I don’t know about you, but back in the winter of 1969, big band music was not exactly my “go to” musical genre. At 22 I was listening to Abbey Road which had just come out, and Tommy and Simon and Garfunkel and The Kinks, and Frank Zappa, not Duke Ellington, though I was into Monk, Coltrane, Miles and Cannonball. I drew the line at big band music.

 

I wasn’t even moved to give it a chance when Steely Dan did “East St. Louis Toodle-oo” on Pretzel Logic, which I loved, and I noticed that it was written by Duke Ellington.

 

So imagine the scene for this Ellington 70th birthday party concert recorded in 1969 in the grimy industrial town of Manchester, England, from where nine year later Factory Records and Joy Division would spring.

 

In the audience were probably mostly WWII veterans and their spouses gathering for a reunion to hear the pop music of their era, that had been supplanted by rock much like rap has done to rock over the past decade or two. Rock, invented in America and then embraced by the English who later returned the favor with the “English Invasion” of the mid sixties, was not on the mind of the Manchester crowd assembled to hear Duke Ellington.

 

By 1969 Duke and his sound had been marginalized by time. That he could afford to front a band of this stature in 1969 is testament to his accomplishments. Who else but Basie from the big band era could afford to tour with such a large assemblage?

 

Ellington, past his prime, was playing greatest hits (“Satin Doll,” Strayhorn’s “Take the A Train,” “Perdido” and the like), but the band was still made up of the greats: Hodges, Gonsalves, Carney, Cootie Williams, Cat Anderson and the others and they came to play as you’ll hear on this superbly performed and tastefully engineered live set captured by the legendary British recording engineer Bob Auger.

 

Perhaps in recognition of the loud amplified music that had pushed him aside, Ellington turns up the volume and the energy on the uptempo numbers, yet the slower paced numbers get nuanced, sublimely laid back treatment.

 

Engineer Auger recorded everyone and everything from Eric Leinsdorf to The Isle of White Festival to The Rolling Stones. A fan Mercury’s Bob Fine, Auger who died in 1998, engineered at Pye among other places and recorded The Searchers, probably The Kinks and many others. He inspired later engineering legends including Tony Faulkner.

 

Auger gets great sound in what sounds like a cavernous, less than ideal venue.

 

Auger’s mikes sound as if they're placed relatively close to the instruments and he’s spread the stage wide, but he allows just enough of the room to leak in to create a spacious, yet coherent and well-focused dramatic soundstage with the supply textured instruments set against black backgrounds. The venue sounds more like a roller-rink than a concert hall but Auger makes what sounds like either a two-track or at most four-track recording work effectively.

 

Producer – Noel Walker
Saxophone – Harold Ashby, Harry Carney, Johnny Hodges, Norris Turney, Paul Gonsalves, Russell Procope
Trombone – Chuck Connors, Lawrence Brown
Trumpet – Cat Anderson, Cootie Williams, Mercer Ellington, Rolf Ericson

 

 

Pure Pleasure Records
The Restoration of the Art of Sound
180g Vinyl Mastered From The Best Available Sources

At the beginning of the 90s, in the early days of audiophile vinyl re-releases, the situation was fairly straightforward. Companies such as DCC, Mobile Fidelity, Classic Records and, of course, Pure Pleasure all maintained a mutual, unwritten ethical code: we would only use analogue tapes to manufacture records. During the course of the present vinyl hype, many others have jumped on the bandwagon in the hope of securing a corner of the market. Very often they are not so ethical and use every imaginable source to master from: CDs, LPs, digital files, MP3s – or employed existent tools from the 80s and 90s for manufacturing.

A digital delay is gladly used when cutting a lacquer disc because tape machines with an analogue delay have become quite rare and are therefore expensive. When cutting the lacquer, the audio signal is delayed by one LP revolution against the signal, which controls the cutter head, and for this a digital delay is very often employed. Of course, the resultant sound signal is completely digital and thus only as good as this delay.

We should like to emphasize that Pure Pleasure Records on principle only uses the original master tape as the basis for the entirely analogue cutting of lacquer discs. In addition, the pressing tool is newly manufactured as a matter of principle. We only employ existing tools for manufacturing if an improved result is not forthcoming, e.g. the title Elvis Is Back, which was mastered by Steve Hoffman and Kevin Gray, or several titles from our Philips Classics series, which in any case Willem Makkee cut from the original masters at the Emil Berliner Studios in the 90s. It goes without saying that we only used the mother and that new tools were made for our production. To put it in a nutshell: we can ensure you that our releases are free from any kind of digital effects and that the lacquer discs are newly cut.

There really is nothing quite like it.  It’s the touch, the feel, you have to stop and stare, the cover,  the real thing, even the smell.

Its tangible, you can feel it, see it, study it,   muse/dream over it, it’s real, someone  has spent hours and hours over its construction and presentation. Pure Pleasure Records is just that, Pure Pleasure and that is what it has set out to be.  

The music and the physical record.  Something to keep, treasure, admire and above all enjoy.Of course with vinyl it’s not just a record, it’s the cover,  the sleeve notes, you are  holding a unique package, produced by craftsmen.

Pure Pleasure  Records bring you vinyl albums of quality Jazz - Blues - R+B - Soul - Funk, remastered by some of the best engineers in the world and pressed on 180 gram audiophile vinyl at what is probably the best pressing plant in Europe 

Pure Analogue Audiophile Mastering - Plated and Pressed at Pallas in Germany on 180 Gram Virgin Vnyl - Released in Limited Quantities