Miles Davis - Porgy And Bess - SACD

Product no.: UDSACD2200

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Miles Davis - Porgy And Bess - SACD
£37.99
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Mobile Fidelity - UDSACD 2200 -  Hybrid SACD Stereo 

Mastered  from the Original Master Tape

3,000 Numbered Limited Edition -    

Half Speed Mastered on the Mobile Fidelity The Gain 2 Ultra Analog System   

Miles Davis and Gil Evans' Porgy and Bess Is a Landmark of Arrangement, Performance, and Emotion: 1959 Adaptation of George Gershwin Opera Advances Jazz Idioms and Modal Playing  Mastered from the Original Master Tapes and Strictly Limited to 3,000 Numbered Copies: Definitive-Sounding Mobile Fidelity Hybrid SACD Features Reference-Level Tonality, Clarity, and Openness   If a more significant, influential, and lasting result of a creative musical partnership exists than that of Miles Davis and Gil Evans' Porgy and Bess, society hasn't seen it. It's impossible to overstate the importance of the pair's collaboration on the landmark 1959 update of George Gershwin's opera. Transcending genre, time, and place, the profound statement finds Evans and Davis implementing modal approaches in a mainstream context and advancing jazz idioms that would become the foundation of the form's still-classic era. And that's saying nothing of the soulful playing – legendary performances by Davis' first great quintet that can now be heard in pristine detail courtesy of this definitive digital edition.

Mastered from the original tapes and strictly limited to 3,000 numbered copies, Porgy and Bess attains previously unheard degrees of clarity, openness, immediacy, and depth on Mobile Fidelity's hybrid SACD. Here, the arrangements unfold amidst practically limitless soundstages and burst with multi-dimensional images. Separation between instruments allows you to locate individual band members and trace the decay of the notes. Davis' iconic solo passages take on borderline-surreal qualities of realism and shape. The magisterial scope of the Evans-conducted orchestra emerges with room-filling bloom, color, and dynamics.

While difficult to pinpoint its single-best strength, Mobile Fidelity's reissue gives reference-level credence to what may remain the album's most crucial aspect: tone. Based not on chords but on scales and feeling, Porgy and Bess teems with emotions and possibilities – characteristics conveyed by the nuances, timbre, and temper delivered by the array of horns, woodwinds, basses, and percussion involved. Whether the combination of Bill Barber's tuba in unison with Paul Chambers' bass during "Buzzard Song," Davis' improvisational flights on "It Ain't Necessarily So," or the doubling up on alto flutes on several compositions, never before have they been experienced with such richness, roundness, and palpability.

Just as identifying singular sonic highlights proves virtually unfeasible, so does underlining which songs feature the most memorable exchanges, melodies, and scoring. Davis and Evans' adaptation of Porgy and Bess remains of a piece, an American touchstone, a recording that immediately separated itself from the multiple other versions released during the same period and continues to make waves decades after its creation, assuming a place in the historical canon alongside collaborative masterworks by Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn and Frank Sinatra/Nelson Riddle.

Defined by Davis biographer Jack Chambers as "a new score, with its own integrity, order, and action," Porgy and Bess has been identified by nearly every major outlet and expert as a must-have album. Davis' phrasing alone cements the effort with a genius quality. As Brian Cook and Richard Morton explain in The Penguin Guide to Jazz: "‘Prayer' is an astounding tour de force, harmonically suspended, and with Miles' most extraordinarily recorded solo to date punctuated by agonized screams and shouts, whether of affirmation or suffering it isn't easy to judge. Miles was not in good physical condition during the making of the record, which perhaps explains the twisting intensity, the bent notes and slurs which seem to express some inner pain." Then there's the immortal rendition of "Summertime," the epitome of calm, understatement, and beauty.

At once sweet and spiritual, sure and steady, graceful and exuberant, happy and poignant, Porgy and Bess is a phenomenal jazz dance that has never been equaled – and likely, never will. Hear it as Davis, Evans, and company intended and secure your limited numbered copy ftoday!

Bass – Paul Chambers
Composed By – George Gershwin
Conductor – Gil Evans
Drums – "Philly" Joe Jones , Jimmy Cobb
Engineer – Ray Moore
Flute – Jerome Richardson
French Horn – Gunther Schuller, Julius Watkins, Willie Ruff
Producer – Cal Lampley, Teo Macero
Saxophone – Cannonball Adderly , Daniel B. Banks
Trombone – Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joseph Bennett, Dick Hixon
Trumpet – Bernie Glow, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Louis R. Mucci
Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Miles Davis
Tuba – Bill Barber

The Buzzard Song
Bess, You Is My Woman Now
Gone
Gone, Gone, Gone
Summertime
Oh Bess, Where's My Bess?
Prayer (Oh Doctor Jesus)
Fisherman, Strawberry and Devil Crab
My Man's Gone Now
It Ain't Necessarily So
Here Come de Honey Man
I Wants to Stay Here (a.k.a. I Loves You, Porgy)
There's a Boat That's Leaving Soon for New York

Miles Davis - Porgy And Bess - SACD

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Mobile Fidelity believes that mastering systems should be neutral and transparent. The essential idea is to unveil all the detailed musical information on the original master recording without adding deterioration, coloration or other sonic artifacts. 

It is worth noting that Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab stands out as one of few record labels that independently invests in research and development of audio technology. With proprietary innovations such as GAIN 2™, general music enthusiasts and audiophiles alike have reaped the benefit of a higher consumer audio standard without investing in costly new hardware. Mobile Fidelity is pleased to work with a variety of engineering legends and companies including Tim de Paravicini, Ed Meitner, Pass Labs, Theta Digital and Sony Electronics. 

Our joint efforts to seek out the ultimate audio experience, has resulted in significant advances for the technology of music reproduction. 

GAIN 2™ Mastering Technology for Ultradisc UHR™ Hybrid SACD and Ultradisc II™ 24kt Gold CDs 

For over twenty years, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab has continually searched for the ultimate audio experience. During this search MFSL engineers and associates created The GAIN™ System, a proprietary mastering technology which brought warmth and ambience to the compact disc format. A few years ago - with higher resolution formats on the horizon - the vision of GAIN 2™ began. As it stands today, GAIN 2™ is one of the greatest technical advancements in analogue and digital technology in the last ten years. It consists of a series of critical modifications and new components to Mobile Fidelity's proprietary mastering chain. 

We feel that GAIN 2™ has come extremely close to meeting this goal. The key accomplishments of GAIN 2™ System are 1) the ability to extract all the musical information as possible through the Ultra High bandwidth analogue tape playback system with proprietary custom tape playback heads, reproducer electronics and 2) transparently capturing and storing that information with the Direct Stream Digital recording system. 

 

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