HiRez Poll Light, Enoch - 4 CHANNEL DYNAMITE & BIG BAND HITS OF THE '30S VOL. 2 [SACD]

[sjcorne]

Please post your thoughts and comments on this 2024 Multichannel SACD from Dutton Vocalion containing two albums from Enoch Light and Project 3 Records.
This Multichannel SACD features the first official release of the Quadraphonic mixes since the 1970s!

4-CHANNEL DYNAMITE
LP PR 5068 QD (1972) STEREO/QUADRAPHONIC

New arrangements and recording concepts of world-famous hit songs

1 Cecilia (Simon)
2 Prelude to Peace (adapted by Jeff Hest from J S Bach’s Cantata No. 140, BWV 140)
3 The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Robertson)
4 Put a Little Love in Your Heart (DeShannon; Holiday; Myers)
5 Jambalaya (On the Bayou) (Williams)
6 Penny Lane (Lennon; McCartney)
7 Chicago (Fisher)
8 I Feel the Earth Move (King)
9 Cherokee (Noble)
10 Oye Como Va (Puente)

Arrangers: Jeff Hest [1–6, 8, 10]; Dick Lieb [7]; Dick Hyman [9]
Recording/Mixing engineer: Steve Friedman
Producer: Enoch Light
Associate producers: Jeff Hest, Tony Mottola

BIG BAND HITS OF THE '30s VOL. 2
LP PR 5089 SD (1974) STEREO/PR 5089 Q4 QUADRAPHONIC

New recordings

11 Stardust (Carmichael; Parish) featuring Phil Bodner
12 American Patrol (Meacham) featuring Mel Davis
13 Sugar Blues (Williams; Fletcher) featuring Mel Davis
14 Solitude (Ellington; DeLange; Mills) featuring Sol Schlinger
15 King Porter Stomp (Morton) featuring Urbie Green, John Frosk, Phil Bodner
16 What Is This Thing Called Love (Porter) featuring Walt Levinsky
17 Bugle Call Rag (Pettis; Meyers; Schoebel) featuring Al Klink, Urbie Green, Mel Davis, Phil Bodner
18 Smoke Rings (Gifford; Washington) featuring Urbie Green, Phil Bodner
19 Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise (Romberg; Hammerstein) featuring Al Klink, Wayne Andre, Walt Levinsky
20 Boogie Woogie (Smith; Gimbel) featuring Derek Smith
21 Caravan (Ellington; Tizol; Mills) featuring Urbie Green
22 Little Brown Jug (Finegan) featuring Al Klink, Urbie Green, Mel Davis

Arrangers: Jeff Hest, Dick Lieb
Recording/Mixing engineer: Steve Friedman
Recorded/Mixed at A & R Studios, New York
Producer: Enoch Light
Associate producers: Jeff Hest, Tony Mottola
Remixed in quadraphonic at A & R Studios, Remix Room No. 3, New York, 31 July 1974
Quadraphonic remix engineer: Steve Friedman

Remastered from the original analogue tapes by Michael J. Dutton

Multi-Channel/Stereo
All tracks available in stereo and multi-channel

SACD
This Hybrid CD can be played on any standard CD player

CDLK 4655



Pre-release thread for all shipping/ordering queries and non-poll related posts:
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...isley-bros-hair-ost-enoch-light-tomita.36138/

 

[MIDIQ]

I liked the first lp 4 channel dynamite, about a 9, but the second one ion this cd big band 30's I didn't like at all. But glad I got this SACD. The first one is really a fun quad mix. Lots of discrete 4 channel, and instruments changing channels, and movement. So hard to rate this, I guess about an 8.

 

[barfle]

Well, I did get a chance to run this past the speakers and ears about a week ago, and I think it's remarkable. I really like the first half, but the big band part was a bit of a downer, so it's a 9, simply because I like some of more than others.

FWIW, I held off rating this mostly because it's not up on discogs. It is now. Tell me about what I effed up.

 

[quicksrt]

Well, I did get a chance to run this past the speakers and ears about a week ago, and I think it's remarkable. I really like the first half, but the big band part was a bit of a downer, so it's a 9, simply because I like some of more than others.

FWIW, I held off rating this mostly because it's not up on discogs. It is now. Tell me about what I effed up.

I think that the Discogs listing noting that this SACD release is a: USA, Canada & Europe release might be incorrect. It's a UK release afaik, But I did not go in and edit it, I'll let you handle it if you wish to.

 

[barfle]

I think that the Discogs listing noting that this SACD release is a: USA, Canada & Europe release might be incorrect. It's a UK release afaik, But I did not go in and edit it, I'll let you handle it if you wish to.

That data point isn’t where it’s released, it’s the intended market.

 

[quicksrt]

That data point isn’t where it’s released, it’s the intended market.

Ummm, no. That data field is where the release was made and / or issued. Not where they plan to export them to. Please see other DV releases and what is normally placed in that field.

But afaik DV does not license masters for US and Canada sales unless that changed with this release. So contractually they can not intend distribution in all these territories.

I'd be interested in how many DV titles you have entered in as USA, Canada & Europe releases for?

 

[skherbeck]

For those who don’t like the big band portion, is it because of the music or because of the audio quality/mix?

 

[barfle]

Ummm, no. That date field is where the release was made and / or issued. Not where they plan to export them to. Please see other DV releases and what is normally placed in that field.

But afaik DV does not license masters for US and Canada sales unless that changed with this release. So contractually they can not intend distribution in all these territories.

I'd be interested in how many DV titles you have entered in as USA, Canada & Europe releases for?

From discogs "rules" about "country."

