Over the course of my lifetime, I have grown to really love jazz. I distinctly remember the first time I heard a jazz trio playing at a party in my mid-twenties, and it affected me in a way no other exposure to music ever had. The delicately textured pluck or slap of the acoustic bass, whether laying down a sustained rhythm or plumbing the depths of its lower octaves. The harmonic progressions of the piano, often arranged in a seemingly unsophisticated pattern of block chords or in wildly entertaining improvisations. And the metallic shimmer of brushes on cymbals, with an occasional full-out eruption of wooden sticks on skins. I ignored anything else happening at that party and just stood there digging the band, even though I had no framework for jazz whatsoever.
My appreciation for the jazz idiom only accelerated after I connected to the music of Patricia Barber. That goes back to my daughter's days in Chicago, over a dozen years ago, when I stumbled onto one of Patricia Barber's compact discs, Cafe Blue, in Reckless Records' North Milwaukee Street shop. I had gained some knowledge of Patricia Barber and her work, I'd just never heard any of her music. Since that fateful day, I've basically been addicted to the joyous nonconformity of her albums. Her unconventional, jazzy renditions of standards and tunes from other genres, the frequent use of unusual time signatures, and her own idiosyncratic originals—which easily surpass the complexity of her delightful and offbeat covers. And let's not forget the ridiculously good sound quality of the recordings, which was clearly evident, even on the original CD issues. After hearing Cafe Blue, I was hooked, and definitely on a quest to hear the rest!
That great sound quality is in no small part due to the genius of Jim Anderson, who recorded all of Patricia Barber's studio albums. And in the process not only managed to capture the live acoustic of Chicago Recording Company's Studio 5, but also to imbue the albums with a purity of sound that makes hearing each of them nothing short of an event. While I have an appreciation for all her records, I've always gravitated towards 2000's Nightclub, an album of covers that's become one of my go-to titles for audio equipment and system evaluation. Nightclub is a miracle of recorded sound, and a perfect example of Jim Anderson's artistry at the control panel. A couple of years ago, I downloaded the DSD files when they were still available from Acoustic Sounds—they were an impressive step up from my CD rips, and easily supplanted them for evaluation purposes.
Other than the Impex 180 gram reissue of Patricia Barber's Clique!, which I recently reviewed HERE, it just worked out that I didn't happen to have any of her LPs in my album collection. Most LP reissues of Patricia Barber's albums were released before I'd gotten in tune with her music, especially the Mobile Fidelity LPs, which now go for crazy money on Discogs. That unfortunate situation changed for the better when Abey Fonn of Impex reached out to me to let me know that a copy of the 1STEP, 45 RPM, 2 LP pressing for Nightclub was on its way!
The Impex 1STEP Process
Patricia Barber's Nightclub is Impex Records' second release in the 1STEP series. Here's a blurb from their website explaining the process:
"The Impex 1STEP process relies on short, tightly controlled runs that require a new lacquer after each run of 500 pressings. This unforgiving format has the lacquer skipping the regular father-mother process, going right to a single convert and then pressing. Though this dramatically increases mastering and production costs, it also assures each run is more consistent from disc to disc, with less noise, clearer details, and deeper bass.
Reducing production complexity to just a single "convert" disc between the lacquer and the press greatly improves groove integrity, diminishes non-fill anomalies, and increases signal integrity from the master tape to your system.
Two 180-gram 45-rpm LPs (pressed on VR900BK1 Supreme Vinyl) and a deluxe booklet are packaged in a heavy-duty 3-sleeve jacket. The jacket is then placed in a matte-textured paper slipcase that protects your investment and brings a cool retro-modern look to your shelves."
I was recently in Tampa at the Florida Audio Expo; multi-Grammy award winners Jim Anderson and Ulrike Schwarz were making a presentation in the Technical Audio Devices (TAD) room. Where they played selections from and talked about their experiences recording Patricia Barber's albums; I had the opportunity to talk with Jim Anderson at length afterwards. He revealed to me that even though the Patricia Barber albums were recorded and released using a Sony multi-track digital recorder, the microphone feed was simultaneously mixed down through an all-analogue Neve console to both digital and analog tapes. So for each of Patricia Barber's albums, an analog tape exists; hearing that information was a complete revelation to me! Jim also told me that an analog reverb unit was carefully placed in the studio's stairwell to provide additional ambience to enrich the recorded sound. And that stairwell location worked perfectly for the desired effect—who knew?
Robert Sliger's packaging for Nightclub's 1STEP is the new industry standard for limited edition releases.
