André Previn and His Pals Shelly Manne & Red Mitchell – West Side Story [Stereo] (Craft Recordings Contemporary Acoustic Sounds Series Edition)

(AAA) — Lacquers cut from the original analog master tapes by Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering.

Contemporary Records Acoustic Sounds Series continues in 2023!

Seven key albums from the Contemporary Records catalog reissued on 180-gram vinyl

Titles featuring Andre Previn, Leroy Vinnegar, Ornette Coleman, Curtis Counce, Art Farmer and Phineas Newborn Jr.

Featuring all-analog mastering by Bernie Grundman

Pressed at Quality Record Pressings

Stoughton Printing old-style tip-on jackets

Continuing Craft Recordings' 70th Anniversary celebration of Contemporary Records

"... for a brief spell in the mid-to-late 1950s, André Previn was one of America's most popular jazz musicians, at least judging by record sales, and his cover of 'West Side Story,' released in 1960, marked his high point in that realm. ... the sound quality is superb. This is part of a series of albums on the Contemporary label, reissued on vinyl by Craft Recordings in collaboration with Acoustic Sounds. Contemporary was the label that personified L.A. jazz in the 1950s and early ‘60s (much of it, more adventurous), and the house engineer was Roy DuNann, whose albums sound as dynamic and lifelike as any by the East Coast's more celebrated engineers of the day (or any day). The piano here is rich, mellow, and percussive; the bass vibrates with wood and pluck; and the trapset a wonderland, captured in all its color and shimmer and thwack." — Music = 7/11; Sound = 10/11 — Fred Kaplan, trackingangle.com. Read the whole review here.

Craft Recordings and Acoustic Sounds are proud to announce the Contemporary Records Acoustic Sounds series, which continues for 2023 with seven album releases from the Contemporary Records catalog, celebrating 70 years of the legendary jazz label. The releases are supervised by Chad Kassem, CEO of Acoustic Sounds, the world's largest source for audiophile recordings.

Each title, originally engineered by Roy DuNann and/or Howard Holzer, features all-analog mastering from the original tapes by legendary engineer Bernie Grundman (himself a former employee of the label), as well as unsurpassed audiophile pressing on 180-gram vinyl at Quality Record Pressings, presented in a Stoughton Printing old-style tip-on jacket.

The series highlights gems from Contemporary's extraordinary catalog and features artists who both defined and expanded the sound of West Coast jazz.

One of the best of a series of showtune albums — perhaps THE best — recorded by the trio of pianist Andre Previn, bassist Red Mitchell and drummer Shelly Manne. Here the all-star group is focusing on the music of West Side Story (AllMusic notes Previn and Manne alternated leadership, and it was the drummer's good fortune to have the famous My Fair Lady alum under his own name). The album has eight of the main themes from the famous musical, including "I Feel Pretty," "Maria" and "America." As usual, the melodies are treated respectfully yet swingingly, and Andre Previn in particular excels in this setting. Recommended.

Founded in 1951 by film producer, screenwriter and record collector Lester Koenig (1917-1977), Contemporary Records became the epicenter of the West Coast jazz scene, while its cutting-edge approach to sound and design attracted some of the era's most exciting artists. The Contemporary Records Acoustic Sounds series — which launched in the spring of 2022 with titles by Art Pepper, Barney Kessel and Benny Carter, among others — honors the label's rich legacy through meticulous reissues that highlight the label's influential classics, as well as its must-hear rarities.

Since its initial rollout, the series has earned accolades from a slew of outlets, including JazzTimes, which spoke to the impact of the label, reflecting: "Artists, producers, and engineers alike have held Contemporary aloft...as a label dedicated to presenting jazz at its absolute purest, richest, and live-est," adding that the new reissues "are living, breathing proof of that label's hotly cutting clarity." Audiophile Review, meanwhile, marveled at the stereo pressing of Art Pepper + Eleven: Modern Jazz Classics, which it called "top-notch," elaborating that it sounds "richer and more inviting...deliver[ing] a bit more cinemascopic ‘view' of the group." Praising Hampton Hawes' Four! as "pristine," Audiophile Audition added, "Kudos to Craft Recordings for re-introducing a brilliant pianist."

(Above description from AcousticSounds.com)