OH BOY....where to start....


The problem with these releases is that some are good, licensed releases. Some are gray-market releases, and others, a strictly bootlegs.


The good is that most of the licensed releases are usually tastefully done. The best example of these releases are the ones done by Bear Family. The Peggy Lee ones you linked to are decent in sound quality BUT some of those recordings are the MONO versions. The superior versions in this case are the STEREO releases.


The gray market ones are a toss up. Some actually come from hard to get sources and have GLORIOUS sound but these are few and far in between.


The bootlegs I would avoid like the plague. They usually come from really bad sources and, given the source, sound like crap.


As always, the best thing to do is do your research. Look for names you know and like...Alan Yoshida, Steve Hoffman, Kevin Gray, Mark Wilder, etc.

hello,

@LFF, totally spot on with Bear Family. they do excellent work. but having everything recorded by a given artist is, to me, overkill and too big of an investment.

concerning the others especially Real Gone Jazz (the x albums on x cds folks), there is no information concerning who did the "remastering." they might have it on the packaging but i haven't been able to find anything anywhere else. per http://www.discogs.com/ the label is manufactured by http://www.musicmelon.co.uk/, which has been offline since i found it.

apparently the Proper Record label is hit or miss sonically.

may just have to buy a couple and give a listen. after-all, most of these are really cheap! (or just stop reading Will Friedwald, who piques my interest in hearing this stuff.)

thanks everyone for the input!

Yeah, Bear Family releases can be overkill BUT it's quality stuff and you can digest the collection on your own time. I'm still going through the Dean Martin box sets I purchased a few  years ago.

As for Proper Record - you're right in that they are hit and miss. That said, Proper Record does release good music even if it's not the best sounding versions. For the price though, you can't really complain.

JSP Records on the other hand, usually puts out fantastic stuff, even if it is a bit questionable. I have yet to find a bad sounding JSP release. Their Django Reinhardt collection is awesome.

The only marked reissues I would avoid are the OJC European re-issues marked with an XYZ logo. Those are horrendous.

Bear Family and JSP have been consistently good for me.
Real Gone Jazz does have a disturbing lack of info even in the liner notes but they have provided a lot of albums that never made it to CD or have long been out of print. Saved me lots of money on buying near mint vinyl from 50 years ago and they always seem to be coming from some decent source - maybe the master tape, maybe a safety copy, but not a beat record or anything.

I read this site to keep up with remasters, reissues etc. They often have extensive info from the press releases or marketing people that you won't find on Amazon and similar. Who did it, where did they do it, did they use Plangent and so forth. Sometimes they don't have any real info but check it out if you're on the fence about a purchase. They also don't cover any of the fly-by-night operations.
http://theseconddisc.com/