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Jazz at a Dark Moment: the 2023 San Jose Jazz Winter Fest

Thomas Conrad Jul 12, 2023

Jazz emerged from the African-American experience in the United States, so it is not surprising that it has been socially relevant since its earliest manifestations. Sonny Rollins put the matter succinctly: "jazz is protest music."

In 1923, Bessie Smith sang songs based on her experience of racism and sexism. In 1939, Billie Holiday recorded "Strange Fruit," a chilling song about a lynching. Charles Mingus's 1959 classic "Fables of Faubus" secured a permanent place in music history for the segregationist governor of Arkansas; thanks to Mingus, among jazz fans at least, the name "Orval Faubus" will ever be synonymous with bigotry.

But if social activism is nothing new in jazz, it has never been so prevalent as it is today. At some point in the new millennium, it began to feel like every new jazz album had to have at least one overtly political track. The reasons for this development may lie in the extreme political polarization of our society. The divisiveness of the Trump Era forced everyone, including artists, to choose sides.

But the ways jazz has woven itself into contemporary history go far beyond standoffs between progressives and conservatives . . .

Gramophone Dreams Integrated Amp Reviews

Gramophone Dreams #74: Elekit TU-8900 kit amplifier

Herb Reichert Jul 11, 2023

It was a cold March-in-Brooklyn morning. Clouds had been shedding wintery mix since daybreak. By 9am, birds were flash-mobbing my window, demanding suet. But I was frozenunable to pull my mind loose from the grave flowings of American composer Ned Rorem's Book of Hours, as performed by Les Connivences Sonores on the album Musikalische Perlen (24/48 FLAC, Ars Produktion/Qobuz). The sounds in my room were sensuous and mesmerizing, and I needed to float in their mysterious energy as long as I could.

I was listening through the most compelling sound system I had assembled since I started writing for Stereophile. The dCS Bartók DAC/streamer was funneling the harmonic purity and hypnomagik of Odile Renault on flute and Elodie Reibaud on harp into HoloAudio's appropriately named Serene preamp, which was feeding Elekit's TU-8900 300B/2A3 kit amplifier, which was sending a few of its triode-tube watts to the TAD's $32,500/pair Compact Evolution One monitors, more compactly known as the TAD CE1TX.

News

Marantz 70th Anniversary Experience in NYC Open to the Public

Stereophile Staff Jul 10, 2023

Marantz, the iconic company started by audio pioneer Saul Marantz in 1953, is inviting the public to visit a 7000-square-foot immersive, interactive exhibit in New York City to celebrate its 70th anniversary.

Audacious Audio Tube Preamp Reviews

Miyajima Lab Wo-1 preamplifier

Ken Micallef Jul 10, 2023

A phenomenon formerly unique to Japan, which in recent years has been emulated in cities around the world, is the jazz café (known as jazz kissa in Japan), where salarymen can find respite from their hectic lives, loosen their ties, and enjoy hi-fi jazz over coffee or a drink. Jazz kissaten are typically charming, smaller shops, traditionally furnished and paneled in beautiful wood, which serve superb artisan coffee in artful ceramic cups.

Such respect for artistry, craftsmanship, and attention to detailthe Japanese word is shokuninis reflected in many aspects of Japanese life. This is where you find double handrails to accommodate people of different heights, intricate, ornately designed manhole covers, and bento lunch boxes with hand-carved vegetable figurines. While upholding strict conformity to societal norms, the Japanese highly value creative individualism. This shokunin mindset underlies their reverence for artisanal expressionand their love for jazz.

Japanese audio, much like jazz kissaten, reflects the shokunin mindset: craftsmanship pursued with both pride and humility.

Solid State Power Amp Reviews

Living Sounds Audio Discovery Warp-1 power amplifier

Tom Fine Jul 07, 2023

It takes a while for audio-related technologies to mature. Tubed amplifiers were invented by Lee de Forest in the nineteen-teens, but while there are still some adherents of early high-distortion triode designs, the age of mainstream high-fidelity amplification dawned with higher-power/lower-distortion amplifiers developed by Williamson and McIntosh followed by the Ultralinear take on the Williamson concept. That was 30+ years down the technology-evolution timeline after de Forest.

