By: Michael Fremer

April 24th, 2025

Category:

News

P-VINE Reissuing Clifford Jordan's Mapleshade Albums on CD and Vinyl

first time on vinyl and first time in Japan on any format

P-VINE Records recently announced it is re-issuing Clifford Jordan’s four Mapleshade albums on CD and vinyl. This is the first time any of these recordings have been released in Japan or have ever been available on vinyl. Older readers will most likely be familiar with both Mapleshade and these recordings, produced and engineered by the late Pierre Sprey.

Please hit that hyperlink because I suspect many who knew about these records and Pierre, had no idea about his background! Not to mention the Kanye West sample....

Here's P-Vine's release schedule (subject to change).

Clifford Jordan Quartet: Live At Ethel's

CD: February 19th

45rpm 2xLP: April 16th

Clifford Jordan Big Band : Play What You Feel

CD: March 19th

45rpm 2xLP: May 21st

Clifford Jordan & Ran Blake : Masters From Different Worlds

CD: April 16th

45rpm 2xLP: June 18th

Clifford Jordan & Friends : The Mellow Side Of Clifford Jordan

CD: May 21st

45rpm 2xLP: July 16th

All involved are being honest brokers about how these reissues have been produced:

"Because of the condition of the original master tapes, these reissues are produced from original Mapleshade CDs manufactured by JVC using K2 processing and treated with Mikrosmooth, Optrix and Ionoclast before they were ripped. These recordings were originally transferred at 1411 Kbps, digitally edited and mastered without using any EQ, compression, overdubs, filtering, or other studio cosmetics. We found that CDs manufactured by JVC using K2 processing consistently sounded better than the original CDR submitted for production, they are the best-sounding version of the original digital master available.

(The original CD of Clifford Jordan Quartet Live at Ethel's is among the very finest sounding CDs I have ever heard (and of course the music is superb_Michael Fremer)

All P-Vine's Clifford Jordan re-issues will be available directly from Mapleshade

(Note: the $48 versions are the double LP vinyl versions. The website doesn't identify them as such).

Comments

2025-04-24 06:05:59 PM

Tim wrote:

My guess is that this "K2 processing" comes as the last restoration step (before cutting/ mastering) not the first; the other steps appear to be simply cd surface polishing..

K2 appears to try and up-res 44k16bit to restore truncated frequencies and dynamic range .
2025-04-24 06:39:01 PM

Heidi E. wrote:

My public library used to have the Live at Ethels CD. Good stuff. I used to get the Mapleshade catalogs. I remember that every one of his tweaks was going to add an octave of low end. I'm not sure a good pair of tweeters and a handful of Mapleshade products would yield a full range system, but what do I know? I know he made some great sounding CDs. My late 90s era JVC CD player (still being used as a transport) has K2 processing. It's been too long for me to remember what the K2 did, but Harry Pearson thought very highly of it.
2025-04-24 10:34:23 PM

Come on wrote:

Although - as nowadays most vinyl is digitally sourced - I understand that a site like this has to treat this as usual and praise it similarly to AAA recordings (not in this feature but many others), but it will still take a while until I get enthusiastic about the announcement of a CD quality sourced LP (K2 or not). But I’m aware that there are a few digital recordings which - aside of some beneficial distortion - really sound much better on vinyl than on a very good digital rig (mainly when better mixed or mastered is my experience).

But then there are experiences like this: I recently asked Fred from SAM Records which of his gorgeous LP releases (which I all appreciate very much) are AAA (if any) and not digitally sourced. I named two examples which to my ears sound so good and so much better than the others, that I would be very surprised and excited if also digitally sourced. It turned out that exactly those two are the only ones in his catalog which were AAA so far due to masters available in France. Nearly all others are also sourced from the original first masters, just with a hires digitization process inbetween. For my ears, compared to the best all analog releases, nearly no digitally sourced LP could get a 10 or 11 rating in sound quality (but many do meanwhile, that’s where I notice times are changing and differentiations become blurred. The 1-11 scale would enable more differentiation).

Most of this is not related to this article here, I just got triggered by the CD(K2 source discussion.
- 2025-04-25 11:39:42 AM
  
  Malachi Lui wrote:
  
  us reviewers have no obligation whatsoever to praise digitally sourced vinyl, or anything for that matter, really. if it's good, it's good! and if it sucks, we'll say that too. i've heard records poorly cut from CD masters that sound terrible. i've also heard LPs of CD-resolution digital recordings that sound utterly fantastic. of course we all prefer to see and hear reissues of analog recordings cut from tapes. but sometimes, that's not possible or absurdly impractical to a point of diminishing returns. sure, CDs aren't exactly the ideal digital resolution in many cases, but a well-mastered CD skillfully cut to lacquer or copper should sound good. the problem is that most CD-sourced LPs were done that way out of laziness. based on P-vine's transparency in their press release, i doubt there's any laziness here. i'd be optimistic.
  
  also, i've heard a few LPs of digital recordings (higher than CD-resolution) that rank among the best sounding records i've ever heard. and in those cases, the LPs cut from the files sound significantly better than the CDs or hi-res streams/downloads. (of course, i've also heard many digital recordings haphazardly cut to disc and sonically degraded.)
  - 2025-04-25 02:26:06 PM
    
    Come on wrote:
    
    I’m certainly aware you as reviewers have no obligation as mentioned (I just notice you rank too many too high imo) and I’m with you for the most part, but I think (independent of how it compares to the digital release) the number of extremely good sounding digitally sourced vinyl (on very good sounding AAA level) is very small. I also have a few examples, very few DSD sourced ones and some especially mixed/mastered ones. IMO there’s definitely no Jerome Sabbagh, Rufus Reid or any of those among them (sorry Jerome, I love them and they sound good but not that good). If those releases get a 10 or 11 in sound quality, then you have to extend the scale to 13 for the best AAA. Just my opinion as always, but that’s what I mean when I say differentiations get blurred.
    - 2025-04-25 02:49:30 PM
      
      Come on wrote:
      
      Sorry, I mixed it up, Jerome’s LP’s are AAA, I know, but are an example for me where the initial recording quality is good but isn’t on the 3D/openness top level for me where AAA really shines. Digitally sourced releases like the Rufus Reid, the Chris Potter, the Wadada Leo Smith, the Kahlil el'Zabar, the Charles Lloyd just to name a few, were not on upmost 10-11 level imo (although sounding good to very good).
  - 2025-04-26 03:36:28 AM
    
    T. Parker wrote:
    
    "We reviewers", not "us reviewers".
- 2025-04-26 06:07:58 AM
  
  MrRom92 wrote:
  
  Out of curiosity, what are those 2 SAM records AAA titles? I would be highly interested. I’ve mostly avoided their releases due to less than honest marketing regarding their sourcing.
2025-04-25 06:27:08 PM

Fred Morris wrote:

I had the good fortune to interview Pierre Sprey and his Pentagon colleague when I was a summer intern at the Rand Corporation doing a paper on the lightweight fighter program. He was gracious but crusty. Interesting that so many prominent audiophiles have a defense background — e.g. Anthony Cordesman, Fred Kaplan.