Arne Domnérus, Bengt Hallberg, Georg Riedel, Egil Johansen + Lars Erstrand – Jazz At The Pawnshop

Back in the very late 1970’s as I was a Senior in High School I caught the audio bug in kind of a grown-up way. I had always loved music as a kid but never had any kind of decent gear to play it on. In fact, I owned junk. So I started hanging out at a local audio dealer near my house and over the years began buying and upgrading components until it just no longer made sense to me that I was listening to the same music while acquiring new gear.. I heard this recording in my favorite dealership back then and was immediately struck by how tremendous the recording sounded. It’s a Live recording done in a club and there are plenty of sounds going on within the club throughout the recordings. One can hear glasses and dishes and human interactions, etc. But it was also clear to me that this was just the epitome of what an audiophile-type recording might sound like. I personally don’t consider myself an audiophile but a music enthusiast. I really only ever wished to hear music sounding as fine as I could reasonably afford to hear it. I wished to become fully immersed without having to be overly critical. I realized that I was only out to please my own ears. This recording was an immediate favorite to my ears. But here’s where my story becomes fun.

I remember asking the guys in the shop what the recording was on a few occasions but likely never paid attention. Chalk it up to being young and dumb. I was just an 18-year-old kid at the time and a jazz record didn’t make the top of my buying choices at the time. So I never owned this recording and for the life of me, I couldn’t recall the name. I did numerous searches online over the years but it was like searching for a needle in a haystack. I had just kind of given up on ever hearing it again. And then it happened and I don’t know how or why but it kind of fell into my lap out of nowhere.

Last week I was browsing YouTube videos and ran across a channel where there was a gentleman reviewing his top 10 audiophile recordings from within his own collection and I watched it until the end. The last record he spoke of, his TOP favorite, was this record! I couldn’t believe it. I had the opportunity to purchase this recording once again and it has just been kind of an unexpected gift somehow, I mean it’s been about 42 years! You already know I purchased it. Wonderful record of which I recommend to any jazz lover or to one who loves terrific sounding recordings across a number of genres.