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Monty Alexander Love You Madly- An Audiophile and Musical Delight

I’m not an audiophile

OK, that statement is only partially true. I do care about the sound quality of my music, I have a mid-level speaker system and a high end headphone setup, and I did spend some time in hifi-shops figuring out which gear I like. I’m a man, and we like our toys.

But I still wouldn’t call myself an audiophile. This special category of nerds (nothing wrong with that, I’m certainly a classical music nerd as witnessed by me doing this blog) that just love tinkering, speaking about gear, and in some extremes would rather listen to the latest “audiophile” recording even if the music is mediocre (Jazz at the Pawnshop, anybody?).

That’s how my blogger name came to be, I called myself “Musicophile” as opposed to “audiophile”. And you’ll see that on this blog I’m pretty much exclusively writing about the musical qualities of the albums I discuss, and only rarely comment about the recording quality.

But every once in a while you’ll find recordings that are both a musical and an audiophile delight, so let me break my own rule and start 2022 after a 2 month hiatus (due to a lot going on at my day job) with one of those.

Monty Alexander – Love You Madly – Live At Bubba’s (Resonance Records / 2xHD 1982/2020)

Monty Alexander Love You Madly Live At Bubba's 2xHD DXD DSD

I’ve reviewed another Monty Alexander live album previously, his very enjoyable live concert at Montreux.

This recording is actually now 40 years old, it was recorded at a club in Florida back in 1982. It has recently been re-released in 2 formats, a regular 24/96 high-res remaster that already sounds really nice, and then in the format I’ll be discussing here, from the small audiophile table 2xHD. They are doing a rather complicated audiophile voodoo treatment of a small catalogue of recordings. Other excellent examples of albums from them I own are remasters of the outstanding Brahms violin sonata and trio recordings with the Tetzlaffs which I’ve yet to review on this blog, as well several excellent Bill Evans albums.

I’ll leave it to the audiophile nerds to describe the impact of the 2xHD treatment, suffice it to say that the 2xHD version sounds a bit “smoother”, more “analog”, and somewhat warmer, without loosing detail, compared to the regular remaster. Your choice if you care about these nuances or not

But enough audiophile mumbo jumbo, what about the music, you ask?

Well, it’s a really interest setup, we’re talking about a traditional piano trio, with Paul Berner on bass and Duffy Jackson on drums, but we get the addition of a percussionist here, the excellent Robert Thomas, Jr.

Alexander is originally from Jamaica, and adding a percussionist really adds something very special here, setting it apart from regular trio sessions.

First of all, to quote Duke Ellington, It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing, nothing to worry about here, there’s plenty of swing, if you can listen to this without tapping your foot to the fast numbers, you must be deaf.

But on top of that you get outstanding latin jazz numbers, such as Samba di Orfeu, or Fungi Mama where Robert Thomas, Jr. really shines, and you get a really interesting example of Jazz/Reggae fusion with Reggae Later. The only thing you won’t find on this album is intimate ballads, but well, we’ve got plenty of Bill Evans albums for that already

Overall, this is a truly enjoyable and somewhat special live gig, that you’ll particularly appreciate if you have decent playback equipment, but will get your foot tapping even if played over a $50 bluetooth boombox.

My rating: 5 stars

You can find the recording with the 2xHD voodoo in formats all the way up to DXD here (NativeDSD), or you can go to the regular high-res version here (Qobuz)

Moments in Time – One of the best Stan Getz live albums

Stan Getz

I haven’t written that much about Stan Getz on my blog, as I don’t listen to his albums very often.

He’s probably best known for his latin jazz collaborations with Joao Gilberto, published under the simple titles of Getz/Gilberto (yes, the Girl from Ipanema, and she still goes walking) and Jazz Samba, both among the best selling jazz albums of all times.

There’s another album with Stan Getz I really enjoy, the 1958 Stan Getz & The Oscar Peterson Trio. I bought this very early in my Jazz discovery journey as Oscar Peterson’s trio was one of my gateway drugs into Jazz, and I bought a lot of his classic Verve albums. This one is definitely worth checking out.

Other than that, it seems to me that Getz has somewhat had an image issue with the hardcore jazz community, as his West Coast style jazz was not really seen as exciting as the developments going on in New York City. And I must admit, I mostly myself stick to the great Hard Bop period.

But then there’s Getz late period. I’ve already listed a set of fantastic performances in Europe, People Time, the collaboration with Kenny Barron, in my 25 Essential Jazz albums. I really get a very special introspective intensity from these late performances.

And then I recently discovery yet another live album that I didn’t have on my radar screen, recorded more than a decade earlier, that I really enjoy. It was only released in 2018.

Stan Getz – Moments in Time (Resonance Records 1976/2018)

This concert was discovered in the archives of the Keystone Corner, a San Francisco Jazz club.

I must admit I didn’t know any of the rhythm section previously, which includes Joanne Brackeen on piano, Clint Houston on bass, and Billy Hart on drums. Apparently, these were taken from the first part of the concert which featured just this quartet, which were then followed by a second set with Joao Gilberto.

So, what are we getting here?

Well, on the surface, mostly easy going jazz with the typical Stan Getz sound. But I still like this album much more than the average Getz album from this era.

Why? I presume it’s the live setup which gives just a special intensity to the performances. Live has the advantage of just giving more time to each individual musician to express themselves, with time to breathe and solo. The longest individual performance, Gillespie’s Con Alma, which is one of my favourite tracks on this album, has a playing time of 12:34. But the track I truly like best is a ballad, Wayne Shorter’s Infant Eyes, which really just has a beautiful intensity and intimacy to it.

So, overall, really an album really worth exploring.

My rating: 4 stars (with Con Alma and Infant Eyes being truly 5 stars)

You can find it here (Qobuz)

Alternatively, if you believe a bit in some audiophile voodoo, you can also get this remaster from 2xHD (it’s the one I bought and how I discovered the album in the first place).