I dialed up the Resonance 3CD set to listen to Iron Man via Pandora on my iPhone (on earbuds) on a walk recently — and I’d forgotten it was mono, which I’m not at all a stickler about (or so I thought).
But then looking for the Illinois Concert to listen to next, on a whim I decided to listen to some random earlier reissue of Iron Man, which happened to be in stereo — and the difference between the mono and stereo was absolutely stark — something I was surprised I even cared about (but maybe it was partially my hearing it thru earbuds?).
Somewhere in a box of discs I eventually plan to trade off one of these days, I’ve got my 1986 US ‘Celluloid’ reissue of Iron Man (which appears to have been the album’s very first CD reissue) — and one of the first 20 jazz CD’s I ever owned (I found it used around 1990, iirc).
Any thoughts on the mono-vs-stereo aspects of the Resonance set?
I probably don’t care about the entire set being in mono — but “Iron Man” in particular, and the Iron Man album a little more generally — is just about my favorite Dolphy ever. (So maybe I’ll dig out my old ‘Celluloid’ cd and keep it after all.)