Ray Charles - The Genius After Hours - 180g LP Mono

Product no.: SD1369

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Ray Charles - The Genius After Hours - 180g LP Mono
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AAA 100% Analogue This LP was Remastered using Pure Analogue Components Only from the Master Tapes through to the Cutting Head

Speakers Corner / Atlantic SD 1369 - 180 Gram Virgin Vinyl -  AAA 100% Analogue

Pressed at Pallas Germany - Limited Edition

Mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearant Audio - Mono - Atlantic 1369

AAA 100% Analogue This Speakers Corner LP was Remastered using Pure Analogue Components Only, from the Master Tapes through to the Cutting Head 25 Years pure Analogue

The Genius After Hours is a quintessential Ray Charles recording. Speakers Corner does a superb job in re-mastering the original analog mono tapes. The pure, un-manipulated sound is expertly mixed. The volumes on the piano are excellent and increase and decrease with seamless agility. The alto saxophone and trumpet are folded in quietly to achieve a mellower tone.- Sound 4.5/5 AudiophileAudition

No ifs and buts! Ray Charles belongs in every jazz collection. Friends of pure jazz tend to forget this in the light of his numerous hits in categories such as gentle ballads, and even country and western songs, and rhythm’n’blues during the more than 60 years of Charles’ extremely successful (also financially speaking) career.

The producer Neshui Ertegun gathered together a star-studded cast for this Atlantic Records studio recording. There was David Newman on the tenor sax, Joe Harris on the drums, and even Oscar Pettiford on the bass. Not forgetting Ray Charles himself who was an excellent jazz pianist.

The studio was saturated with the blues! A relaxed mood prevailed, just as one might imagine it. The musicians came to the studio after a concert, they were completely drained, worn out, exhausted: they had the blues and then they played the blues.
Even a standard work such as Gershwin’s "The Man I Love" was turned into an elegy. Only "Ain’t Misbehavin’", which reminds one more of Earl Hines than Fats Waller, and "Charlesville" - a fast blues number - were treated to a change of tempo.
"The Genius After Hours" is a self-portrait that exhibits the less well-known talents of this exceptional artist during the second half of the last century. It makes great listening for all lovers of jazz, soul, blues, rhythm’n’blues, country and western, pop, funk … You name it, Charles has got it!

Let the good times roll, indeed. Taking the message of the first song on this thoroughly legendary 12-song set to heart, Ray Charles lives up to the album’s title and more, in the process completing one of the most focused, cohesive, and expertly played classic R&B albums ever recorded. It’s not for nothing that Rolling Stone ranked it #263 on the magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Having languished with passable albeit insufficient sonics for too long.
 
 this American gem breathes with palpable airiness, tremendous warmth, sonorous details, snappy dynamics, and studio echoes. Charles’ recognizable voice nearly jumps out of the songs, and the large string orchestra’s instruments possess discernible body, identifiable imaging, and natural decay. Rest assured that this collectible edition outshines every previous edition as well as the collections featuring remastered songs taken from this 1959 album. What a difference the original mono mixes make.
 
Divided into two sides, The Genius of Ray Charles finds the pianist/singer paired with tenor saxophonist and longtime foil David “Fathead” Newman, Charles’ band, and a few members from Count Basie and Duke Ellington’s ensembles. Arranger Quincy Jones does the chart honors, revving up the big bands and seizing their energetic prowess while Charles outshines everyone in the all-star cast. Exuberant, joyous, stylish, and, in a word, the epitome of soulful, the brassy music is belted out with unfettered emotion and honesty, crossing boundaries and rolling the blues, gospel, and jazz into a pure-voiced hybrid.
 
On the record’s second half, ballads take over. Charles teams up with arranger Ralph Burns and a sizeable string orchestra, delivering standards such as “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Cryin’” and “Am I Blue” with an equal balance of intensity, feeling, and sympathetic originality. Yet the record’s single-greatest performance--and, quite possibly, the definitive performance of Charles’ career--belongs to “Come Rain or Come Shine.” It’s here that Charles, free of the piano and big band, comes into his own as a singer, becomes the singular artist that, in just a few years, would turn country music on its head. The brilliance goes beyond words.
 