Impex's 1STEP process utilizes those analog mix-down master tapes, which Bernie Grundman—another multi-Grammy winner—used to assemble the new analog cutting master for the all-analog LPs. Which were pressed at RTI using VR-900BK1 Supreme Vinyl; this release of Nightclub is a limited edition pressing run that's strictly limited to 7,500 LPs. They'll go quickly, so don't hesitate! I just checked out Discogs listings for the 1STEP release for Cafe Blue—which is already sold out—and the resellers are asking a king's ransom for a copy!
Nightclub
2000's Nightclub was something of a departure for Patricia Barber, and was her first recording that consisted completely of cover tunes. The creative intent of the album was to replicate one of Barber and her group's frequent appearances at local Chicago nightclubs, like the iconic Green Mill Jazz Club. Patricia Barber's vocals and piano were augmented by members of her working band at the time, bassist Michael Arnopol and drummer Adam Cruz; certain tracks featured guitarist par excellence Charlie Hunter. Bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Adam Nussbaum also made multiple appearances on Nightclub. The original album release featured 12 tracks, which are mostly jazz standards, with Barber's typical inclusion of a few non-jazz tunes given jazzy interpretations. Like country singer Eddie Arnold's "You Don't Know Me," Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "Alfie," and the Bossa Nova classic "Summer Samba". Everything else is pretty much straight from Broadway or Tin Pan Alley.
As I mentioned earlier, the DSD download of Nightclub has become one of my main sources for evaluating audio equipment. The record features mostly acoustic instrumentation (all but Charlie Hunter's electric guitar), and offers a superbly nuanced musical palette. The Impex 1STEP 45 RPM LP elevates that goodness to an entirely different level! Despite generally focusing on particular album tracks as part of my process, I usually end up listening to Nightclub in its entirety, because…I really like it a lot! Despite the downtempo mode of much of the album, Patricia Barber's smoky/sultry vocals and perfect work at the keyboard are continually uplifting. Among the tracks that I most often rely upon to suss out a system's capabilities are a sequence of tunes from Side Two ("Just For The Thrill," "You Don't Know Me," and "Alfie") and two tracks from Side Three ("Autumn Leaves" and "Summer Samba"). The Kozma/Prevert/Johnny Mercer tune "Autumn Leaves" has always easily been my favorite track on the album.
The Impex 1STEP features an exclusive side four bonus track, the Dmitri Tiopkin/Ned Washington tune "Wild is the Wind," best known by versions from Nina Simone and David Bowie (which Bowie later confessed was an homage to Simone). As a two disc, 45 RPM affair, there was available space on the last side, and thankfully, Impex decided to gift us with what might be the best performance on the entire record! Patricia Barber's version is particularly moving and intoxicatingly irresistible—I've spun this side of the new 1STEP LP so many times over the last couple of weeks, I can't actually fathom how the decision was made to leave this track off the original album sequence. Or that I've never heard this track anywhere, ever, before now: it really is that good!
I've owned a lot of excellent, highly pedigreed vinyl pressings over the years. But I can say without reservation that the VR-900BK1 Supreme Vinyl that Impex and RTI used to press the 1STEP release of Nightclub has rendered the quietest, cleanest LP I've ever heard. Ever. The backgrounds are deeply silent, I mean, deathly silent—this is the lowest noise floor I've ever experienced on an LP. Groove modulation noise is virtually nonexistent; my Hana SL moving coil cartridge is fairly forgiving of groove anomalies, but with the 1STEP pressing, there's literally nothing to forgive! And that remarkable level of analog quiet allows you to hear much more deeply and clearly into the music; it's very much akin to being present in the studio at the time of the recording. The DSD files for Nightclub have definitely now been replaced by the Impex 1STEP LP, which has an openness, clarity, and transparency that the digital can't compete with.
The Nightclub 1 STEP has spent most of the last few weeks on my turntable!
At an MSRP of $129.99, the 1STEP pressing of Nightclub isn't cheap, but for the lover of Patricia Barber's music—and of truly superb analog pressings—it's a small price to pay for this level of excellence. As a high-end commercial print professional from way back, I've raved repeatedly about Impex packaging guru Robert Sliger's excellent work on their LP slipcases, but this 1STEP release has elevated his art form to the ultimate. Owning a copy of this Impex 1STEP is a sensory event of both sight and sound, and hearkens back to the analog glory days of yore—but it's actually here and now. I've listened to this excellent LP set on all-tube, all-analog equipment in my new room multiple times over the last few weeks, and you don't want to hesitate—grab one while there's still time!
Patricia Barber: Nightclub 1STEP: 180g, 45 RPM 2LPs: $129.99 MSRP.
Patricia Barber - patriciabarber.com
Impex Records - impexrecords.com
All images provided by the author and Impex Records
