The El reissues of João Gilberto's first 3 albums

I was wondering if anyone has bought or heard these and if so, what they think of the sound quality. As much as I love El, I wouldn't expect any sonic revelations, but I do wonder if the sound of these is at least better than the often derided Legendary CD that compiles all three (which is what I have). The music on these albums is so insanely crucial, it would be nice to finally have some good, listenable, and easily findable versions of these.

 

Anyone?

 

what is El? Is that a record label? are these on vinyl?

 

+1

 

I think we're talking about CDs here. See this link:

http://www.cherryred.co.uk/shopexd.asp?id=3462

 

Yes, these are CDs that have been reissued/remastered by legendary and eccentric British indie label El (a sister label to Cherry Red).

I'm guessing no one here was aware of these?

 

I was aware of the release, but haven't yet heard it. I'm interested . . . will order if the sound is improved a bit from earlier cds.

 

Oooo, I'll stay tuned.
I LOVE Joao Gilberto (sorry, don't have accent marking). And most of his children too.
!
!

 

Links to the other two in case anyone else is interested: http://www.cherryred.co.uk/shopexd.asp?id=1342

http://www.cherryred.co.uk/shopexd.asp?id=288


Maybe I'll just have to take the plunge on these.

Mind you, I've never heard the original vinyl of any of these, only the Legendary CD. A lot of people dislike the Legendary CD because of the 80s-era reverb that was apparently added. My biggest complaint with Legendary is that the right channel is noticeably quieter than the left on many of the songs, making it a frustrating listen with headphones.

Edit - it appears that the tracks on Legendary that suffer from channel imbalance are those from Chega De Saudade, so I'd love to know if that problem persists on this El reissue.

 

i've never heard these tracks sound great, and they must exist in mono, my guess is that'd be the mixes worth hearing...

 

Chega has nice sound and good dynamic range.

 

I too have a recent CD re-issue of Chega. It sounds very, very good. But, I did not recall it being on Cherry Red.... My version has numerous bonus tracks. Maybe someone can clear this up.

 

Do you recall the name of the reissue label or anything?

The El/Cherry Red version contains bonus tracks.

 

Very interested in acquiring these if the sound makes it worthwhile to do so.

 

These releases were discussed in this thread.

 

Thanks! I'm not sure why that thread didn't come up when I did Joao Gilberto search.

At any rate, someone in that thread answered my question about the sound quality of these El reissues:

(World Pacific being the Legendary comp). And if that's true, it's unfortunate, because like I mentioned above, the channel imbalance on the Chega de Saudade songs is unpleasant, especially with headphones. So, I suppose there is no point in me buying them, although it's at least nice to know such seminal work is much easier to find than it had been for a long while.

 

Thank you for this info. I've got the Legendary CD at home; I should probably listen to it tonight to confirm.

It's truly a shame that these releases were bastardized in the Eighties with all that digital reverb. Does anyone know what they were thinking? ("It was the Eighties" is a perfectly legitimate response by the way! )

While none of these three early Gilberto albums were recorded in spectacular fashion, their historical import alone means they deserve at least clean, un-futzed with transfers. Hopefully such a thing is still possible.

 

They were recorded as well as most anything else I can think of in 1959/60 bar some of the Living Stereo type things. Brazil has a history of recorded sound going back to the beginning of the 20th century. The equipment (the best German, US, British) and the technicians were on par with any set-ups in europe or the states. In many cases the musicians were superior, specifically the drummers and percussionists, in the case being discussed it doesn't get much better than Milton Banana on drums with arrangements by Antonio Carlos Jobim. Anyway, get yourself a copy of the brazilian Chega LP or the two sequels, even the 70s Odeon reissues, and you'll realize that these are glorious (mono) recordings.

 

I am going to look tonight.

 

Are folks here saying that these new reissues are futzed with????

My Chega CD sounded fantastic to me when I played it....

I have NEVER seen that WP Legendary CD.....

 

El can only release this LP in the UK because of copyright expiration. Tapes did make it (to EMI) in the early 60s but I would very much doubt Cherry Red/El would have access to them. They certainly do not have access to the Odeon Brazil masters which Joao has had tied up for near 20 years. Needledrops?
El certainly use plenty of (heavily NRd) needledrops on their releases. I'll pick up a copy of the Chega CD and do a comparison. Back soon...

 

Thank you for the very interesting historical data! Obviously my existing copy sounds less than glorious... I'm really curious to hear what these recordings are capable of sounding like when mixed and mastered properly.

 

Well, if they were, in fact, sourced from the WP Legendary CD, then definitely yes.

Since Legendary is all I've heard and I have nothing to compare it to, I can't say I mind its overall sound; it's just the channel imbalance (louder left channel) on the Chega tracks that bothers me. If the El version of Chega does not suffer from the channel imbalance, I would definitely pick it up.


The WP Legendary CD has long been out of print, difficult to find, and fairly pricey on the used market. I somehow managed to score twice by finding it for a mere $6 in record stores that didn't realize what they had. On ebay it's been known to sell in the $40-60 range.

 

It was also re-released in Korea in 2006 and on normal price.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/JOAO-GILBERTO-Legendary-Joao-Gilberto-KOREA-CD-SEALED-VERY-RARE-/140755822953

 

so, the consensus is that we're just out of luck for good sounding CD's of these albums?