Miles Davis – Kind Of Blue (SACD single layer + CD)

For this reissue from Hemiolia Records, Pietro Benini and his team wanted to go beyond a “standard” restoration. His remastering work on “Kind Of Blue” follows an uncompromising vision: preserving the integrity of a purely analog chain right up to the moment of conversion to the digital realm. This is not a simple transfer, but an act of the utmost precision, designed to preserve the dynamics, energy, and warmth of the master tape directly in the digital medium. While audiophile reissues of “Kind Of Blue” previously available on the market are based on work processes and master tape copies, which Mark Wilder established in the early 1990s, Hemiolia Records had access to an original 1/4″-production master tape copy derived from the Ampex backup recorder used during the 1959 recording sessions! For this reason, Benini’s work can be described as a fully analog remastering at the correct playback speed. This means that Pietro Benini did not have to correct the speed, since the production master tape used already had the correct playback speed! The well-known speed issues stem from the master tapes originating from that 3-track recorder, which was running too slowly on the day of the first recording session and consequently recorded the first three tracks of the album with a quarter-tone overdrive.

Furthermore, the “5-bar fade-out” applied by Wilder (and by all subsequent mastering engineers) – which literally erased nearly a minute of analog music – was not carried over by Hemiolia Records. The fact that this reissue includes the original “13-bar outro” proves that Hemiolia Records had access to a section of the tape that other labels had either digitally edited out or cut during the mixing phase. This crucial detail was confirmed by Enrico Merlin (widely regarded as the world’s leading expert on Miles Davis), who wrote the liner notes in the booklet accompanying this box set. Hemiolia is proud to note that it has succeeded in restoring the original analog integrity of the backup band, thereby also presenting the music in its proper light. Benini’s aim was not to add anything to the sound, but to allow each instrument to regain its own spatial position and natural timbre. Only at the end of this sophisticated analog process was the signal entrusted to the high-precision conversion stage for digital transmission, thereby restoring a freshness and vitality to these historic recordings that enhance the emotional experience. To showcase the results to their fullest, Hemiolia Records made a conscious decision to use uncompressed DSD without DST encoding on the SACD, ensuring a direct bitstream from the analog source.

Miles Davis’s “Kind Of Blue” is the best-selling jazz album of all time – a five-track masterpiece full of melancholic moods and melodies, and an album that appears on every “Best Of” list and has been inducted into every “Hall of Fame.” To this day, “Kind of Blue” remains one of the most listened-to and studied recordings – “required listening” for many young musicians and one of the most transcendent jazz works ever recorded. Davis plays sublime trumpet with his unforgettable sextet, consisting of pianist Bill Evans, drummer Jimmy Cobb, bassist Paul Chambers, and saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, with Wynton Kelly on piano for “Freddy The Freeloader.” “Kind of Blue” is more than just Miles Davis’s most enduring album; it is a testament to Miles’s experimental approach to drastically simplifying modern jazz: “Kind of Blue” is, in a sense, nothing but melody – and atmosphere. None of the musicians had played the pieces before they went into the studio in the spring of 1959 for the first of two recording sessions. In fact, Miles had written the arrangements for most of the pieces just a few hours before the session. Miles also stuck to his old recording method, which involved virtually no rehearsals and only one take per piece.

Hermiola Records presents this sonically outstanding reissue of this classic, which was recorded on March 2 and April 22, 1959, at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in New York City, USA, and produced by Irving Townsend. Originally released by Columbia Records, the album is now available as a collector’s double-disc set featuring a single-layer SACD and a CD. The box set with OBI print, strictly limited to 1,000 numbered copies, embodies the label’s philosophy of rejecting the compromises in sound quality inherent in standard Hybrid SACDs: Although a dual-layer disc is in every respect the simpler and more economically viable solution, it entails inevitable technical limitations that make it impossible to achieve absolute top quality in both formats. For this reason, the label opted for the most demanding approach: two distinct, format-specific remastering processes for two separate physical media – resulting in two listening experiences that are absolutely uncompromising.

MASTERING • Tape Machine: Otari MTR15 Recorder • A/D-Conversion (SACD): Merging Technologies Anubis Pro • A/D-Conversion (CD): Studer D19 MicAD

MUSICIANS
Miles Davis: trumpet
Julian “Cannonball” Adderley: alto saxophone
John Coltrane: tenor saxophone
Bill Evans: piano
Wynton Kelly: piano (track 2)
Paul Chambers: bass
Jimmy Cobb: drums

Hemiolia Records was founded in 2013 in Perugia, Italy, by Claudio Valeri. In doing so, he realized his lifelong dream: to run a label inspired and driven by a deep passion for music, whose ambitions extend far beyond financial gain. Pietro Benini became the linchpin of the label’s releases, as Hemiolia Records’ brilliant sound engineer combines in-depth technical knowledge with forty years of experience in the analog domain. Hemiolia Records aims to produce music in the best possible audiophile quality. Whether it’s a tape, vinyl, or SACD release, every recording is conceived and produced with passion and meticulous attention to detail. The label’s work is based on 100 percent continuity of the analog chain. Hemiolia Records is committed to quality across the board – a quality that all employees are determined to pursue and that is perfected through procedures documented in a constantly updated and refined guidebook.

Lista pieselor

Disc 1 (SACD, Single-Layer)

1. So What 
2. Freddie Freeloader
3. Blue In Green
4. All Blues
5. Flamenco Sketches

Disc 2 (CD)

1. So What
2. Freddie Freeloader
3. Blue In Green
4. All Blues
5. Flamenco Sketches