by TBR contributor Alex Bunardzic

My interest in Herbie Hancock’s music started when I received copy of Maiden Voyage as a gift from a friend. Actually, it wasn’t really a gift. It was more like “Do you want this record? My dad gave it to me, and it sucks!” When I asked “How so?” my friend replied “You know those boring records from the sixties where drums sound like they were being played in another room? Well this is one of them!”

I took the record anyway and was pleasantly surprised, finding it to be very moody, well played music. So I went into the wild searching for more Hancock records and the first one I found was Thrust. Awesome album! It’s super spacey funky grooves just keep going forever. I really dig that! Next came Headhunters. “Chameleon”! Need I say more? Herbie is da man!

As I kept looking for more, a friend clued me in on his Sextet (spanning from 1970 to 1973). I couldn’t find any titles from this era on vinyl, but I got a CD that was blaring and unlistenable so I played it once and kept looking.

Finally, a few months back I bumped into a used copy of an original pressing of the first sextet LP, Mwandishi. It was pricey ($35) but I snatched it and didn’t regret it. That LP sounds to me like the hippest music EVER recorded! After hearing it, I knew I had to seek out his other two sextet LPs –Crossings and Sextant.

My searches in local records shops were in vain. I’m limiting myself to frequenting local record shops and avoiding online purchases because I’m not made of money and if I get addicted to buying records online, I could kiss my life savings goodbye!. Eventually I lucked out and found a reissue of “Crossings” in the used bin for $20 and decided to take a chance on it.

This reissue was released in 2019 on the Antarctica Starts Here (ASH) label. The jacket is made fantastically well, and I held out faint hope that the sound of the pressing would not disappoint. I got it home, cleaned it, and then was pleasantly surprised by the sound. Those of you who’ve read some of my previous posts know how deeply disappointed I typically am with the reissues I’ve heard. This time though, I found it difficult to pinpoint any faults.

Not long after I was chatting with my friend Robert and I told him about the ASH reissue of Crossings. He was intrigued and offered to send me an original pressing that I could compare to the reissue side-by-side. I accepted the challenge and what follows here is my review of the two versions.

One dilemma I always face when preparing to evaluate two versions of the same LP is which one to play first. I still don’t have a ready made formula for this and tend to go the the way the mood strikes me. This time, I decided to spin the ASH reissue first.

I have a fairly highly resolving system which I listen to in a dedicated music room, so I was ready to immerse myself deeply into critical listening.

I put on side 1, “Sleeping Giant,” and I was immediately drawn into the barrage of pan-African percussion. The sound cuts through and is vital, vibrant and resonating. The presence is unbelievable. The cymbals are shimmering and the drums blasting, until finally the percussion madness gives way to a different polyrhythmic groove.

Here the bass enters and it goes deep, very deep. The electric piano delivers beautiful sounds and the band is cooking the way you rarely hear a band cook. This music is grooving like a mother and verging on chaos!

Halfway through side one, I decided to switch to the original pressing. I was curious to hear how it sounded after getting so excited by the reissue. I expected the brilliant sound of the reissue was going to be difficult to top, but guess what? The original did it! It beat the reissue. OMG, wow. How’s that possible?

Let me count the ways:

1. The percussion on the original pressing sounds more like skin, wood, metal. Switching back to the reissue, the same percussion sounds slightly ‘plasticky’ to my ears.
2. The cymbals on the original pressing sound less steely, less ‘metalicky’ than on the reissue. The cymbals on the original sound almost ‘coppery’ with a dark, brooding, shimmering sound to them that’s not as brash as on the reissue.
3. The bass is less bloated on the original. It still goes very deep and is muscular, but not so blaring. The bass is softer, more musical, more singing.
4. Quieter details emerge on the OG, such as some tiny percussive sounds deep in the mix, positioned deeper in the soundstage centre and easier to notice and follow. This copy definitely has more nuance.
5. The trombone sounds less ‘electric’ on the original and more ‘breathy’.
6. The saxophone sounds more forceful on the original, and it cuts through the mix without effort. On the reissue, the saxophone sounds a bit more blaring.
7. Gestalt —  While the soundstage on the reissue is super clean and etched in space, it feels a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. On the original, the instruments feel more cohesively presented in the space in front of the listener. The overall impression is more organic, more ‘here and now’ on the OG. This holistic image makes an important difference — the playback feels more believable when we’re not noticing separate instruments living in their own carefully designated bubble on the soundstage. The original pressing delivers a more unified picture.

Overall, after listening back and forth for a few rounds, I’d say that the reissue presents this in-studio performance as if we’re watching it under neon lights. Meanwhile, the original pressing feels more like we’re attending the band performance in broad sunlight.

I’m always deeply mystified when I notice such differences between various pressings/reissues. What could be causing such differences? The most obvious cause would be a later generation master tape. I have some old LPs in my collection that were made in Peru that sound awful; you can immediately hear that the publishing house sent fourth or even fifth generation tapes to the pressing plants there, and there they just couldn’t salvage the sound of the original master tape from those horrible copies.

But in this case, I suspect we’re not even talking about first or second generation master tapes. I think ASH made these pressings from a high resolution digital master. And they did an absolute stellar job at it. Much better than most other reissues I’ve had a chance to review.

Nonetheless, even with a high quality digital master, handled with care and lavished with all due attention, the resulting version simply cannot match what was likely a routine mastering job done in the golden age of vinyl. Ultimately the original version contains more air, more light, more coherency and more resolution that its digital replica.

Could the reason for this be that the master tape used to make the digital master for this reissue had somewhat deteriorated in the almost 50 years since it was produced? Or maybe the very process of cutting the vinyl from a digital master enforces some changes in sound that we notice when listening comparatively side-by-side? I guess we’ll never know.

Whatever the reason, and whileI would recommend seeking the original pressing, you really can’t go wrong with the ASH reissue; it is brilliant. But if you have a decent, highly resolving stereo, you will definitely get more mileage from the original pressing. How much more mileage? Hm, let’s be conservative and say about 10% more. Not a bad score for this new kid on the block that is definitely much easier to find than an OG.

As a collector on a budget, I view this ASH reissue of Crossings as something of a silver lining. Many if not most other reissues on the market are definitely to be avoided, but every now and then I bump into a reissue that IS worth the price tag. And if it’s a reissue of a difficult to find title such as Crossings, so much the better!