And when it comes to solid state amplifiersthe usual kinddoes anyone prefer the state of the (germanium) art circa early 1960s to modern silicon class-AB designs? I doubt it.

Now, decades into its own development, class-D amplification seems to have sea legs, even in the audiophile world.

Brilliant Corners Phono Cartridge Reviews Turntable Reviews

Brilliant Corners #5: High Water Sound; TW-Acustic Raven GT2 turntable; Dynavector Te Kaitora Rua & Miyajima Shilabe phono cartridges

Alex Halberstadt Jul 06, 2023

"New York is an ugly city, a dirty city," John Steinbeck wrote in 1953. "But there is one thing about itonce you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough." Decades later, the novelist's insight about this appalling, incomparable city still feels true. New Yorkers love to complain about the summers, with their wafting miasma of hot garbage and urine; about the superannuated subway system, which only sometimes resembles a psilocybin trip gone really wrong; about the purgatorial agony of finding an apartment; about the affronts of existing shoulder-to-shoulder with the stupendously rich. . .

What I'm getting around to saying is that easily the best part of living here is the people. One of them is Jeffrey Catalano, who has been a drummer, painter, DJ, and construction worker and today runs a hi-fi business, High Water Sound, from a loft in a former sail-making factory on Water Street in Manhattan's financial district.

Phono Preamp Reviews Spin Doctor

Spin Doctor 2: CH Precision P1 phono preamplifier

Michael Trei Jul 05, 2023

In 1928, Swiss engineer and inventor Jean-Léon Reutter created a clock that could run for years without human interaction or any type of external power source. The Atmos Clock required no AC power, batteries, solar panels, or hand-winding. It was able to wind itself by leveraging subtle changes in atmospheric pressure and temperature.

The design was so energy efficient that a single degree of temperature change provided enough power for two days of operation; it would take an incredible 60 million Atmos clocks to equal the power demands of a single 15W light bulb. 95 years later, the Atmos Clock is still being manufactured in Switzerland by Jaeger-LeCoultre, but like most high-precision, Swiss-made instruments, it isn't cheap. Prices start around $7500.

My Back Pages

I conspired to provide material support to an independent record store

Jason Davis Jul 03, 2023

At least I didn't get arrested is a helluva way to begin a story, but then I never expected the FBI to question me about my online record shopping, viewing it as cover for potentially "Conspiring to Provide Material Support" to an international terrorist organization. "We need some information from you," the email said. "We've also temporarily limited certain features in your PayPal account."

Revinylization

Revinylization #43: The Original Jazz Classics label label rises (yet) again

Robert Baird Jul 02, 2023

Liner notes from jazz albums of the 1950s and 1960s can be shot through with naivete, hipsterism (usually faux), and callousness toward the abundance of musical talent then working. Few though are as shortsighted as the original essay by Jack Maher on the back of 1960's Workin' with the Miles Davis Quintet. Opening with "Miles Davis is the most maligned and idolized musician in modern American jazz today. He is at once the saint and the sinner," he goes on to cite a dynamic that literally all musicians experience, especially when playing live: "He has been accused of being lackadaisical and unconcerned about his playing. When the spirit moves him, he plays with warmth and lyric beauty, at other times he plays with vague disinterest."

Once the tape was running, however, Miles rarely missed a step. Among all of Davis's recording triumphs, the pair of sessions with Rudy Van Gelder in Hackensack, New Jersey, his May and September 1956 sessions with saxophonist John Coltrane, pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones, remain among his finest moments on record.

Aural Robert

Elton John's Magic Year

Robert Baird Jul 01, 2023

In 1973, Elton John and Bernie Taupin capped one of pop music's most epic periods of sustained creativity by writing, recording, and releasing the 10-track single disc Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player and the 17-track double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, both of which are now celebrating their 50th anniversary. As two of the strongest entries among the many classics that make 197273 the peak years for rock albums, both went #1 in the US and UK and arguably stand as the dual highpoints of John's recorded legacy.