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Latest

Charles Lloyd: “The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow”

Details
Vinyl music

May 2024

Blue Note Records 00602458167948 (CD), 00602458167962 (LP)
Format: CD and LP

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
***1/2

Overall Enjoyment
****1/2

Charles Lloyd recorded Discovery!—his first album as a leader—in 1964, but he had been appearing as a sideman on drummer Chico Hamilton’s records since 1960. Since then, Lloyd has released more than 50 LPs as leader; his newest, The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow, is his 11th for Blue Note Records. The label released it in March, on Lloyd’s 86th birthday. Last year, he released three albums. Trios: Chapel, Trios: Ocean, and Trios: Sacred Thread each featured a different lineup of musicians. Lloyd’s creativity and vigor are such that these three discs contain no filler.

Read more …

Buying Used LPs, On- and Offline

Details
Pulse!

May 2024

When CDs entered the marketplace in 1982, I was 26, and had been collecting LPs for 15 years. My record collection took up a good amount of space in my first, tiny apartment. I didn’t pay much attention to the new format at that point; CDs weren’t widely available, and my local hi-fi shops weren’t carrying CD players. A coworker showed me a story in the Wall Street Journal that predicted the demise of the LP and the fast-approaching dominance of the CD. I scoffed, recalling the promotional push for quadrophonic LPs and playback gear. That format died quickly.

Read more …

Brittany Howard: “What Now”

Details
CD music

April 2024

Island Records 602458769012
Format: CD

Musical Performance
****1/2

Sound Quality
***1/2

Overall Enjoyment
****

Brittany Howard’s first solo disc, Jaime, demonstrated the talent that was evident in her work with Alabama Shakes and Thunderbitch. Howard’s contributions to those projects only hinted at her versatility and eagerness to take chances—the 2019 solo album, which I reviewed on SoundStage! Access, showcased a wider range of influences. Howard’s second album, What Now, is even more audacious than Jaime, and contains even more surprises.

Read more …

Rega Research Limited: A History

Details
Pulse!

April 2024

Rega Research Limited is a name audiophiles know, especially vinyl lovers. They hold Rega’s turntables and tonearms in high esteem, but the company’s speakers, CD players, amplifiers, and other gear have also received glowing reviews. The company is known for both quality and value, and for products that embody elegant design and musicality.

Read more …

Masterful Saxophonist James Brandon Lewis Meets the Ferrum Audio Wandla DAC-Preamplifier

Details
Art+Tech

Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.

April 2024

Across the five-plus decades I’ve been discovering new artists—beginning auspiciously with the Beatles on Ed Sullivan—the breakthroughs have waxed and waned. While the mid-’60s remain the benchmark, thanks to the rise of electrified popular music in both Britain and the US, exciting young artists have continued to bloom, both singularly and in bunches.

Read more …

Art Pepper Quintet: “Smack Up”

Details
Vinyl music

March 2024

Craft Recordings / Contemporary Records / Acoustic Sounds Series CR00706
Format: LP

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
****

Jazz saxophonist Art Pepper’s recording and performing life was often interrupted by periods of incarceration for drug offences. Pepper was a heroin addict; he finished recording Smack Up in October 1960, and soon after was arrested for trying to score the drug. It was his third offense, so he was sentenced to 20 years at California’s notorious San Quentin prison. He would record one more session in November (Intensity, released in 1963) before starting his jail term. He was out within four years, but was in and out of prison for most of the ’60s for parole violations. He didn’t record again as a leader until 1975.

Read more …

Bob Marley, Curated

Details
Curator

March 2024

Of the many figures in popular music whose careers flourished in the 1970s, Bob Marley’s appeal reaches into more cultures and continents than any other musician I can think of. His cultural appeal is also multifaceted. For many Western pop-music fans, he defines reggae music. Activists take inspiration from his songs about the struggles of people in the developing world. His advocacy for pan-Africanism, along with his messages about the plight of the victims of the African diaspora, have made him popular in Africa and in countries where people of African heritage have been relocated.

Read more …

Liverpool Diamonds: 60 Years of The Beatles

Details
Pulse!

February 2024

On February 9, 1964, 60 years ago this month, The Beatles appeared for the first time on The Ed Sullivan Show. I remember the buzz that preceded the appearance because the older sisters of some of my friends were talking about it on the school bus. I was only seven, so whatever fuss the media were making about The Beatles didn’t get to my eyes or ears. My dad was working for a local radio station, but it didn’t play rock’n’roll and I don’t remember him or my mom talking about The Beatles.

