Louis Prima - The Wildest - 180g LP

Product no.: PPANT755

In stock

Louis Prima - The Wildest - 180g LP
£29.99
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Available delivery methods: UK Tracked with Signature, UK Express, Airmail Tracked with Signature, UK Standard, Heavy Item

AAA 100% Analogue This LP was Remastered using Pure Analogue Components Only, from the Master Tapes through to the Cutting Head

Pure Pleasure / Capitol - PPAN T755 - 180 Gram Virgin Vinyl - AAA 100% Analogue

Pure Analogue Audiophile Mastering by Sean Magee at Abbey Road

Pressed at Pallas in Germany - Limited Edition - Capitol T 755  

 
Featured in Michael Fremer's Heavy Rotation in Stereophile! 
I am thrilled that Pure Pleasure has chosen to reissue this gem and I recommend it with as much enthusiasm as I can muster. It’s a classic that has endured fifty plus years without losing its luster and it will go at least another fifty. It captures a time and a vibe long gone and greatly missed.  Meanwhile we can re-live it by playing this excellent-sounding reissue!
 
A tireless showman and an underrated musical talent, Louis Prima swung his way to icon status thanks to an irresistible, infectious sound whose appeal translated across generations. Normally a swing artist, Prima's distinctive sound also encompassed New Orleans-style jazz, boogie-woogie, jump blues, R&B, early rock and roll, and even the occasional Italian tarantella. Regardless of what form his music took, it swung hard and fast, with a rolling, up-tempo shuffle beat. His greatest period of popularity coincided with his marriage to singer Keely Smith, whose coolly sophisticated vocals and detached stage manner made a perfect counterpoint to Prima's boisterous presence. A veritable greatest-hits album, The Wildest! is a gem of Louis Prima's catalog.
 
It’s easy to understand why a cut-up rocker with one foot in metal and the other in Vaudeville like David Lee Roth would break out of Van Halen and go solo with a faithful cover of Louis Prima’s version of “Just a Gigolo”/”I’m So Lonely.”
 
After all, like Roth, Prima was a fence-straddler, with one foot in jazz and the other in comedy. Had he a third foot it would be in early rock and rhythm and blues, which can sometimes protrdcing from the double-time walking rhythms. And like Roth who’s Jewish puss exuded shtick with a wink even when he was rocking with Van Halen, Prima struts his Paisano background at every musical turn.
 
If you’re familiar with that unlikely MTV hit  but not this classic Prima album, you’re in for a shock both because you’ll hear from where Roth copped it and you’ll hear an absolutely superb-sounding mono Capitol recording that Pure Pleasure has done a superb job reissuing.
 
The gravel-voiced trumpeter and his long-suffering wife Keely Smith, the pristine-toned, poker-faced perfect foil were the premier Vegas lounge act for years back when Vegas had its own culture and the big stars came out to play.
 
Backed by the raucous saxophonist Sam Butera and the Witnesses, the Louis and Keely duo cut up the strip, Tahoe, Reno and wherever people during the 1950’s came to groove and party. Keely is still going strong!
 
The music mixes Dixieland (the musicians are mostly from New Orleans), hipster jazz, r&b, boogie woogie, fast shuffles, early rock’n’ roll, Neapolitan shtick, Vaudeville and plenty of bump and grind bordello rhythms.
 
This album, Prima’s first for Capitol and recorded in 1956 attempted to capture, in the studio, a raucous live set at Las Vegas’s Sahara, where Prima, Smith, Butera and the Witnesses were ensconced. The mono recording succeeded brilliantly by layering the musicians expertly in three-dimensional space and adding just a touch of reverb induced brightness and zip that captures a live sound.
 
There was a time when original pressings of this popular record could regularly be found for a buck or two at garage sales and used record stores and whenever I found one I’d buy it to share with friends. The original was on the turquoise Capitol label reproduced on this reissue but later pressings featuring the early Capitol “rainbow rim” sounded equally good.
 
That said, this reissue is at least as good-sounding as any of the originals I have and because of the far quieter vinyl is the one I’ll be playing more often than not from now on. The remastering engineer has not softened or toned down the brashness of the tonal balance and its exciting bass wallop, nor has he quashed the recording’s extraordinary dynamic range.
 
There’s plenty of shtick, with Butera and the boys rollicking on David Rose’s “Holiday For Strings,” and Grofé’s “On the Trail” from his “Grand Canyon Suite” (better known to the audience when this record was made, I guarantee you, by its use in television commercials for Philip Morris cigarettes) but the backing musicianship, particularly that of Butera and trombonist James Blount, that it overcomes any doubts that this is lightweight stuff. It’s not.
 
I am thrilled that Pure Pleasure has chosen to reissue this gem and I recommend it with as much enthusiasm as I can muster. It’s a classic that has endured fifty plus years without losing its luster and it will go at least another fifty. It captures a time and a vibe long gone and greatly missed. David Lee Roth brought it back with great sparkle and energy for a time and here’s hoping some youngster does it again because right now, damn it, we need it! Meanwhile we can re-live it by playing this excellent-sounding reissue!
 
 
Musicians:
Louis Prima
Keely Smith
Sam Butera
The Witnesses
 
Selections:
1. Medley: Just A Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody 
2. (Nothing’s Too Good) For My Baby 
3. The Lip
4. Body And Soul 
5. Oh Marie 
6. Medley: Basin Street Blues/ When It’s Sleepy Time Down South 
7. Jump, Jive And Wail 
8. Buona Sera 
9. Night Train 
10. You Rascal You
 
Louis Prima - The Wildest - 180g LP
 
 
Image result for pure pleasure records
 

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

PALLAS
Audiophile Vinyl - Made in Germany  For over 60 years the family business in the third generation of the special personal service and quality "Made by Pallas" is known worldwide. Our custom PVC formulation produces consistently high pressing quality with the lowest surface noise in the industry. Our PVC complies with 2015 European environmental standards and does not contain toxic materials such as Lead, Cadmium or Toluene. Our vinyl is both audiophile and eco-grade!  

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