Recording: April 1956 and September 1957 in New York City in mono
Production: Nesuhi Ertegun & Jerry Wexler

Baritone Saxophone – Emmot Dennis
Bass – Oscar Pettiford
Drums – Joe Harris , William Peeples
Supervised By – Jerry Wexler, Nesuhi Ertegun
Tenor Saxophone – David "Fathead" Newman
Trumpet – Joseph Bridgewater , John Hunt
Vocals , Written-By – Ray Charles

1. Let The Good Times Roll

2. It Had To Be You
3. Alexander's Ragtime Band
4. Two Years Of Torture
5. When Your Lover Has Gone
6. Deed I Do
7. Just For A Thrill
8. You Won't Let Me Go
9. Tell Me You'll Wait For Me
10. Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying
11. Am I Blue
12. Come Rain or Come Shine

Ray Charles - The Genius After Hours - 180g LP Mono

AAA 100% Analogue   This Speakers Corner LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the master tapes through to the cutting head 25 Years pure Analogue
 
MADE FROM THE ORIGINAL MASTER TAPES
AAA 100% ANALOGUE - PURE ANALOGUE AUDIOPHILE MASTERING
We use the Original Tapes and work with only the Best Mastering Studios Worldwide
180 GRAM VIRGIN VINYL  PLATED & PRESSED AT PALLAS GERMANY
Faithful Reproduction of the Original Artwork and Labels
LIMITED EDITION Released in Limited Quantities
All Licences and Mechanical Rights Paid
 
                    Image result for pallas group germany vinyl pressing                  
 
Are your records completely analogue?
Yes! This we guarantee!
As a matter of principle, only analogue masters are used, and the necessary cutting delay is also analogue. All our cutting engineers use only Neumann cutting consoles, and these too are analogue. The only exception is where a recording has been made – either partly or entirely – using digital technology, but we do not have such items in our catalogue at the present time
 
Are your records cut from the original masters?
In our re-releases it is our aim to faithfully reproduce the original intentions of the musicians and recording engineers which, however, could not be realised at the time due to technical limitations. Faithfulness to the original is our top priority, not the interpretation of the original: there is no such thing as a “Speakers Corner Sound”. Naturally, the best results are obtained when the original master is used. Therefore we always try to locate these and use them for cutting. Should this not be possible, – because the original tape is defective or has disappeared, for example – we do accept a first-generation copy. But this remains an absolute exception for us.
 
Who cuts the records?
In order to obtain the most faithful reproduction of the original, we have the lacquers cut on the spot, by engineers who, on the whole, have been dealing with such tapes for many years. Some are even cut by the very same engineer who cut the original lacquers of the first release. Over the years the following engineers have been and still are working for us: Tony Hawkins, Willem Makkee, Kevin Gray, Maarten de Boer, Scott Hull, and Ray Staff, to name but a few.
At the beginning of the ‘90s, in the early days of audiophile vinyl re-releases, the reissue policy was fairly straightforward. Companies such as DCC Compact Classics, Mobile Fidelity, Classic Records and others, including of course Speakers Corner, all maintained a mutual, unwritten code of ethics: we would manufacture records sourced only from analogue tapes. 
 
Vinyl’s newfound popularity has led many other companies to jump 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 from which to master: CDs, LPs, digital files and even MP3s. 
 
Even some who do use an analogue tape source employ a digital delay line, a misguided ’80s and ‘90s digital technology that replaces the analogue preview head originally used to “tell” the cutter head in advance what was about to happen musically, so it could adjust the groove “pitch” (the distance between the grooves) to make room for wide dynamic swings and large low frequency excursions. Over time analogue preview heads became more rare and thus expensive. 
 
So while the low bit rate (less resolution than a 16 bit CD) digital delay line is less expensive and easier to use than an analogue “preview head”, its use, ironically, results in lacquers cut from the low bit rate digital signal instead of from the analogue source! 
 
Speakers Corner wishes to make clear that it produces lacquers using only original master tapes and an entirely analogue cutting system. New metal stampers used to press records are produced from that lacquer. The only exceptions are when existing metal parts are superior to new ones that might be cut, which includes our release of “Elvis is Back”, which was cut by Stan Ricker or several titles from our Philips Classics series, where were cut in the 1990s using original master tapes by Willem Makkee at the Emil Berliner Studios. In those cases we used only the original “mother” to produce new stampers. 
 
In addition, we admit to having one digital recording in our catalogue: Alan Parsons’ “Eye in the Sky”, which was recorded digitally but mixed to analogue tape that we used to cut lacquers. 
 
In closing, we want to insure our loyal customers that, with but a few exceptions as noted, our releases are “AAA”— analogue tape, an all analogue cutting system, and newly cut lacquers.
 
60 Years 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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