Thread: Joe Jackson 'Body and Soul' on SACD...

Posts: 4

Post by The Seventh Taylor December 17, 2009 (1 of 4)
No, Joe Jackson's 'Body and Soul' album has not been released on SACD; not even announced. I know A&M Records don't release SACDs anymore (they have, for instance all albums by The Police) but I couldn't help wondering if it would be a good candidate for release on SACD.

I got triggered by the recent announcement of the identically styled Sonny Rollins: Vol. 2 (on hybrid mono SACD by Analogue Productions).

It's been ages since I last played Body & Soul (it must have been one of my earliest CDs, bought well over 20 years ago) but I remembered something about its audiophile recording approach. I recalled (incorrectly) something about a direct-to-two-track recording.

I've checked the booklet and it tells about the artist's and producer's dissatisfaction with the "contrived sound of too many modern recordings" and the sterile atmosphere of many modern recording studios. This album then was recorded in an ancient Masonic Lodge in New York City, often used by neighbouring Vanguard Studios for classical recordings. The story goes on about the use of a pair of vintage Neumann M-50 microphones 15 feet in the air, the whole band being close-miked and the hall sound carefully controlled. All sounds fabulous so far.

But here's the catch: To "faithfully reproduce the hall ambience with no tape hiss" they employed a 3M 32-track digital recording system. In 1983 or '82. So now I wonder: How good can it really be? Is there any depth in there that SACD can reproduce that RBCD cannot? What resolution was used then? Red Book? 48kHz? 88.2 kHz perhaps? And what bit depth -- anything beyond 16 bits?

Post by rammiepie December 17, 2009 (2 of 4)
My favorite Joe Jackson album was "Night & Day" and in its day was an audiophile favorite [on vinyl] with deep bass and a convincing soundstage. It has been remastered as a two-disc set recently (24 bit technology, whatever that really means) and even sounds convincing on RBCD. If I'm not mistaken, Humble Pie's "Smoking" was on the A&M label and will shortly be released by Analogue Productions as an SACD. Perhaps Joe Jackson's Night and Day and Body and Soul would be candidates for AP's splendid SACD new release schedule (but would love to hear Night and Day in Multi-channel).

Post by sibelius2 December 18, 2009 (3 of 4)
This would definitely be a standard Red Book master. The multitrack master would allow for a new 5.1 mix, but certainly in two-channel the CD you already own is as good as this recording will ever sound. I suppose a new stereo mix could be put together from scratch, but while it might sound different, it still wouldn't necessarily sound better.

Post by The Seventh Taylor December 18, 2009 (4 of 4)
Perhaps they should consider doing a re-recording, like Jean Michel Jarre did with Oxygene for the 30th anniversary edition :-)

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