Robert Baird

Recording of June 2016: Emily's D+Evolution
Recording of the Month
Robert Baird  |  May 17, 2016  |  First Published: Jun 01, 2016  |  3 comments
Esperanza Spalding: Emily's D+Evolution
Concord 7238281 (LP, 24/96 FLAC from PonoMusic). 2016. Esperanza Spalding, Tony Visconti, prods.; Kyle Hoffman, Tim Price, engs.; Martin Cooke, Kyle McAulay, Erin Tonkon, asst. engs.; Paul Blakemore, mastering; Rich Costey, mix. Mario Borgatta, mix assist. DDA? TT: 43:41
Performance ****½
Sonics ****½

It may have started back in 2011, when the crowd at the Grammy Awards let out a collective "Who?" as Esperanza Spalding was named Best New Artist, an award almost everyone had thought would go straight to Justin Bieber. Spalding was the first jazz artist ever to win that award.

The resulting notoriety took the jazz bassist and singer, who'd lived almost entirely in the rather insular world of jazz, by surprise. A child prodigy who played violin at five, and soon after learned oboe and clarinet, Spalding sings in Portuguese, Spanish, and English, and became one of the youngest teachers in the history of her alma mater, Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music.

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Sail on, Sailor
Robert Baird
Robert Baird  |  May 13, 2016  |  1 comments
It was high concept yet wonderfully honky tonk.
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Other Music and the Online Gold Rush
Robert Baird
Robert Baird  |  May 13, 2016  |  1 comments
The possibility exists that whoever bought this record did so sight unseen!
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Peter Wolf: A Hard Drivin' Man
InterviewsMusic and Recording Features
Robert Baird  |  May 03, 2016  |  5 comments
Don't get me wrong—it was a nice surprise. It's always good to find another member of the cult, someone else interested in music and sound, and proud to be called an audiophile. But . . . Peter Wolf?

"What's John Atkinson like?"

"Here's the $64,000 question: What's in your system?"

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Prince Rogers Nelson (1958-2016)
Robert Baird
Robert Baird  |  Apr 21, 2016  |  3 comments
“Can you make it rain harder!”
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Recording of May 2016: Rainbow Ends
Recording of the Month
Robert Baird  |  Apr 21, 2016  |  First Published: May 01, 2016  |  0 comments
Emitt Rhodes: Rainbow Ends Omnivore OVLP-163 (LP). 2016. Chris Price, prod., eng.; Pierre de Reeder, Kyle Frederickson, engs.; Nathan Flom, Emitt Rhodes, Emeen Zarookian, add'l. engs. ADA? TT: 37:01 Performance **** Sonics ****

"A few shows here, a few shows there—Emitt eventually found himself without a label, and his career came to a halt," reads the biography on EmittRhodesMusic.net. "He had had enough. He was 24."

Go on, admit it: Everyone loves a disappearing act—the plight of the unjustly snakebit, the ghostly casualties of a business that markets creativity but doesn't respect it. Hawthorne, California native Emitt Rhodes, onetime drummer for mid-'60s SoCal garage band (and later Nuggets staple) Palace Guard, and later the cofounder and leading force of L.A. psychedelic pop band Merry-Go-Round, went solo in 1969.

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Anthony Wilson's Frogtown
Robert Baird
Robert Baird  |  Apr 11, 2016  |  3 comments
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Pickin' in Greenpoint Audiophile Style
Robert Baird
Robert Baird  |  Apr 08, 2016  |  1 comments
“Well, Dylan will be here at four.”
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Merle Haggard (1937-2016)
Robert Baird
Robert Baird  |  Apr 07, 2016  |  6 comments
The man had conviction.
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Bonnie Raitt's Inexorable Rhythm
InterviewsMusic and Recording Features
Robert Baird  |  Apr 07, 2016  |  3 comments
In conversation with Bonnie Raitt these days, one word continually jumps out: groove. She's speaking of her music, of course, but the blues singer and guitarist—her gifts as commanding as ever on her latest, Dig In Deep—has also survived some family struggles in the past decade that nearly forced her out of her personal groove.
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