Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers – The Big Beat

Great album

This is stereo, regardless of what they printed

Boom! Boom!

FLAWLESS pressing. Dead quiet, perfect sounding, flat and heavy. Highly recommended.

Smashes the BN Classic vinyl out of the park for me. 19 in of these BN XRCDs and they are all exquisite!

My copy has the white “b” on the label, which indicates a 1977 pressing like this one, but has “RVG STEREO” in the dead wax.

My copy is flawless with correct ( I hope) soundstage and good instruments separartion: Morgan on the left side, Shorter on the right side, piano in the center and Blakey's drums in the right center. No distortion.
Remaster is ok - maybe nothing spectacular (yeah, I know it's Kevin Grey) and it's a bit on the light side of the sound , but with very good clarity, depth and dynamics.

im listening to the chess players as i type this. sounds like this was recorded recently. fantastic master and of course recording by the late n great RVG

Incredible record. Sounds wonderful on this Mono pressing. Surely one of the best line-ups in jazz history, too.

1st copy is mediocrity all round. The pressing is heavily warped and off centre which is only slightly audible but shouldnt be at all. Its otherwise very quiet. As mentioned below there is horrid distortion on some of the trumpet and piano peaks sections. The mastering is very hard panning and it almost seems like its all coming from the right channel for most of A1 for instance. I for one think this is a digitally stepped record... its not very dynamic or warm. At this stage and doing an A/B I honestly prefer the balance of what i heard on Youtube without the distortions.
Tested on Project Debut Pro with Pick It Pro cart - 30hrs tops - running @ 2.1g. I will double dip for a flat and well centre'd one and hope it somehow sounds better too

Excellent music, excellent line-up, excellent compositions, excellent remaster, excellent cover and packaging. A great lp of a great band. Blakey, Morgan and Shorter are in great form.

was listening to chess players and when i heard wayne's sax solo i was like.,. hmmm that sounds familliar. and true enough, it was the opening notes of coltrane's good bait from soultrane, another superb LP imho. i have to admit, big beat is one of van gelder's best sounding recordings and if you have a well done analog copy like this one, you're all set