Lee Morgan – The Cooker

Just pulled out my copy for the first time in a while, and am surprised by the amount of surface noise. Lots of pops and clicks throughout side A. I feel like Tone Poets have gotten better over time, but this one is rough.

An outstanding album with mega performances by a brilliant band. The pressing itself is superb, flat as a pancake, dead quiet with zero noise, could barely hear the stylus land! Excellent. Thumbs up all the way.

Wow, this sounds great. It's reasonably quiet vinyl. Beautiful recorded sound. The sheer sound of Pepper Adams' horn enthralls me. Morgan is at his considerable best and his trumpet is reproduced beautifully. As others have noted, the soundstage is artificial, with both horns coming out of one speaker and the percussion coming out of the other one...very weird. Musically, this is not my favorite Lee Morgan record, but nonetheless it is great. It is the presence of Pepper Adams that sets this apart from other Lee Morgan albums and makes it a must-have! BTW there is a great photo of Lee Morgan inside the gatefold where he looks so young! (He was only 19 years old)

I love the album. I think it might be my favourite jazz album of all time. My question is.... do you think we'll ever see an AAA mono reissue from the master tapes like this beauty? I want to hear it!

Each tone poet I listen to blows me away more than the last, but this record right here… this is exceptionally done. For under $40 (if you can still find it retail), this is why I love what Blue Note is doing to keep their catalog alive.

Beautifully recorded and even better played, I agree with others that Morgan was in top form here. The Night in Tunisia is incredibly riveting, and the solos are wonderful. The horns are recorded a little hot, but as others have mentioned, this seems consistent with other Tone Poet releases.

My only complaint is that the vinyl pressing itself is not top-notch, it is quiet but not the quietest, and I heard a couple of clicks (also on A1). It's disappointing that quality control on these is not the most vigilant, but in general I am satisfied.

Morgan is playing his A game on this one. The horns are at the front and on fire! Tone Poet releases are usually very kind to me, unfortunately this one has a series of clicks on A1, I’d return it if I didn’t buy it half way around the world.

Superb reissue of this Blue Note recording. Excellent mastering and the pressing gods seem to have been kind with this one.
Perfect.

This is amazing! great sound, If you can put this record on after a classic series blue note record and you will see the how better the sound quality can be with these Tone Poet releases. Must have if you are a Morgan fan, I was lucky to get this on blue note even with a big discount!

I really don't understand why they chose stereo for this release of a record that originally came out in '57.