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February 2020

Skirl 44
Format: CD

Musical Performance

Sound Quality

Overall Enjoyment

In this era of social media dominance, it’s still possible for artists to mature and develop a distinctive voice and musical approach in relative isolation. At least, that’s true in a country as large and regionally self-sufficient as Canada. The proof is in my discovery of Gordon Grdina, a Vancouver-based string player.

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January 2020

Bette Davis at Her Peak on Criterion Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1004
Format: BD

Overall Enjoyment

Picture Quality

Sound Quality

Extras

Olive Higgins Prouty wrote several novels that revolved around the aristocratic Vale family of Boston, Massachusetts. Most popular of these was Now, Voyager (1941), which was quickly optioned by Warner Bros. as a vehicle for Bette Davis, then at the height of her career and the reigning star of popular “women’s movies.” The film was released the following year, ably directed by Irving Rapper (Deception, The Glass Menagerie), and with Davis getting admirable support from Gladys Cooper, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, and Franklin Pangborn. Ever since, it has been considered a classic.

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January 2020

Two months ago I gave very high marks to Tribit’s MaxSound Plus speaker. The young company then sent me a review sample of their StormBox, which conclusively proves that the MaxSound Plus was no fluke. Tribit makes quality compact Bluetooth speakers that sound good and cost a lot less than the competition -- in this case, $65.99 USD.

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January 2020

As I write this, Van Morrison has just released his 41st album. It’s hard to think of another artist still working in pop music who’s been as consistent as Morrison, and now, in his mid-70s, he has, if anything, ramped up his production -- Three Chords and the Truth is his sixth album in four years. While it’s tempting to compare Morrison’s career with those of other musicians from the 1960s, at this point he’s more like the blues and jazz musicians he so admires and has, all his life, taken as models, recording well-crafted albums for as long as he can continue to do so.

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January 2020

Legacy/Sony Music 598277
Format: 5 CDs

Musical Performance

Sound Quality

Overall Enjoyment

Fifty years ago, Jimi Hendrix found himself in a quandary. As he entered the final year of his short life and approached his 27th birthday, he was at a crossroads. For a musician who had been on the road almost constantly since leaving the army in 1962, he was uncharacteristically idle. He didn’t have a single concert between a Harlem benefit show on September 5, 1969, and the first of a two-night/four-set stand at New York’s Fillmore East on New Year’s Eve. For someone whose time in the international spotlight lasted only 1430 days, that 122-day span of concert inactivity represented a massive chunk of time.

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December 2019

Stunning Ensemble Acting Makes for a Memorable Trip

The Criterion Collection 1001
Format: Blu-ray

Overall Enjoyment

Picture Quality

Sound Quality

Extras

Every once in a while, a low-budget picture delivers a quality of entertainment seldom achieved by well-funded studio efforts. Such is director Greg Mottola’s gem, The Daytrippers (1996), shot on a budget of $50,000 on free locations, including cast members’ apartments. It succeeds on the strength of Mottola’s wittily intelligent script, and a dream cast of palpable charisma and amazing ensemble acting. The actors also improvised some dialogue, which only serves to make a good thing better.

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December 2019

Experience has taught me that, no matter how small their Wi-Fi, waterproof, and/or Bluetooth speakers may be, Grace Digital consistently lavishes on their design and manufacture the same high level of care and quality. The EcoPebble Lite ($39.99 USD) is their next-to-least-expensive EcoXGear speaker, after the even-smaller EcoDrop ($29.99) -- the two smallest models in the ExoXGear line. But don’t sneeze at this little guy. As Grace CEO Greg Fadul puts it, the EcoPebble Lite is “tiny but mighty.” I decided to put it through its paces.

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December 2019

My discovery of NAD’s C 658 BluOS streaming DAC ($1649 USD) marks the end of a very long search.

It began in high school, when I succumbed to addictions to music and audio gear. Ever since, I’ve looked for a device that would allow me to dispense with the ever-growing rack of audio components I’ve set up in -- so far -- 16 different homes. Early on, I had a turntable, tonearm, and cartridge, a phono preamp, a preamp, reel-to-reel and cassette tape decks, a tuner, two power amps, huge speakers, interconnects from each source to the preamp, interconnects from preamp to power amps, and speaker cables -- oh, and a record cleaner. Added to those, following the birth of what Sony was pleased to call perfect sound forever, were a CD player and DAC.

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December 2019

My first best-of-the-decade list was a defensive reaction to the frequently revived notion that jazz is dying, or worse. Those kinds of negative notions were swirling again in 2009, so I decided to look back at the recordings that had caught my ear over the previous ten years.

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December 2019

David Chesky is a musician, conductor, songwriter, and co-owner of Chesky Records, Manhattan Productions, and HDTracks. In this video, Chesky talks about how, when we listen to music in a live setting, our eyes often dictate what we end up hearing. As a result, we can be tricked into hearing something we're really not.

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