Audio Video News

MQA Ltd. has announced that the original recording of Fairytales, a 1982 musical collaboration between Scandinavian singer Radka Toneff and American-born pianist Steve Dobrogosz, has been meticulously restored from the master tapes using Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) technology.

The Fairytales collection of duets, which is Norway’s all-time best-selling jazz album, features 10 songs, all in in English, including three original melodies composed to the lyrics of American poets Fran Landesman and Emily Dickinson: “Wasted,” “Mystery Man,” and “I Read My Sentence.”

Bob Stuart, MQA founder and CTO, was closely involved with what is described as a “white glove” project spanning three years.

“Fairytales occupies a special place in the history of Norwegian recorded music and, decades after its original release, still has cult status among musicians and music fans,” Stuart said. “Our goal was to use MQA technology to restore the original sound, without changing any of the musicality of these sparse yet beautiful arrangements. I’m proud of what we achieved and hope it results in the Fairytales album reaching an even wider audience.”

Toneff established herself as a singer and band leader in Norway and surrounding countries during the 1970s. Dobrogosz, a classically trained pianist who was born and raised in North Carolina, moved to Stockholm in 1978 where he was making a name for himself as part of Scandinavia’s jazz scene when he took over as the pianist in Radka’s quartet in 1979.

Fairytales is available for streaming via Tidal HiFi, an offshoot of the Tidal subscription service dedicated to lossless quality music, and download via the Kicktrack Music Store ($17).

The recording is also available on CD ($14) and vinyl ($19) through Norway’s Grappa label. The album is also available through amazon.com.

For a detailed analysis of the restoration project, visit bobtalks.co.uk.