During my last two years of college at Cal Berkeley I lived in the Rockridge area of Oakland, CA and worked at the still thriving Peaberry’s coffee in Market Hall. At that time I was starting to take an interest in jazz music and I didn’t know the first thing about it so I asked a customer who I’d gathered was a jazz enthusiast if there were any particular titles he’d recommend to a total rookie like me.

“SAXophone COLOssus” he said, and his enthusiasm was so palatable I literally went straight from work to pick up a copy. I’ve never regretted it.

Since wandering down the rabbit hole that is audiophile record collecting I’ve gone back to some of the records I’ve had for years, revisiting them, rediscovering the music and reassessing their sonic attributes. With hundred’s of records in my collection, I sometimes go years without listening to a particular album. Not so with Saxophone Colossus. Every time I make an upgrade to my system this record finds its way early into the listening cue.

Have you ever noticed that it’s often the records in the best condition that sound the worst? It’s no wonder. Even on a run of the mill audio system and fairly basic turntable, bad sounding records still clearly sound bad and good sounding records sound good and it’s these good sounding records that are subjected to the wear and tear of traveling to and from the turntable. And while I have had the occasional surprise of playing a record that I found to be pretty dull listen in the past only to reveal itself later as an winner, it’s more often the case that the best sounding records in my collection have always sounded good to me and just keep sounding better with better gear and better cleaning.

This is very much the case with this 1987 Original Jazz Classics reissue of Saxophone Colossus from Fantasy Records. It has always grabbed my attention, even with a pretty lousy turntable. Now with quite a few upgrades it sounds eye-poppingly good! After a recent cleaning with Walker Prelude my copy has the transparency that brings me right into the studio with these incredible musicians.

Max Roach is probably my favorite jazz drummer. His drum kit sounds so present on this record I almost feel like I can reach out and touch it, and his solos and interludes on this album are thrilling! Tommy Flanagan’s hands seem to dance across the keys of his piano on every track, even as his key strokes are presented with good weight and tonality. And on “Blue 7,” Doug Watkins bass commands attention with solid authority from the rear of the sound stage.

But it’s the spot on tonality and clear leading edge transients in Sonny’s saxophone playing that keeps me coming back. There’s an uncanny intimacy I experience hearing this record that goes beyond listening and into the realm of feeling the performance. As I write this I find it hard to focus on the writing and resist the impulse to put this record on and turn up the volume.

Having said all of that, the record is not totally without its problems. There are one or two moments when the music drops out, no doubt from a flaw in the master tape, and there’s a bit of distortion here and there which I suspect is also source related. I also find the mastering, as near as I can tell a stereo remaster from the original mono tapes, crowds the musicians into the center of the soundstage. Perhaps this was in the interest of preserving the original sound of the single mic recording, but it’s not totally to my liking.

Luckily the quality of the recording and the transparency of this copy overcome this crowding by giving enough space for all of the performances to live and breathe, and the brief source issues I described above represent very small flaws on what is otherwise a terrific sounding album.

Normally I don’t like to recommend a version of a record unless I’ve heard at least one other version, but in this case my experience tells me that, for the money, this ’87 reissue is very strong and clearly a well pressed copy will deliver big on this COLOssal album.

UPDATE: Check out my more recent post where I discuss 5 different pressings of Saxophone Colossus, including this OJC.