Music and Recording Features

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Music and Recording Features
From Congo Square to Times Square: A Short History of Drums in Jazz
Ken Micallef  |  Apr 14, 2022  | 
Celebrated New York City–based jazz drummer Billy Drummond recalls his first visit, with the group OTB ("Out of The Blue"), to the Mount Fuji Jazz Festival in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. It was 1988. The Festival's elite drummers ranged in age from 69 (Art Blakey) to 26 (Ralph Peterson). In between were Roy Haynes, Tony Williams, Clifford Barbaro, Victor Lewis, Lewis Nash, Kenny Washington, Cindy Blackman—"and me," Drummond told me, by phone.
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Music and Recording Features
Book/Music Review: Excavated Shellac: An Alternate History of the World's Music
Anne E. Johnson  |  Apr 07, 2022  | 
Jonathan Ward, a historian of recorded sound, has some surprising news. Thousands of early 78rpm recordings were made not to preserve music but as disposable materials for selling gramophones. With manufacturers hoping to expand their sales globally, demo records featured regional music aimed at appealing to regional.
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Music and Recording Features
Singing to the Soul: The Magic of Art Song on Record
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Mar 09, 2022  | 
It felt as though everyone had stopped breathing, so intent was their focus. I was in an exhibit room at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2018. I doubt that anyone present spoke German, but after soprano Sandrine Piau's recording, with pianist Susan Manoff, of Carl Loewe's "Ach Neige, Du Schmer-Zenreiche" (ah, incline, you who are laden with sorrows) began to fill the space, the silence was so deep that you could almost hear hearts beat. as Piau intoned words by Wolfgang von Goethe that spoke of a loss so painful that it pierced the heart and bore into one's bones, everyone present felt the emptiness and loss in Piau's voice and Lizst's setting.
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Music and Recording Features
Keb' Mo': "Music Was Mine To Experience"
Rogier van Bakel  |  Feb 11, 2022  | 
For all its ghastliness and heartbreak, the COVID-19 pandemic has been good to Keb' Mo'. When the virus hit the US, it forced the cancelation of a string of his concerts. "I was getting a little burned out on touring," he confesses.
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Music and Recording FeaturesRecords To Die For
R2D4 2022: Death-Defying Tunes
Stereophile Staff  |  Jan 18, 2022  | 
So, what's this all about? Most of you already know—after all, we've been doing it since 1991, and it's one of our most popular features. But if you're new to Stereophile, here it is: Originally, the light-hearted conceit was, these are the records you'd be willing to lay down your life for. (This foie gras is to die for!) But, let's be real: That ain't gonna happen, or so I hope.
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InterviewsMusic and Recording Features
Jay Jay French: Twisted Business: Lessons from My Life in Rock'n'Roll
Jim Austin  |  Jan 06, 2022  | 
Jay Jay French has a book out, but it's not what you might think, or not exactly.

French earned fame in the 1980s as the lead guitarist for transvestite metal band Twisted Sister, which produced some of the most recognizable—and widely licensed—rock music in history: "We're Not Gonna Take It." "I Wanna Rock."

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Music and Recording Features
Book Review: The Secret History Of Washington, DC, R&B
John Swenson  |  Dec 29, 2021  | 
R&B in D.C. 1940–1960 (Bear Family BCD 17052 16-CD, 2021) adds a new chapter to the Bear Family Records deep dive into American popular culture. Historian/collector Jay Bruder worked with a small army of researchers and editors to compile the beautifully designed book and its accompanying 16-CD discography.
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InterviewsMusic and Recording Features
Tom Fine: Finding The Way Home
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Dec 10, 2021  | 
Rabbits figure frequently in chats with Tom Fine—not the little creatures per se but the holes they burrow into. Because when you question Fine about matters present and past, his encyclopedic memory and fascination with all things great and small take you down what he calls "rabbit holes."
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Music and Recording Features
Dance, Don't Swing: the New Jazz Scene in London and the UK
Ken Micallef  |  Nov 10, 2021  | 
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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Music and Recording Features
Hi-Fi Lo-Fi: 20 Years of the Best-Sounding Indie Rock
Anne E. Johnson  |  Oct 07, 2021  | 
As the title of a fan blog puts it, indie is not a genre. It is potentially every genre. It's an attitude, an approach, a commitment to self-expression without regard to, or in spite of, mainstream demands. It's the blend that nobody can label, the outré, the ahead-of-its-time, the defiantly retro.
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Music and Recording Features
Leslie Ann Jones: Recording's Future Now
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Sep 09, 2021  | 
As she moves quietly across the huge scoring stage at Skywalker Studios toward the large, comfortable control room that sits behind glass, it's obvious that Leslie Ann Jones is in charge. She wears no badge that proclaims her authority, although her professional title is impressive: "Director of Music and Scoring, Music and Scoring Recording Engineer and Mixer".
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Music and Recording Features
Bryce Dessner: Crossing Boundaries
Julie Mullins  |  Aug 10, 2021  | 
Crossing borders and genre boundaries is never easy, but for Bryce Dessner, it's become a familiar experience.

Dessner, 45, a classically trained guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer, has racked up multi-hyphenates over the last couple of decades of his musical career. Arguably best known for his work with indie rock band The National—where he shares lead guitar, piano, songwriting, and other duties with his identical-twin brother Aaron—he's also an accomplished arranger and producer and cofounder of two record labels.

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InterviewsMusic and Recording Features
Pat Metheny: From His Place
Ken Micallef  |  Jun 25, 2021  | 
When Pat Metheny was growing up in the small Missouri town of Lee's Summit, his family's home stood within can't-even-hear-yourself-shouting distance of the Missouri Pacific railroad. trains, tornadoes, freezing winters, hot summers, small-town isolation—all fed an imagination that (combined with plenty of practice) fed a legendary music career.
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Music and Recording Features
Rhiannon Giddens: Phoenix Rising
Anne E. Johnson  |  Jun 04, 2021  | 
Not even a pandemic lockdown could keep Rhiannon Giddens from seeking new projects. Between making a new album with her partner, Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, and engaging in strategic planning in her new role as artistic director of the Silkroad Ensemble, the musician and activist seems as busy as ever even if she rarely leaves her house.
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InterviewsMusic and Recording Features
Mary Halvorson: Melt the Frame
Ken Micallef  |  May 05, 2021  | 
In her reworking of the Beatles' "With a Little Help from my Friends," on the 2018 tribute album, A Day In The Life: Impressions Of Pepper (impulse records), Brooklyn guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson reinvents both her instrument and the song.

Most baby boomers can hum the tune of the Beatles' classic, from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, in a handful of notes. It might take longer to recognize Halvorson's joyous, angular version. A master of jazz phrasing, guitar technique, avant-garde discourse, and effects pedals, Halvorson bends the Beatles song to her 21st century will.

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