Here we have a coverless Horace Silver Trio record – Blue Note 1529. Deep groove, Lexington address on label.
So this copy has no real cover, but the prior owner made one…he found the liner notes and typed them out – I had another copy of this, so I verified by comparing it and they were correct. So condition of the cover is a moot point, but I have it in a new inner, and the cover does have the liner notes for you to read.
I did a full play test on this, because there was a couple decent marks on side 1, particularly – some lesser stuff on side 2. Side one is a little clicky – particularly thru the first 3 tracks. By the 4th one it starts lifting, and the last 2 songs are pretty solidly quiet. Yet it is the marks/clicks on the first 3 songs here that drop the record clearly from VG+ to VG. The pop gets pretty pronounced in track 2 particularly – I heard no skips, but there was a persistent pop for a time. When Sabu comes in to play Message From Kenya on track 4, you are not really hearing the click so much. Did the click stay there in the mix at the beginning? Yep – but I still enjoyed the playback. And for the songs where it is not there, this is worth every bit of those clicks…the compositions and playing are not to be touched. I cleaned it on the table, but did not do a deeper clean…however, I do not believe you will remove the clicks with more cleaning – it is from some scuffs. I zoomed some pix to try to show it off clearly – if you need a video to hear it let me know.
Side two plays without the clicks of side one – it is much more a solid VG+ on side two, with very little to report on…might even play better than that for most of it. The side one marks/pops are what drops the rating on this one – those are the surface noises you will keep, but they also reduce the price of this great record considerably.
Here are some pix – if you need anything further, let me know. Click an image to zoom, use the browser to get back to this page.
