UPDATED to reflect the correct released date which is February 4, 2022 (not April).
The upcoming AVID newly remastered 2-CD set of “Judy at Carnegie Hall” is now set for release on February 4, 2022, and is available for pre-order on Amazon here. It’s also available to pre-order on AVID’s site here. As we get closer to February 4th, it’ll be available at other online retailers as well.
I am told that the remaster fixes the pitch (which apparently was off a tad) and that this is also the first time the set has been remastered for CD since 2001! The mono version was remastered and released in 2012, and the stereo LP was remastered for vinyl in 2015, but this is the first new-to-CD remaster of the stereo album.
From AVID:
AVID are proud to present a new series of occasional releases entitled – Classic Concert Series.
As all music lovers, we’re sure will be aware, across the years and across the musical genres, there have been some classic musical moments captured live in concert that have gone on to achieve both musical and historical significance. Think Benny Goodman At Carnegie Hall in 1938, Miles at the Blackhawk in 1961, Elton John at Watford Town Hall in 1972, Bruce Springsteen at Hammersmith Odeon in 1975 (Okay these last two are maybe not your classics but they are mine because I was there for both of them!). The salient point is, we all have our own classics but some concerts have been acknowledged over time as being truly Classic! Such an album is our latest release under our new banner Classic Concert Series: Judy At Carnegie Hall – Judy In Person.
AVID Easy has recently released two highly successful Classic Album sets by Judy Garland – AMSC1228 and AMSC1336. Both have been expertly remastered by renowned audio engineer, Nick Dellow, and have gone on to receive great reviews from the press, from Garland fans, and from music lovers everywhere. When we came to discuss a third Judy release there was one album left that stood out as being a bona fide classic. And that was Judy’s stunning performance at Carnegie Hall, still held in high esteem by fans and others who recognise the album as one of the most important recordings of the early 1960s within the field of popular music.
We are proud to announce that this classic concert is the first in an occasional series that will present classic concert recordings from numerous artists, spanning from Jazz through to Easy Listening and beyond in the best possible recording quality. Nick Dellow has remastered “Judy At Carnegie Hall” with the same care and attention to detail as AVID’s previous releases, to bring you the very best possible sound quality, which this concert so richly deserves. To further enlighten our listeners to the pleasures of this very special release of a legendary performance we have included below some extracts from the liner notes written by Lawrence Schulman… “Named by Will Friedwald in The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums as one of the best vocal albums of all time, Judy at Carnegie Hall is more than a concert, it is an experience. The late historian Sonny Gallagher, who attended the show, once remarked: “The terrifying outpouring that she gave of herself that night was such a tangible thing that, for me, it was as though, several times during that magical two hours, for an instant or two, the earth actually stood still, stopped revolving on its axis, lightning struck, and my heart stopped beating. There was such a force and power on that stage, and so much effort, love, and talent being unselfishly given, that the effect was awesome…”
The album won five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, and spent 95 weeks on the charts, including 13 at #1. Never out-of-print since then, the LP was a revelation, a revolution, a revival. It still is to this day. The very latest iteration of the album is the AVID set in your hands. Brilliantly repitched, restored, and remastered by audio engineer Nick Dellow using 21st-century tools, it is the best-sounding version of the LP on the market. At the end of “Over the Rainbow” she sings “Why, oh why can’t I?” On that last “I” her voice takes off on an upward curve like a bluebird rising. But at the last moment, she reins in that “I” and lassoes it back to earth, recapturing that happy, little bluebird. In the presence of greatness, the universe reels.
Lawrence Schulman is an award-winning music producer, critic, and translator who has supervised numerous CD sets devoted to Judy Garland for various labels in the past quarter-century and also contributed notes for AVID’s Judy Garland: Four Classic Albums Plus – Second Set.