"This is where you enter the country the release was primarily distributed and sold in. If the release was manufactured in country A, but sold in country B, country B should be used."

I'm following their guidelines.

 

[steelydave]

That data point isn’t where it’s released, it’s the intended market.

All of the Vocalion discs are licensed for, and sold in the UK ("Country B" in the rules listed above). You might be in the US, but you're making the purchase in the UK from a UK vendor. Also, it's a moot point but Vocalion sells their discs worldwide from their homebase in the UK, not just Canada and Europe - they enjoy great interest from Asia (Japan, etc.) and Australia.

I've updated the listing and change the country of issue to UK (along with adding further credit information) as this is how the hundreds of other Vocalion discs are listed on discogs.

For those who don’t like the big band portion, is it because of the music or because of the audio quality/mix?

I like to let these threads run a bit before I contribute (if ever) because as someone affiliated with the company I don't want to jump in first and dominate the responses and control the flow of the covnersation, but for me the big band portion is sublime, and the better half of this disc.

4 Channel Dynamite has more covers of contemporary ('70s) pop hits, and the mix itself is more ostentatious - lots of four-corner action, and ping pong effects. If you had a quad system in 1972 this would've been a great way to show it off, but for me, and I've said this a lot about quad in general, by 1974 the format and the mixing style had really matured, and Big Band Hits of the '30s Vol. 2 is a perfect example of that - it's a fully discrete and enveloping soundfield whereas 4 Channel Dynamite (and a lot of those very early quad mixes by all labels) can sound like four distinct mono quadrants.

I'm a huge fan of big band music, and especially the very small niche of big band music that was still going on in the '70s. I have pretty much every album Buddy Rich did from 1966 through 1986, I love the Woody Herman's Thundering Herd of this era, and at the same time I obviously also love hearing this kind of music in surround, so I have most of the big band music released in surround, from the DTS CDs done by DMP in the '90s through the more recent Gordon Goodwin Big Phat Band albums.

For me this is right up there with the very best of them, because of the combination of the experience of the players on this album (many of which either played this music in the inter-war years, or were trained by teachers who did) and Light himself, who conducted big bands in Paris and the US during that era. The Buddy Rich and Woody Herman albums are lots of fun, but there's a brashness or coarseness to them (which I enjoy in its own right) because most of the players on those albums were (relative) kids who'd grown up in the rock and roll era and had been plucked out of Berklee or similar, just happy to have a paying gig on the road. Similarly, the more modern big band recordings are cool and all, but for my ears there's a pedestrian nature to them as a result of being so many decades divorced from the original era.

I remember when the Mercury LIving Presence 3-channel SACDs were coming out 10 or 15 years ago, Steve Hoffman made the observation that having been recorded in the early '50s (mostly by Robert Fine, who coincidentally recorded much of Enoch Light's work, from his earliest stereo successes like Persuasive Percussion through his first quad albums with Project 3) that one of the reasons these albums sounded so good was that the orchestras were full of musicians that had been trained by musicians who themselves had often been in the orchestras conducted by the original composers of that music. With these Project 3 albums you're getting basically the jazz equivalent - these are some of the most refined and sophisticated interpretations of big band music you're ever likely to hear, and all sumptuously recorded in one of the best studios (Phil Ramone's A&R Recording in NYC) of its day.

I'll concede that being a 'Best of the '30s Volume 2' maybe it doesn't have all the hits you know best, but for me there's a positive in that - I've heard In the Mood, Sing,Sing,Sing and Chatanooga Choo-Choo enough times to last me for the rest of my life already, so it's refreshing to hear some slightly lesser-known tunes. Sort of like (for me anyway) I thought I didn't really like The Beatles, but it turns out it was because classic rock radio overplayed the hits to death. It wasn't until I listened to Revolver and Rubber Soul and the like that I found all these album tracks that I grew to love them, and for me this album is sort of similar in that regard.

I don't want to discount anyone's opinion, but I think for people of a certain age, big band music is the music that their parents liked (and they hated) so there might be a predisposition against it, which I can totally understand. But if you're open minded at all, or like this kind of music, this album is a real treasure - there's something weird and wonderful about hearing this music - which is approaching 100 years old - sounding like it was recorded yesterday. I hope this disc does well because there are several more equally great volumes of this music that could still be released, covering all the decades from the '20s through the '50s.

 

[JediJoker]

From discogs "rules" about "country."

"This is where you enter the country the release was primarily distributed and sold in. If the release was manufactured in country A, but sold in country B, country B should be used."

I'm following their guidelines.

DV SACDs are manufactured at Sonopress in Austria ("country A"), but exclusively sold in/from the U.K. ("country B"). @steelydave is 100% correct.

 

[barfle]

DV SACDs are manufactured at Sonopress in Austria ("country A"), but exclusively sold in/from the U.K. ("country B"). @steelydave is 100% correct.

Well, I've had the moderators at discogs tell me that the country of sale isn't necessarily what the "country" selection should be.

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. They have some remarkably arcane rules that I try to follow, and step on myself about half the time.

 

[4-earredwonder]

I was always a big fan of Enoch Light's Command and Project 3 labels way back in the day. And when they started to release them in QUAD I was over the top enthusiastic! Of course, my TT and set up at the time were IMO subpar and the pressings weren't always conducive to what was actually on those discs and now Dutton Vocation has not only rescued a few of these 'audiophile' treasures from oblivion but have lavished what can only be described as state of the art sonics which those early pressings and decoders could only hint at!

Of course the only thing missing are those artsy glossy LP jackets which accompanied their releases but IMO a small price to pay when the sound and four corner quad are THIS SPECTACULAR!

I voted 9