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Review by vonwegen August 27, 2005 (1 of 1 found this review helpful)
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Performance:  Sonics:  |
I must respectfully disagree with the other reviews about the sound quality, just because of the drop-outs during key songs. This is a great album marred by the age of the original 2-track mixdown tape that Sony Japan owns. I do think the Japanese engineers did a good job to get the best possible quality out of what they had.
The first track Springville sounds wonderful, but starting with The Maids Of Cadiz and continuing intermittantly for the remaining songs, I can hear tiny dropouts, probably because of the many edits required to piece these performances together (over 200 tape splices, according to the biography of Gil Evans that I have). The most glaring example occurs during the song Miles Ahead, where the stereo imaging vanishes midway through the song and cunningly reappears some 17 seconds later--it's not that obvious when you listen through speakers, but it's really noticeable with headphones.
Also, there is a fairly noticeable level of tape hiss, especially during the quiet passages.
In short, great album--really a Desert Island Disc for me, but it would be nice to hear a restored version mixed from the original multi-track masters like Sony did with "In A Silent Way" and "Sketches of Spain".
Oh, and if you live in Europe, I strongly recommend ordering this direct from Amazon.jp instead of paying 25 Euros extra to get it thru Amazon.de.
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