Read more …

Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, Max Roach : “Hot House: The Complete Jazz at Massey Hall Recordings”

Details
Vinyl music

February 2024

Craft Recordings CR00683
Format: LP

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
***

Overall Enjoyment
****

In 1953, the original release of Jazz at Massey Hall on Debut Records listed Charlie Parker as “Charlie Chan.” Knowledgeable jazz fans probably knew that Parker’s common-law wife, Beverly Berg, was known as Chan Parker. They also might have recognized that the alto player pictured on the left side of the album cover was Parker, although the photo does not show his face. Parker was with another label and Debut could not release the album with his name listed on the cover.

Read more …

Sam First Bar / Sam First Records

Details
Pulse!

February 2024

Los Angeles real estate developer Paul Solomon was well established in the city when he began working on revitalizing a large office complex on Century Boulevard. The building is very close to Los Angeles International Airport, better known as LAX. Solomon decided to carve out an area in the 92,000 square feet available and put in a bar that would reflect his varied interests. “One of my passions is jazz,” Solomon notes on the website for the Sam First bar. “Another is architecture, another is photography. Those are my pictures all over the walls. As for the furniture, all the pieces that aren’t built-in are real vintage midcentury pieces, made by people like Herman Miller and Artemide.”

Read more …

Atmospheric Electronics Flow Through the Ollo Audio S5X 1.1 Headphones

Details
Art+Tech

February 2024

After a slow start, typical winter weather finally arrived on the river south of Ottawa, Canada, sending me looking for some suitably restful music. Just as summer calls for songs related to open roads, surf, and sun, winter days demand ethereal sounds that carry me away.

Read more …

Wilco: “Cousin”

Details
Uncategorized

January 2024

DBpm Records—DBPM 001-23-CD
Format: CD

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
****

Wilco has produced all of its own albums since its sixth release, Sky Blue Sky (2007), but for its 13th, Cousin, the Chicago-based band reached out to Welsh musician and producer Cate Le Bon. Earlier in 2023, Le Bon produced H. Hawkline’s Milk for Flowers, and she has also worked with Kurt Vile, Deerhunter, and many other musicians. Her own work often consists of highly experimental art-pop in which she leverages sound and studio effects to create unusual music that falls outside the mainstream.

Read more …

Really Expensive Vinyl

Details
Pulse!

January 2024

I’ve been reading high-end audio mags for more than 25 years and collecting vinyl for more than twice as long. About 15 years ago, I began noticing the already high prices of the very best audio gear creeping up. A few years later, I began to wonder if reviewers were equating higher cost with greater enjoyment, especially when prices began to go from already high to there’s no way I or anyone I know can afford this stuff.

Read more …

The Rolling Stones: “Hackney Diamonds”

Details
CD music

December 2023

Rolling Stones Records / Geffen Records / Polydor 602458122565
Format: CD

Musical Performance
***1/2

Sound Quality
**1/2

Overall Enjoyment
***1/2

When I heard the Rolling Stones were releasing a new album, just two years after Charlie Watts’s death, I was slightly underwhelmed and plenty cynical. Watts and Keith Richards had been the soul of the band—something Richards has stated often and emphatically. And I would have said that the last thing the world needed was another faded attempt at rock’n’roll by a group of old guys (and I’m speaking as another old guy).

Read more …

  1. Some Holiday Favorites
  2. Herbie Nichols, the Tone Poet, and the Triangle Borea BR03 BT Powered Loudspeaker System
  3. The Byrds, Curated
  4. Reappraising . . . or Maybe, Just Enjoying
  5. Deep in the Woods with Composer Roger Eno and Focal’s Bathys Wireless Headphones
  6. R.E.M.: “Reveal” and “Accelerate” Reissued
  7. Audiophile Atmos—Dominique Fils-Aimé Surrounds with "Our Roots Run Deep"
  8. The Well-Tempered (Affordable) Turntable
  9. Making Dominique Fils-Aimé’s First Music Trilogy—A Remarkable Fusion of Blues, Jazz, and Soul
  10. Rock’n’Roll Death Rattle
  11. Early ECM Gems Sparkle Intensely through Focal’s Vestia N°1 Bookshelf Speakers
  12. The Rolling Stones, Curated
  13. Neko Case: “Wild Creatures”
  14. Stupid Audiophile Tricks
  15. The Mobile Fidelity Settlement—an Update

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