LATEST ADDITIONS

Friday June 30, 4pm until late, Toronto dealer Angie's Audio Corner/American Sound of Canada (12261 Yonge Street, Richmond Hill, ON L4E 3M7, Canada) is holding its 5th Annual Party.

Geri Allen, one of the great jazz pianists, died on Tuesday, of cancer, at the terribly young age of 60. She made wondrous, rousing, deeply felt music from all eras and styles, with collaborators of all stripes or solo. She could be raucous or elegant, bluesy or lyrical, sometimes all four at once.

Sometimes I feign interest in living in the Soviet Union of the 1950s and '60s. This happens mostly when I'm shopping for toothpaste at my local supermarket, where the toothpaste aisle is as long as a football field. "I don't want so many choices," I say in my Abe Simpson voice, "because all these choices are stupid. I wish I lived in the USSR: Shopping for toothpaste wouldn't take so long." But I'm only kidding.

This video is about Jeffrey Catalano and his shop High Water Sound, located in Manhattan's South Street Seaport, right under the Brooklyn Bridge. Though it was my first time meeting Jeffrey, I had long been familiar with his name—often associated with good sound at audio shows and a true appreciation for music.

. . . with a second LP containing an never-released 1992 live show from the University of London.

At the Los Angeles Audio Show, held June 2–4, John Atkinson spoke with Zu Audio's founder, owner, and chief engineer Sean Casey about the Zu Audio Druid (pictured), Sean's background and his "unconventional" approach, and historic speaker designs. And toward the end of the video, Sean Casey turns the tables on JA by interviewing him about the role of the audio reviewer!

Dinesh Paliwal, CEO of Harman International Industries, was addressing engineers and the audio press in a crowded conference room at the opening of Harman Luxury Audio's new Engineering Center of Excellence (ECOE), in Shelton, Connecticut. Paliwal singled out as the ECOE's first beneficiary the Mark Levinson brand, with the goal of revitalizing it as Harman's flagship marque. (Other brands in the HII stable include Harman Kardon, Infinity, JBL, Crown, AKG, Lexicon, and Revel.) To achieve this, he gave the ECOE team access to Harman's R&D budget of $400 million; brought on Todd Eichenbaum, formerly of Krell, to be its Director; and hired 11 more engineers.