Grover Washington, Jr. Winelight CD Review

[admin]

Grover Washington, Jr. is one of a handful of 1970's jazz artists who crossed over to the pop charts on their way to commercial success (along with Herb Alpert, Chuck Mangione, Maynard Ferguson and Spyro Gyra). One of the things that makes this particular release so special is the studio "A-list" rhythm section assembled by producers Washington and MacDonald. With multiple Grammy wins and over 1 million in sales (Platinum level)--Winelight was both a commercial and critical success; both the album and the single Just The Two Of Us charted on Billboard's Top 10.

Grover fans will want the Winelight CD in their collection as it pairs nicely with a good bottle of red.

Read the Grover Washington Winelight CD Review

 

[afterlife2]

Great Album. I bought it last year. I'm pull it out tomorrow for a listen.

 

[tomd51]

Grover's the man...

This is one of my 'go-to' DVD-A discs when I need a good chill session...

 

[Stanton]

For those of you who like/have this CD and agree with my "poor audio quality" ratings (3/5), there's hope: HD Tracks has a hi-rez (24-bit, 192 kHz) download of this album that I recently checked out while "Pursuing the Truth in Audio" I definitely have mixed feelings about the whole hi-rez audio thing.

First the good: this particular mix was definitely DIFFERENT, which IMHO made this a more sonically pleasing experience even after down-converting the material to CD quality (16-bit, 44.1 kHz) WAV files to play via CD. Note: there is a great utility called SoX (Sound eXchange) that allows for all sorts of digital manipulation of audio files, including the up AND down conversion of WAV files. Unfortunately, at over $25 and 1.5 Gbytes of disc space, I think the bad out-weighs the good--especially if the CD is of good/high quality (unlike this older analog conversion of Winelight). Yes, I'll keep the Winelight hi-rez digital download over the CD--although it will basically spend it's life down-converted to CD quality.

To be fair, I downloaded a hi-rez (24-bit, 96 kHz) version of a different/newer track to compare with a ripped version of the same (16-bit, 44.1kHz) digitally mastered CD purchase, but with no perceptible difference, I just can't see the value in doing this for newer, digitally mastered CD releases.

 

[XEagleDriver]

This Album Opened the Door

Stanton,
Thanks for the review.

This album will always have a special place in my music library, it was the recording that opened the door for a young-Californian USAFA cadet "Rock-or-Nothing" listener to initially venture into Jazz and get hooked for life.

Now, after several decades , I still appreciate and listen to "classic rock" (when did that happen?), but it is Jazz in many forms that predominate my listening enjoyment.

Cheers,
XEagleDriver

 

[Stanton]

This album will always have a special place in my music library, it was the recording that opened the door for a young-Californian USAFA cadet "Rock-or-Nothing" listener to initially venture into Jazz and get hooked for life.

Good to hear! I never know if/when I should do an "oldie" CD review, but this one did cut across multiple listening demographics as evidenced by it's excellent sales numbers. I've got a whole Spyro Gyra review series coming end of this year/beginning of next that includes similar critical/commercial success releases.