Here we are looking at Gettin’ Around by Dexter Gordon on Blue Note from 1966.
The cover on this one is in really nice shape, except that some idiot wrote on the front like it was a piece of scratch paper. The back cover in particular is nice and sharp – there is only that little stain in the bottom right corner.
I replaced the inner with a vinyl-lined paper one.
The Labels are good on both sides. The wax shows some wear for sure – there are pretty good-sized marks on each side, as well as some light scuffing. I played the whole record this morning, and I have a pretty unforgiving needle/cart so I heard all the marks. Side one is noisier that way than side 2 for sure – but part of it is because the first 2 songs are pretty sparse as well, so the surface noise comes out more. On side one, there was a fairly persistent crackle under it all – I didn’t find that it overpowered the music, but it certainly is there…kinda like Dexter is playing at a campfire. Side 2 also had some crackle to it, but it was less, the songs were a little louder in composition/production so it blends better too…and some passages were actually really nice on side 2, by anyone’s measures. I took a 30-second video clip of part of side 2 when I was listenting to it – you should be able to hear that it is really nice…it was a quieter, better part of the record (just randomly taped for you).
Overall, I think this one will depend somewhat on your threshold for the surface noise. I tend to be OK with a bit of it, and can take it on records more than a lot of folks – it doesn’t tend to bother me unless it is louder than the music. That rarely happened to me listening to this one – but again, there is a pretty consistent crackle to note here especially on side one – I don’t want you to be surprised by it. Still a great record, but I do wish it was in better shape. It’s a fine listen with great playing, so a little crackle in there doesn’t hurt my feelings at all.
Click any image below to see it larger/zoom, using the browser to get back here. Let me know if I can show you anything else.
