LATEST ADDITIONS

Martial Solal starts a week of solo piano at the Village Vanguard tonight, and that’s a double eye-opener. It’s only the second time in its 72-year history that the club has featured a pianist playing solo. (The first, Fred Hersch, was in 2006.) More striking, it marks just the third time since 1963 that Martial Solal has played in New York City under any circumstances. The last time was four years ago at the Iridium, with his trio and saxophonist Lee Konitz, and it was a marvel, the fleetest and most lyrical I’d seen Konitz play in years. The time before that, just with his trio, was at the Vanguard—but the shows were in mid-September 2001, a couple weeks after the attacks of 9/11; few ventured into lower Manhattan for anything, much less to see an obscure French jazz pianist. Luckily, the sessions were recorded; Blue Note put out a CD of highlights called <I>NY-1</I>; finally, we could all hear the music behind the legend.

Some food scientists are saying that America's tastebuds aren't becoming more adventurous, they're <A HREF="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/10/07/some_like_it… out</A> as baby boomers age.

Yesterday's <I>New York Times</I> had a review of Robert Wyatt's new <I>Comicopera</I> by <A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/arts/music/08choi.html?_r=1&n=Top%2fR… Ratliff</A> that observed that it included "Brian Eno doing whatever it is that Brian Eno does." That sums up Squelchy's role about as well as it can be done.

Is a single gene&mdash;the so-called FOXKP2&mdash;the reason why only humans have language?

Yes, all of us chattering classes spent the weekend, um, chattering about Radiohead's shocker, but this article in <I>The Telegraph</I> may be the best I've seen. Its yearly sales breakdown and record company revenues charts provide some historical context.

Simaudio's Moon LP5.3 MM/MC phono preamplifier ($1400) is silly good! It has single-ended RCA inputs and both single-ended and true balanced-differential outputs. It also offers a wide range of adjustments for gain (54, 60, and 66dB), resistive loading (10, 100, 470, 1k, and 47k ohms), and capacitive loading (0, 100, and 470pF), all accomplished via a series of internally mounted jumper banks. You can even choose RIAA or IEC equalization. Removing the top plate to get to the adjustments reveals boards filled with high-quality parts for the well-isolated power-supply and signal-handling circuits.

When I say that this past&mdash;and <I>last</I>&mdash;Summer CES in Chicago was dead daddy dead, I'm not talking about fewer high-end exhibits and attendees than ever before. I'm talking I walked in the front door of the Chicago Hilton and almost puked from that smell of dead, mealy meat that hits you in the face and kicks-in the gag reflex. The smell of death you can taste even if you're breathing with your mouth. In most religions, it's a sin to let something that dead just sit there without at least spreading some lye on it to kill the stink. I once cut a man for misadjusting the VTA on my cartridge, and that man lying on my listening-room floor with an Allen wrench still clenched in his hand wasn't as dead as this last SCES.