<B>GARY BURTON/PAT METHENY/STEVE SWALLOW/ANTONIO SÁNCHEZ: <I>Quartet Live!</I></B><BR>
Gary Burton, vibraphone; Pat Metheny, guitar; Steve Swallow, electric bass; Antonio Sánchez, drums<BR>
Concord Jazz CJA-31303-02 (CD). 2009. Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, prods.; David Oakes, eng. DDD. TT: 79:22<BR>
Performance ****½<BR>
Sonics ****
At around 1pm on July 10, 1964—almost exactly 45 years ago—percussionist 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?
The sound of women singing. I love them all, always have:
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?
The Type A has served as Snell Acoustics' flagship loudspeaker since 1974. The Type A Reference System reviewed here is the sixth update of the late <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/378snell/index4.html">Peter Snell</A>'s original three-way floorstanding design, and is the most radical departure from <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/378snell">Snell's original</A>. Gone is the pair of "upright bricks of polished wood and stretched cloth" (footnote 1) that delighted decorators because they functioned best against a wall. Today's Type A Reference $18,999 price tag (footnote 2) purchases two tall midrange-tweeter towers, two huge subwoofers, two short but heavy enclosures housing the outboard passive crossover networks, and a small electronic crossover.
Discs may be getting passé, 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.
I just got off the phone with Nathaniel Friedman, a writer working on a "vinyl revival" piece scheduled to appear in an upcoming issue of <i>Penthouse</i>, that finest of fine men's periodicals. I think it went fairly well. If nothing else, it gives me an excuse to buy the magazine.
Lydia Lunch's 1980 album <i>Queen of Siam</i> (ZE Records ZEA 33006, LP) is so impressive—both sonically and musically—that, while listening, you might just find yourself compelled to send an enthusiastic, breathless text message to one of your friends.