Sonny Clark – Cool Struttin'

One of my top 10. So weirdly randomly moist. All killer no filler.
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Acutex M420STR cart
Marantz TT-15
Parks Puffin phono

Fantastic release. 5 out of 5. My favourite of the Classic series.

Excellent mastering! Followed by good pressing with limited surface noise. But what a great recording! The drums are vibrant and well defined, the sax and trumpets cut through, with a slight sharp edge, but within limits. Excellent issue from Blue Note!

I just received this one, along with four others from the series (Father's Day sale straight from Blue Note). An absolutely flat, dust-free, noise-free pressing. I don't think it's overly bright. Every instrument just jumps out at you; great separation. Nice poly-lined inner sleeve.

Absolute perfection to my ears. Great channel separation. Lots of clarity and depth to this fantastic recording. The pressing is masterful, this will be played often, what an absolute joy! Great work Blue Note , Classic Vinyl Series, another true winner and worth every penny.

This record had no surface noise at all. The record physically looked perfect. Additionally, this record was cut very loudly - just like with the Tone Poet releases. The quality of this pressing is indistinguishable from a Tone Poet pressing. With all that said, the instruments were all easy to distinguish, and I could easily point to their locations in space. They all sounded natural, detailed, and sometimes quite visceral.

The drums appear in the right channel, and the piano is centered and pushed back. The bass is around somewhere, and you can hear it quite well even when everyone is playing. The bass solo is something to behold.

This might be the best sounding record of the BN Classic Reissue Series. It is really good. Grade 5+

Wonderful album. Commands the prices it does for originals for a reason. The crazy things is you can get this version for peanuts and it sounds seriously good like the other KG mastered classics and poets.

My copy was pressed to perfection. The only 'nit pick' I have is that Side 2 was a little off centre, but I fixed that without any drama. It can be a problem with Optimal vinyl actually, although to be fair this has improved greatly in the past two years or so, in my experience. RTI has got to grips with this same issue too in recent years. I read quite a few complaints about the Blue Note Classic reissue series, but all of mine have been superb pressings, to date. These have been super quiet. I haven't heard one instance of surface noise on any one of mine, so far. But of course, there are always a number of less than acceptable copies in circulation and they should be returned for replacement. Optimal replacement copies have always worked for me in the past. Kevin Gray is doing a very good job on the mastering front too, so these releases are an automatic purchase for me.

i have bought 6 classic titles now and they have all been great ... bravo blue note and kevin gray

look forward to getting the rest and cherry picking the titles that interest me from the new run of titles , what a great affordable way to build a vinyl jazz collection

In my opinion this Classic Vinyl Series are always sounding a bit too bright. It’s true that it has a contagious energy and great detail but I have also “Speak No Evil” and “The Sidewinder” and both have this character of sounding shrill, mainly with sax. On “Sippin’ at Bells” Sonny Clark’s alto sax should sound warmness to my ears. Curiously Arf Farmer’s trumpet sound much warmer on “Deep Night” than the alto sax. I have another LP from this series “Song For My Father” that is an exception, it sounds warm and detailed but not so silent, a few pops here and there… nevertheless I like it more.