AAA Vinyl

Bassist Scott LaFaro's death in a Geneva, New York car accident ten days after the Sunday, June 25th, 1961 recording of this Village Vanguard set did more than add a tragic luster to the story. It upended what might have been a very different track order here and on Waltz For Debby, the second record sourced using tracks recorded that day by engineer David Jones on a modified Ampex 350 using Scotch 111 tape.

The trio of Bill Evans, LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian had been together for almost two years when this, the group's fourth Riverside release and Evan's first live record, was documented. LaFaro's playing—unusual for its melodic improvisations at a time when most bassists limited themselves to time-keeping—thrived in the company of Motian and Evans. By the time of these live performances, beginning with a Sunday matinee, the group had achieved an ethereal, almost otherworldly back and forth and give and take that produced "lift off" almost from the first note.

After La Faro's passing, Evans became deeply involved in the record, determined to turn it from a collection of the day's best tracks into one that paid tribute to the bassist. Thus it opens with La Faro's "Gloria's Step" and closes with his "Jade Vision" which was the evening's closer and the final time the trio played together.

In between were the "standards" "My Man is Gone", "All of You" and the buoyant "Alice in Wonderland" plus Miles Davis's "Solar", which wasn't then but today might be considered a "standard".

The sparse applause heard on some tracks was not because those afficienados in attendance weren't impressed, but rather because the matinee audience was probably small.

This justifiably legendary recording both for music and sound has been issued and reissued numerous times. I don't have an original Riverside pressing of this but I've got many original Riversides bought at the Cornell Campus store in 1964 when the label folded, and they are not what I'd considering "audiophile quality".

I've got a 1977 Japanese reissue of this (SMJ 6201), plus the German alto High Fidelity '90's edition (Alto-edition AE004 cut by Nick Webb, probably at Abbey Road) and the double 45 edition cut by Kevin Gray for Analogue Productions' original box set reissue and none of these can compare to this Mobile Fidelity Ultradisc "One Step" Ultradisc 45rpm reissue. By comparison all sound, to varying degrees, soft and muted, yet this "one step" reissue does not sound "hyped up" or oddly "EQ'd". It just sounds more open and transparent.

I've heard stories that the tape was "on its last legs" but apparently not ! The transparency and detail resolution here are absolutely spectacular. Astonishing, really, especially in terms of natural instrumental attack. This is after all a rhythmic power trio. No other version I've heard comes close to expressing the speed and precision of La Faro's playing—the clarity and finesse with which he attacks the strings. The same is true of how the mastering and one-step plating capture Evans'and Motian's playing.

Assuming your system can do it, anyone who has been to the small basement venue that is The Village Vanguard will feel as if they are traveling through time and seeing into the space. Yes of course that's hyperbole, but if you know this record well from the previous versions, that's how you're likely to feel.

Even those who find Mo-Fi's almost funereal black packaging "memorial-like", will find it appropriate here as a fitting La Faro tribute. Mo-Fi includes two superb 8x10 black and white photos sourced from original session photographer Steve Schapiro—one of Evans and one of the group seated around a small table (Motian smoked Kools).

Pressing quality is key on a generally quiet recording with a great deal of empty space between the notes and here RTI knocks it out of the park. Backgrounds on my sealed pressing were drop dead quiet throughout. Not a pop or click on all four sides.

Sadly the box sold out quickly and though Mo-Fi and Music Direct has done its best to limit the number of copies any one person can buy there's no way to stop speculators from enlisting their friends and neighbors so if you do want this, you'll have to hit the auction sites.

At $100 a box, I doubt Mobile Fidelity made a "killing" here, though they've produced a killer reissue!