November 2021 Jazz Record Reviews
Johnathan Blake: Homeward Bound, Bill Charlap Trio: Street of Dreams, Renee Rosnes: Kinds of Love and Oliver Nelson: The Blues and the Abstract Truth.
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November 2021 Rock/Pop Record Reviews
Shannon And The Clams: Year of the Spider and Various Artists: It's a Good, Good Feeling: The Latin Soul of Fania Records (The Singles).
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Revinylization #23: Grant Green, Kenny Burrell, Oliver Nelson
Two new reissues in Blue Note's Classic Vinyl seriesGrant Green's Idle Moments and Kenny Burrell's Midnight Bluecapture peaks of jazz guitar's possibilities at a juncture when modernism was primed for a shift to something else. Both albums were recorded in 1963; both sport "the Blue Note sound," which engineer Rudy Van Gelder had refined to its high point. But the two albums lay out very different musical paths.
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New Hampshire's AV Therapy Hosts a Listening Event This Weekend
On Friday, November 12, AV Therapy of Nashua, New Hampshire, will host its first annual “Groove Event,” in loving memory of Mark Terletzky, its late co-owner and Groove Champion. This is the store’s first in-person event in two years.
Dance, Don't Swing: the New Jazz Scene in London and the UK
Over a long weekend in late August 2021, DJ, broadcaster, and contemporary music scholar Gilles Peterson and his Brownswood recordings label hosted the We Out Here (WOH) festival in Abbots Ripton, Cambridgeshire, 80 miles north of London. 20 stages. 15,000 attendees. Peterson called it "the British Jazz Woodstock."
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Analog Corner #275: Bergmann Audio Galder turntable & Odin tonearm
Bergmann Audio (footnote 1) launched its first turntablethe Sindre, which featured an integrated tonearmin 2008. The Sindre's acrylic platter and tangential-tracking tonearm both floated on air bearings; it had an outboard motor controller, a separate air pump for the air bearings, and cost $21,000.
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Capital Audiofest 2021: It's a Wrap
Capital Audiofest 2021 was a fantastic show. Everyone I spoke to—vendors, visitors, the helpful Hilton staff—was jazzed to be there. Everyone was in good spirits. While I didn’t see as many attendees in total as at the 2019 CAF show pre-Covid, every room I visited was full, and in many midday cases, standing-room-only.
Tarheel Hi-Fi: Arion Audio, VPI, Audio Research, and Nordost
Next door to the VPI room showing Harry Weisfeld’s rock ‘em, sock ‘em JBL Everest horns, another system with a VPI source was complemented by a colossal pair of Arion Audio line-array towers and subwoofer columns. The speakers were brought to Rockville by Charlotte, North Carolina’s Arion Audio and Arion's designer/owner Mike Kalellis.
Tenacious Sound: Audio Hungary, Canton, Weiss, Audience. Plus Innuos, AVM, and Perlisten
Tenacious Sound had several systems at the show, including those in Room 325 and the Montrose ballroom. Sunday morning, I stumbled into the smaller room, where good sounds were being made by an Audio Hungary X200 integrated tube amplifier ($6499) powering Canton Reference 7K loudspeakers ($6995/pair). A Microsoft Surface Pro laptop streamed Qobuz to a Weiss DAC. Cables were from Audience.
Infigo Audio (plus Alta Audio and Resonessence)
In the room of British Columbia’s Infigo Audio at the Capital Audiofest, CEO/founder Hans Looman was playing Michael Oldfield’s Tubular Bells II. Not quite new age, not “folk-tronica,” the music’s flowing, acoustic melodies and circular rhythms suited Looman, whose ponytail and pleasant banter recalled a taller, younger Obi-Wan Kenobi espousing wisdom and good vibrations. I quickly fell under the spell of Looman, Oldfield, and these attractive Infigo devices.