Duke Ellington Ellington Indigos Numbered Limited Edition 180g 45rpm 2LP (Indigo Purple Vinyl)

TAS Rated 5/5 Music, 5/5 Sonics in the May/June 2024 Issue of The Absolute Sound!

Michael Fremer Rated 9/10 Music, 9/10 Sound!

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Duke Ellington's gorgeous 1958 release, already an audiophile stand out on Impex 33-rpm vinyl and 24k Gold CD, gets all the stops pulled out on our 65th Anniversary 45-rpm LPs! Exclusive new packaging and all-analog mastering provides experiential and immersive musical engagement that has The Absolute Sound's Wayne Garcia calling it, "A musical gem, sonic knockout. What a record!" 5/5 music - 5/5 sonics

We're also debuting a super-quiet, super-limited-edition solid Indigo purple vinyl edition! Made in collaboration with our friends at the Los Angeles Orange County Audio Society in honor of their 30th Anniversary, we carefully selected vinyl chips, with help from the vinyl gurus at RTI, to craft one of the quietest color LPs ever made — all without dramatically changing the tonal excellence of the original recording!

Strictly limited to 3,000 black and 1,000 purple HQ-180 pressings, Ellington Indigos on 45rpm HQ-180 will once again redefine definitive for this timeless jazz orchestra standard!

Impex's new 65th anniversary edition of Ellington Indigos will in all likelihood offer the ne plus ultra in every conceivable aspect of the listening experience. Each of these tracks is a masterclass by Duke Ellington and his orchestra, and every soloist presents a veritable clinic of jazz interpretation and improvisation. The performances on this album are so perfectly realized that none of the Duke Ellington LPs that are in my collection can hold a candle to Ellington Indigos. With the strictly limited number of pressings available—especially so with the Indigo Purple colored vinyl variant—you don't want to wait too long. These performances are to die for, and the sound quality of both vinyl versions is beyond reproach!

IMPEX once again sets a high bar for presentation and sonics. My original '6-Eye' pressing has a warm, somewhat distant sound compared to this vibrant, alive sounding reissue that no doubt gives you what's on the tape or as close as a record can come to a tape.

Whatever my expectations, what I heard was a dramatic improvement, evident from the first few notes. The piano has far more texture in the new mastering. The percussion is far more dynamic and the separation or air between the players is significantly improved. I will go out on a limb here and say that this is perhaps the most improved 33 to 45 RPM re-issue I've heard. Hopefully it will go some way towards revitalizing interest in this shamefully ignored classic from the golden age of jazz. Of all the luxuriously packaged audiophile re-issues of the past few years, this one definitely delivers some serious musical bang for your bucks... Do Jazz reissues get any better than this?