LATEST ADDITIONS

<B>DON BYRON: <I>Bug Music</I></B><BR> Don Byron, clarinet, baritone saxophone, vocals; Steve Wilson, alto saxophone; Robert DeBellis, tenor saxophone; Charles Lewis, Steve Bernstein, James Zollar, Trumpet; Craig Harris, trombone; Uri Crane, piano; Paul Meyers, banjo; David Gilmore, guitar; Kenny Davis, bass; Pheeroan akLaff, Billy Hart, Joey Baron, drums; Dean Bowman, vocals. Nonesuch 79438-2 (CD only) 1996. Don Byron, prod.; Danny Kapilian, assoc. prod.; Tom Lazarus, eng.; David Merrill, assist eng.; Alan Tucker, mastering eng. Carol Yaple, exec. prod. ??? TT: 51:07<BR> Music <B>****</B><BR> Sonics <B>****</B>

We are now well past the era in which every review of digital playback equipment had to begin with an apology for the medium. CD replay performance may, in fact, now be bumping up against a glass ceiling. But that doesn't discourage high-end audio manufacturers from trying to advance the art, and tempt audiophiles (at least those among us who are not hopeless digiphobes) out of our minds.

Audio nuts with a sense of humor and an interest in art will enjoy the works by sculptor Alan Rath currently on display at the Haines Gallery in downtown San Francisco.

A musical highlight for us at <I>Stereophile</I> in 1995 was the opportunity to record several concerts at the world-famous Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. The result was a <I>Stereophile</I> CD, <A HREF="https://secure.stereophile.com/stereophile/recordings.shtml"><I>Festiva…; (STPH007-2), which features the original chamber version of Aaron Copland's <I>Appalachian Spring</I>, Darius Milhaud's jazz-inspired <I>La cr&#233;ation du monde</I>, and the premiere recording of the 1995 Festival commission, Tomiko Kohjiba's <I>The Transmigration of the Soul</I> (see <I>Stereophile</I>, January 1996, Vol.19 No.1, p.132). We were pleased, therefore, to be asked back by the Festival in 1996. Once again we have produced a CD of live recordings, <I>Serenade</I> (STPH009-2), which features chamber works by Mozart, Brahms, and Dvor&#225;k.

Pollock, Rothko, Amperex, and Sylvania? Last spring I went to a contemporary art show out on Chicago's Navy Pier. I wanted to get away from things with wires and knobs&mdash;you know, rub elbows with Chicago's better-dressed, sip some wine, maybe practice talking about artistic creations that I usually don't understand ("It's so brutally honest...yet, somehow, still deceptive"). But there's no rest for the weary, confused audiophile. Along with artists, paintings, and sculptures from all over the world, thousands of vacuum tubes had descended on the Pier.

<B>EMMYLOU HARRIS: <I>Portraits</I></B><BR> Reprise Archives 45308-2 (3 CDs only). Gregg Geller, prod.; Keith Blake, eng.; Jo Motta, project coordinator. 1996. TT: 3:42:11

An equipment reviewer for one of the consumer hi-fi magazines once confided to a manufacturer that he found it hard to like electrostatics because of the kind of people who usually like electrostatics. His implication—that certain kinds of people gravitate towards certain kinds of sound—is an interesting thought, and one that might bear some further investigation. But there is no questioning the fact that electrostatic speakers in general do have a particular kind of sound, that might be characterized as "polite."