Undercurrent

Product Information

If it was hard to believe earlier that there weren’t three players, here it’s difficult to accept there’s more than one, so unified and harmonious are Hall and Evans in their playing. For Evans, the duet clearly functions as therapy, a healing episode in which his partner patiently lays back, shadowing moves and suggesting others, neither musician interested in the spotlight but each striving for (and achieving) transcendent beauty. Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab has been the undisputed pioneer and leader in audiophile recordings since the company's inception in 1977. I Hear a Rhapsody is an extraordinary exercise in leisurely poise, forming a seamless musical statement. Whether it owes to the intimate pairing, he and Halls' brotherly chemistry, or the exquisite selection of program material, the results consistently come across as the equivalent of a private meditation, such is the level of introspective depth and quietly shaded interplay throughout.

Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue is a hard act to follow, but when compelled to find something to succeed it in a late night listening session, there is one distinctly worthy contender, Undercurrent, featuring one of Kind of Blue’s pianists in a starring role beside a jazz guitar great. I think I can safely say, though, that UNDERCURRENT is the current "hot ticket" out of all my jazz discs. The guitar sounds a lot better and Jim Hall certainly makes some beautiful and even magical sounds with his instrument. In tackling standards such as Rodgers and Hart's ' My Funny Valentine ' and the Broadway classic ' Darn That Dream ' as well as the Hall original ' Romain ', the pair traverses complex harmonies with the astute elegance of a figure skater. Dream Gypsy shows them separating again, fashioning fragments and jigsaw puzzle-pieces of a tune, scattering them for the listener to assemble.

My favourite pieces at the moment are Evans' own composition "Romain", which is an extraordinarily melancholy piece of NY bedsit music. Il disco da il meglio di se soprattutto in formato vinile e risulta estremamente appetibile anche per i non addetti ai lavori o chi semplicemente cerca un jazz elegante e magistrale. The results of these sessions were quite the opposite, though, thanks to the tranquil and poetic use of space which gives Undercurrent its uniquely relaxed, and relaxing, quality. There is more variety than expected on the fine set with some cookers, ballads, waltzes, and even some hints at classical music. The still strikingly modern looking cover uses the image of “A model floating in the water at Weeki Wachee Spring, Florida.

I have a nearly perfect copy except for smudges and I don't know how to clean it, or if that is possible. This is the epitome of a jazz duo, two artists collaborating at the highest level to create musical art. Già la perfetta fattura e la cura nel dettaglio dell'intera copertina lascia presagire qualcosa di eccellente che si comprende appieno dopo aver ascolto anche solo il primo brano del side 1. I'm glad to have it in my collection, but I will view it as a placeholder until a better pressing comes along.

Occasionally during UNDERCURRENT one expects the other shoe to drop: the growl of a bass entering in half time, wire brushes falling patiently into place on a sizzle cymbal. If there is a certificate we’ve missed out on then it’s probably for a 50 metre swim badge at the local swimming baths. Later, the album was reissued on the Blue Note label; both Blue Note and United Artists Records have been part of the same catalog for many decades. I assume that there are shortcomings in the original recording, but I can't help but feel that more could be gotten out of this record.

In his November 26, 1962 review for DownBeat magazine jazz critic Pete Welding states: "This collaboration between Evans and Hall has resulted in some of the most beautiful, thoroughly ingratiating music it has been my pleasure to hear. Mastered on Mobile Fidelity’s world-renowned mastering system and pressed at RTI, this Silver Label LP edition bursts forth with brilliant textures, you-are-there realism, and extraordinary tonalities. For me it's up there with the Hall, Baker, Desmond recordings, my all time favourite before Undercurrent. Jim Hall had already long been an admirer of Bill Evans when the two men convened in April 1962 under the auspices of United Artists to record this remarkable duet album.The execution of these tunes couldn't be more minimal - just Evans' piano and Hall's guitar vibing off each other. I simply can't stop playing this disc and have made a copy for the car and also put it on my iPad, sitting, walking or driving I'm thrilled by it and always hear something new. I can not fathom why a label which is considered to be an audiophile label would put out such a bad sounding record. Note that the DOL cover is not black and white but has a blue tint, as in the Blue Note reissue of 1988, but with no lettering. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

If you love jazz, you need this easy -to-listen-to, let's relax with a drink and have some ear candy. Some reissues include four bonus tracks, including two alternate takes and previously unheard versions of "Stairway to the Stars" and "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You. This reissue does an outstanding job of reducing noise from the master tapes — now well over fifty years old — without sacrificing musical detail. At the time it was as distinctive as the record it contained, indicating — as far as jazz was concerned — we really were no longer in Kansas. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.The pleasure of these eight cuts (two of them previously unreleased, all of them recorded over two days in the spring of 1962 in New York) lies in the sense of overhearing a private conversation between two particularly thoughtful people. And maybe I'm totally wrong here but, wasn't this record released on the United Artists Jazz label in 1962 - and not on Blue Note as stated on the jacket and mofi labels?