them, the first such match made in music heaven was Ella Fitzgerald and
Louis Armstrong. She, one of the
greatest vocalists of her or any generation, he, a genius musician with a
distinct voice like no other and both, groundbreaking innovators and superior
artists who paved the way for the worldwide music industry and continue to be
two of its greatest giants. Autumn In New York is a new Super Audio
CD release of their work together and as usual, it has so much chemistry, joy
and smoothness that we will never hear the likes of it or them again.
The
original analog masters were remastered for this release as follows:
The
Project re-mastered by Povee Chan
32Bits/192kHz
High Resolution Mastering
SADiE DSD
Digital Precision
Mastering
Monitor: Almarro M1A
Monitor
Amplifier: Octave Jubliee Preamp
Power
System: Isoclean Power Conditioning System
Mastered
with Fap Cable
Hybrid
Stereo, Plays on all SACD and CD Players
Made in Germany
by Sonopress
The
results are some of the best digital representations of the work of either
artist to date and they perform the following classics:
1)
Summer Time
2)
Can't We Be Friends
3)
A Foggy Day
4)
Love Is Here To Stay
5)
Don't Be That Way
6)
I Won't Dance
7)
I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm
8)
Autumn in New
York
9)
Stompin' At The Savoy
10) A Fine Romance
11) Let's Call The Whole Thing Off
12) Cheek To Cheek
13) Moonlight in Vermont
14) They Can't Take That Way From Me
15) Under A Blanket Of Blue
16) Tenderly
These
later recordings are fine for their time and the makers skipped multi-channel
remixing. The result is detail in the
music you would not hear otherwise when you listen to the high resolution DSD
2.0 Stereo tracks. Fitzgerald (known
later for her scatting-until-a-glass-breaks audio tape TV ads) can sing in such
superior ways that a few new generations of true music fans need to rediscover
her and when you hear her on this disc, you immediately understand why she is a
legend as much as hearing the new Beatles remasters. The nuance and flowing way she weaves in and
out of all material is so above most vocalists today, it is not even funny as
she makes it seem so easy, but it is only that easy when you have the voice of
Ella Fitzgerald.
Then
there is Armstrong, joining in as if it were the most natural thing in the
world, his gruff voice (singing and scatting) showing a love of music that the
listener is instantly won over by. And
to think he was playing instruments (especially the cornet) at the same high
level. Know best known for the
occasional revival of one of his songs (usually by inclusion in a film to TV
release) and the 1969 love theme We Have
All The Time In The World to the classic James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
(reviewed elsewhere on this site in several versions), the recent big screen
films to use his music include Pixar’s WALL-E
and Ridley Scott’s American Gangster. His voice here is as rich as his inclusion in
any of those high profile projects.
The PCM
2.0 Stereo CD layer is not bad either, but no match for the DSD, so here is yet
another new disc that should make you want to get an SA-CD player.
To find
out more about ordering, start with this link, then go to the ORDER icon at the
top of the page on the right-hand side under the logo:
http://www.topmusic.com/ud-sacd8933.2.htm
- Nicholas Sheffo
