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"Nightmare Alley" (1947)
June 2021
A Memorable Descent into Hell in a Pristine BD Transfer
The Criterion Collection 1078
Format: BD
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In Nightmare Alley, Stanton “Stan” Carlisle is a self-proclaimed selfish heel—but, as played by Tyrone Power, you can’t take your eyes off him. Power took on this complicated character in an effort to prove that he could be more than a matinee idol. He succeeded—his multilayered performance was worthy of (though didn’t win) an Oscar. But Darrell F. Zanuck, then head of 20th Century Fox, didn’t like the film, didn’t promote it, and let it die a box-office failure and a write-off. Now it’s recognized by many film critics as a masterpiece, an A-list film disguised as a B movie, the darkest of films noirs.
Digging Through Bill Evans’s Career with KLH Albany II Bookshelf Loudspeakers
June 2021
Everybody Digs Bill Evans—the name of a recording released in 1959—seems like little more than a hip album title until you reflect on the broad admiration the late jazz pianist engendered in most of the people who encountered his playing. Even in the atypically aggressive performances toward the end of his life, listeners could hear his sensitivity and heart, to say nothing of his deft touch and ability to find original ways of phrasing—even with a hoary chestnut like “Danny Boy.” So outsized is his influence it’s actually possible to make the case that Evans played a disproportionate role in making Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue the album that many people—including those who generally dislike improvised music—cite as their favorite jazz recording.
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Music Everywhere: JBL Clip 4 Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker
June 2021
JBL continues to upgrade and update its models of portable Bluetooth speakers. The new Clip 4 offers some welcome new features while omitting some of the attractions of its predecessor, the Clip 3. At $69.95 USD it’s a bit pricey for its tiny size, but it can be found online for considerably less.
Vince Mendoza & the Czech National Symphony Orchestra: “Freedom over Everything”
June 2021
Modern Recordings
Format: CD
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In a less-fragmented musical landscape, composer-arranger Vince Mendoza might be a household name on the scale of Burt Bacharach or Henry Mancini. After all, the 59-year-old has won six Grammy Awards (and been nominated for a total of 34) and worked with stars like Björk, Elvis Costello, Sting, and Joni Mitchell. As it is, Mendoza’s reputation is largely confined to the jazz community, where he’s made his name by furthering so-called “third stream” music with the Metropole Orchestra and soloists like trumpeter Randy Brecker.
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- Category: Blu-ray movies Blu-ray movies
"The Furies"
May 2021
Classical Mythology on the Range
The Criterion Collection 435
Format: BD
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Director Anthony Mann, a native of San Diego, long wanted to film Shakespeare’s King Lear as a Western. He had a plan for a final film, but died before it could get off the ground. Earlier Westerns, however, gave nods to the Bard of Avon, and the earliest example is The Furies (1950). Mann’s first A-list film, it was based on the popular novel of that title by Niven Busch, whose earlier novel Duel in the Sun had been filmed in 1946. Busch had already cowritten the scripts for The Westerner (1940), The Postman Always Rings Twice, and many other films. Like Mann, he strove to break away from the good-guys-in-white-hats Western to tell stories of greater psychological depth in which no character is wholly good or bad.
The Sound of Fire—Mahavishnu Orchestra Roars Through the Rotel A11 Tribute Integrated Amplifier
May 2021
Thanks to a spate of influential recording sessions, 2021 is a landmark year for albums marking their 50th anniversary. From the Allman Brothers Band’s At Fillmore East to The Who’s Who’s Next, 1971 saw the release of more exceptional rock or rock-related albums than perhaps any other single year, with the possible exception of 1967.
Stevie Wonder, Curated
May 2021
When Stevie Wonder joined the Motortown Revue, the package tour of Motown artists who played theaters on the Chitlin’ Circuit, he had been with Motown’s Tamla Records label for about a year. Wonder had signed to the label in 1961, when he was 11, and had released two LPs—as “Little Stevie Wonder”—the following year. The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie, and Tribute to Uncle Ray, a collection of songs made famous by Ray Charles, hadn’t made a dent on the charts. Motown had also released three singles by Wonder, but only “I Call It Pretty Music but the Old People Call It the Blues” charted, and it only reached 101.
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Jen Shyu & Jade Tongue: "Zero Grasses: Ritual for the Losses"
May 2021
Pi 88
Format: 24-bit/96kHz FLAC download
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The term “art music” is one of the least specific attempts to categorize music. Most broadly, it is applied to all western classical music, while at its least precise it has been used to describe everything from 12-tone serialism to the music Kurt Weill composed for the Berlin stage. Most flagrantly, art music has been used to define any music that is not popular, which runs counter to the enormous success found by Weill, to say nothing of older composers like Beethoven or Bach. The term is also used in opposition to music that employs any type of folk idiom—a snobbish dismissal of anything created by someone who lacks formal training.
Fix It in the Mix: The Plan
May 2021
In March, I detailed one way you could set up a fully functional home recording studio for a total cost of under $5000 USD. This month’s column is the first installment in a companion series about how to effectively plan and use such a low-cost home studio. While I made sure the products recommended in my original article were of good quality, and refer to them again here, that piece was more a proof of concept than a shopping list.
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- Category: Music Everywhere Music Everywhere
Music Everywhere: EcoXGear EcoJourney Bluetooth Speaker and Dry Box
May 2021
Incorporating extra storage space into a portable Bluetooth speaker is nothing new for EcoXGear, but their EcoJourney offers the most room yet. The 65W amplifier that serves its three drive units also makes it one of the most powerful speakers of its size. And while its list price of $199.99 USD is already a lot lower than that of any competitor, I found it for sale online for as little as $178.
When the Rubber Hits the Road—Celebrating Ornette Coleman with AudioQuest Type 5 Speaker Cables
April 2021
Dear Audiophile: If you’ve slid over here from SoundStage! Hi-Fi or even SoundStage! Ultra, welcome. But, listen, perhaps you should skip ahead a couple of paragraphs; I’m going to reveal something sacrilegious.
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Music Everywhere: JBL Xtreme 3 Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker
April 2021
JBL is sticking with its original models, tweaking them and assigning them new version numbers. A recent example is the Xtreme 3, the latest version of the original Xtreme, a medium-size Bluetooth speaker primarily designed for partying. It has USB-A and USB-C ports for charging USB devices, and an improved adjustable strap. Specified IP67, it’s waterproof and dustproof and, with one big caveat, has robust, well-balanced sound. But it’s pricey at $349.95 USD. (However, JBL’s website often offers even new models at 50% off.)
Jakob Bro, Arve Henriksen, Jorge Rossy: "Uma Elmo"
April 2021
ECM 2702
Format: CD
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I’ve never completely bought into the idea of a distinctive “ECM Records sound,” by which is meant an austere, spacious, dry soundstage developed by label head Manfred Eicher for the artists he records. For one thing, the ECM catalog is far too broad, and the studios and engineers they employ far too diverse, for there to be any such uniformity. Another argument against the concept is that Eicher is too much a believer in capturing the true nature of artists to impose a soundstage on anyone. That’s not to say that he isn’t known for imposing his opinions on his artists, but they are more about artistry itself and not sonic aesthetics.
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- Category: Blu-ray movies Blu-ray movies
"The Naked City"
March 2021
A City of Eight Million Stories
The Criterion Collection 380
Format: BD
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“There are eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them.”
