LATEST ADDITIONS

The drive home from Montreal and the Salon Son & Image show is smooth and uneventful. The snow kindly stops just as John Atkinson and I climb into his Land Cruiser, the woman at Customs lets us into the US with little fanfare, and, there isn't much to set the heart racing. Every fifty or so miles, the highway's long dividing guardrail is punctuated by some enormous brown bird—a once majestic body that owned the sky is now slung awkwardly and pitifully over cold steel. It's sad that something so beautiful and strong can die so quietly. But quiet abounds out here. The sky seems to move nearly as fast as we do, clouds cling to tall mountains, and winds tug at the Cruiser's tires.

<B>GARY BURTON/PAT METHENY/STEVE SWALLOW/ANTONIO S&#193;NCHEZ: <I>Quartet Live!</I></B><BR>
Gary Burton, vibraphone; Pat Metheny, guitar; Steve Swallow, electric bass; Antonio S&#225;nchez, drums<BR>
Concord Jazz CJA-31303-02 (CD). 2009. Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, prods.; David Oakes, eng. DDD. TT: 79:22<BR>
Performance ****&#189;<BR>
Sonics ****

At around 1pm on July 10, 1964&#151almost exactly 45 years ago&#151percussionist Sunny Murray, bassist Gary Peacock, and saxophonist Albert Ayler met at the Variety Arts Recording Studio just off of Times Square to record what would become the first jazz release for Benard Stollman's ESP-Disk. The studio was tiny and cramped and its walls were covered with Latin album covers and its doors were open so that the musicians could breathe. Can you imagine how hot it must have been?

I would give just about anything to be Andy Macleod for even a single day. (Lord, hear my prayer.)

The whole idea that different CD transports have different sonic characteristics when driving the same digital-to-analog converter is a vexing problem. It is easy to prove that even the cheapest CD players recover the data stored on most CDs with bit-for-bit accuracy, thus disproving the widespread and erroneous belief that errors in the digital code are commonplace and affect presentation aspects such as imaging, soundstage depth, textural liquidity, etc (footnote 1). If the datastream driving the digital converter is comprised of the same sequence of ones and zeros, regardless of the transport, what other factors could account for the sonic differences between CD drives reported by many listeners?

Discs may be getting pass&#233;, but the technology keeps maturing and most music is still released on CD. Besides, deals on used discs also abound. Are you still interested in CD players?

Digital sales rep, Jon Banner, just shared with me this bit of beautiful brilliance.