Freddie Hubbard – Open Sesame

I didn’t like the cheap paper inner sleeve either, but it didn’t impact the record and the cut sounds awesome

**Turntable used for this review:
Rega P3:RB880 tonearm,Shure V15 mk iii VN-35HE SAS/B tip(tfw 1.4g),Delrin Platter, Rega Neo,(x4)Isoacoustic Orea bronze feet.
Phono Stage Whest Audio TWO.2 class a dual mono fully balanced phono stage,(x3)isoacoustics orea graphite feet,43db/47k ohms,mm setting.

This one of those LP`s that is being played to death since it`s purchase by me last year,it`s not the warmest sounding jazz record I own but what it may or may not lack in warmth is more than made up with the sheer musical enjoyment it has in spades. Freddie on your left & on sax Tina Brooks on your right both steal the highlights, McCoy Tyner`s keyboards are clear & evident when called for double bass is textured & not warm fluffy & indistinct along with the drums.
Flat clean disc no warps,free noise free very quite surface noise with no fuzz etc,purchase give a clean(if need be)slap it on your platter and sit back & ENJOY!
Thank you for reading five stars*****

Mastering/pressing 5.0
Inner sleeve 4.0 white anti static
Cover(single) 3.0

Nice record. Probably. Incredibly dirty when cut free, fresh from its paper sleeve. Unplayable. Think, worse than recent QRPs. Three minutes and the stylus is clogged. New to having a BN80, C or TP like this, but I guess I'm still learning. Serious cleaning needed rather than a good thing to do.

Despite the frightening paper inner-sleeve and the probability that it was stored in its shrink since more than 2 years, my copy bought a couple of days ago is swirl-free. In addition, not a single glitch or pop throughout the whole album (I clean on both ultrasonic and VPI all of my records, I never played them before cleaning). Wow, a truly flawless piece, and the music is great of course. Around 75% of the newly pressed LP's I bought in 2022 had smaller or bigger pressing imperfections. Record Industry, Optimal, RTI, Pallas, GZ, you name it. So it is always a delight to be lucky and find a clean pressing nowadays, without the need of 1 (or several) return procedure.

Flat as a board and clean. Great pressing in most ways. Music is gorgeous. But would agree that the soundstage is not strong here, wonder if that is the pressing or the original recording.

Love the sound on this pressing, maybe not as warm as some of the earlier King cuts, but still excellent. Reminds me of a George Horn OJC cut really

Sounds great, solid pressing, clean, quiet, what you would expect from these Blue Note reissues. It’s not amazing or have an over the top soundstage but for $20 it’s amazing value.

Wow, a real treat. Im grateful that Blue Note tries to keep many of their series available because missing out on this would be a shame. So underrated.
The sound is your standard Kevin Gray touch on these well preserved tapes, hard to imagine it too much better, although Id love to try an MMJ and find out.
This is clearly not as premium in the packaging department with a poorly saturated front image on thin paper, as is to be expected. But my pressing is as quiet as any MMJ.

Equipment Used:
Technics SL-1210GR Turntable with ATVM95ML Cartridge
iFi Zen Phono
Cyrus 2 Amplifier
System Fidelity SF-3050 Tower Speakers

Perfect vinyl reissue, clean and quiet copy.

Found typo in 4th paragraph in the middle column - there is “stronger” instead of “stranger”

A few more pops and clicks than I’d like to hear on a brand new record but apart from that the music sounds quite good and anything with Tina Brooks is an instant yes from me.