LATEST ADDITIONS

Fred Kaplan
Martial Solal at the Vanguard
Fred Kaplan  |  Oct 09, 2007  |  0 comments
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 NY-1; finally, we could all hear the music behind the legend.
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Wes Phillips
Some Like it Even Hotter
Wes Phillips  |  Oct 09, 2007  |  0 comments
Some food scientists are saying that America's tastebuds aren't becoming more adventurous, they're wearing out as baby boomers age.
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Wes Phillips
Brian Eno: Technology as a Tool
Wes Phillips  |  Oct 09, 2007  |  1 comments
Yesterday's New York Times had a review of Robert Wyatt's new Comicopera by Ben Ratliff 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.
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Wes Phillips
Archimedes and the Calculus
Wes Phillips  |  Oct 09, 2007  |  0 comments
A new research project highlights Archimedes' role in developing calculus.
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Wes Phillips
What the Songbird Told Me
Wes Phillips  |  Oct 09, 2007  |  0 comments
Is a single gene—the so-called FOXKP2—the reason why only humans have language?
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Wes Phillips
The Changing Music Industry
Wes Phillips  |  Oct 08, 2007  |  1 comments
Yes, all of us chattering classes spent the weekend, um, chattering about Radiohead's shocker, but this article in The Telegraph may be the best I've seen. Its yearly sales breakdown and record company revenues charts provide some historical context.
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Wes Phillips
Country Music in Black & White
Wes Phillips  |  Oct 08, 2007  |  0 comments
Louis Armstrong's last LP was contemporary country music, He was asked if he was making a statement by recording what was then considered white, working class music. Silly question—Armstrong recorded with Jimmie Rodgers, after all.
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Phono Preamp Reviews
Simaudio Moon LP5.3 phono preamplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 07, 2007  |  First Published: Mar 07, 2007  |  0 comments
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.
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Floor Loudspeaker Reviews
Snell Type C/V loudspeaker
Corey Greenberg  |  Oct 07, 2007  |  First Published: Nov 07, 1994  |  0 comments
When I say that this past—and last—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.
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Interviews
Kevin Voecks: Loudspeakers, Crossovers, & Rooms
Thomas J. Norton  |  Oct 07, 2007  |  First Published: Mar 07, 1990  |  0 comments
Since he joined Snell Acoustics in the mid-1980s, Kevin Voecks, their chief designer (footnote 1), has been involved in the design or redesign of the entire Snell line, from the minor revision of the Type A/III (incorporation of a new tweeter), to the complete redesign of the Type C (now the CIII). Snell Acoustics is located in Massachusetts, and although Kevin spends a good deal of time there or at the measurement and analysis facilities of the Canadian National Research Council (NRC) in Ottawa, he does a great deal of his conceptual and preliminary design work, as well as his listening, in Los Angeles, where he makes his home. I visited him there last summer to gather a little insight into his background and loudspeaker design philosophy. I started by asking Kevin when had he first become interested in loudspeaker design...
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