The Storyville album of the Teddy Wilson Trio entitled Revisits the Goodman Years has been available on compact disc for almost a decade. Nevertheless, the Copenhagen-based label decided, about a month ago, to revive the album with a vinyl release. As far as I can tell, most of the information that appeals to serious jazz listeners has been omitted from the product. Furthermore, because of the limits of vinyl, six of the tracks that concluded the CD release are not available on the vinyl version.
The most important elision is the membership of the trio. Over the course of his career as a jazz pianist, Wilson had a wide number of trio partners, resulting in any number of different approaches to interplay. Revisits the Goodman Years was recorded at a studio in Copenhagen in 1980. Wilson was joined by drummer Ed Thigpen, who had made Denmark his home. The bass player was Jesper Lundgaard, better known in Europe than on this side of the pond; but definitely a talent not to be ignored.
This makes for a stimulating account of tunes that were popular in the thirties. However, the stimulation comes from the polished technique and inventiveness of all three of the players. All that really matters is a basic sense of what the instrumentalists are doing and whether the piano was satisfactorily tuned for the occasion. More accurately, the substance of listening has more to do with what the mind does with the auditory stimuli than how well those stimuli compare against the ones that first went into the recording microphones.
In that context I have little sympathy for Storyville deciding to “go vinyl.” While most of us around the world continue to shelter-in-place, all that matters is that the loudspeakers, headphones, or earbuds give sufficient account of what the performers are trying to do. That is all anyone needs for serious music appreciation, and I shall leave audiophilia for those too shallow to think of better things to do with their money!
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