LATEST ADDITIONS

<B>KEITH JARRETT TRIO: <I>The Cure</I></B><BR>
Keith Jarrett, piano; Gary Peacock, bass; Jack DeJohnette, drums<BR>
ECM 1440 (849 650-2, CD only). Manfred Eicher, prod.; Jan Erik Kongshaug, eng. DDD. TT: 77:36

On Saturday, I accompanied my 14-year old sister and her friend to the <a href="http://www.thebamboozle.com/home.php">Bamboozle Festival</a>, held at the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Saturday was cold, windy, wet, and gray&#151not the best circumstances for an all-day outdoor festival. On top of that, I had a shocking hangover&#151a gift from the previous night spent with my 26-year old sister and her husband. I wasn't in the mood.

I am a lucky guy. The <i>Stereophile</i> team is always looking out for me. Today I received this e-mail from Bob Deutsch.

Maude Maggart finishes out a six-week stay at the Algonquin Hotel’s Oak Room near Times Square this Saturday. She’s an appealing throwback, including in her repertoire; her best album, I think, is a collection of old Irving Berlin tunes. Her voice is sultry yet sweet, laced with vibrato, pure in tone, mischievous in intonation. Her current show, called “Speaking of Dreams,” which I saw last night, is ripe with naturally passionate slow ballads. Her few shifts uptempo (Sondheim’s “On the Steps of the Castle” and a Jobim tune with acid-trip Marshall Barer lyrics called “Lost in Wonderland”) made me wish she’d do more, but I’m not complaining. Her swoon through “Isn’t It Romantic” was bewitching. Even the show’s one cabaret clich—a medley of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “Look to the Rainbow,” and “The Rainbow Connection”—came off as anything but; it was even stirring. Ms. Maggart looks five or so years younger than her 32 years, and she’s been singing in public for more than half of them. Cabaret clubs are not usually my scene, but I’ll go see her again happily.

The 2008 Vacuum State of the Art Conference & Show will take place on May 24-26 at the Hilton in lovely Vancouver, Washington. VSAC was started in 1997 by Dan and Eileen Schmalle of the Bottlehead Corporation, designers of <a href="http://www.bottlehead.com/et/et.html">some sexy vacuum tube kit amps and preamps</a>. While the Schmalles are no longer involved in managing the conference, they will be on hand as exhibitors, along with many others offering some similarly sexy, tubey goodness (like <a href="http://www.experiencemusic.net/">Experience Music</a>'s The Chase amplifier in the pic above).

Today, as every Saturday, I brought my daughter to the stables where she has her riding lessons. But this time was different. As we pulled up the long gravel driveway, we found ourselves dodging a riderless horse, moving at a trot across our path. It turned out that the very cold weather had caused a latch to malfunction&mdash;"gate won't close, railing's froze"&mdash;and five horses had gotten loose.

It's said that your first experience on entering a space sets the tone for all that follows. At LP pressing plant Record Technology, Inc. (RTI), that experience is my encounter with veteran pressman Richard Lopez, who responds to my request for direction. As he leaves his vintage record press to lead me to owner Don MacInnis, Lopez reads aloud the sticker on a box of recently pressed LPs. "WORLD'S FINEST PHONOGRAPH RECORDS," he declares with pride. As I reflect on how few workers today feel so connected to the products they make, I sense that something special lies ahead.