The Sheffield Drum Record
Improvisations by Jim Keltner and Ron Tutt (drums)
Sheffield LAB-14 (LP) (1981). Reissued as FIM DXD 001 (CD) (2010). Bill Schnee, Doug Sax, prods.; Lincoln Mayorga, exec. prod.; Steve Haselton, Bill Schnee, engs. TT: 13:49.

There was a time when drum records were as common as records of steam locomotives and thunderstorms. It has been so long since anyone has tackled any of them that a lot of technology has gone over the dam, but they are precisely the kind of program material which illuminate the state of the audio art like nothing else. Thus, Sheffield's Drum Record emerges as a landmark—a technological tour de force that should discourage anyone else from issuing a similar disc until the state of the art advances by a few more years.

Established in 1980 by Victor Sima as Sima Electronics, Canadian audio company Moon by Simaudio Ltd. celebrates its 35th year in the audio business in 2015—or, as its ads say, "35 years of passion." To mark the event, Simaudio had a party at Executive Stereo, their Toronto dealer (see photo above). It was a fairly low-key event, with a handful of Toronto-area audio journalists—including yours truly—and representatives of Simaudio attending.

The New Music Seminar 2015 was a three-day (June 21,22, and 23) conference held in New York that invited music industry insiders to dialog on the current state and potential future of the music delivery business. Right away I knew I wasn't at CES...

We seem to be going through a big-band renaissance. In recent months, I've hailed the latest albums by Maria Schneider's Orchestra, Steve Coleman's Council of Balance, Ryan Truesdell's Gil Evans Project, and now—in some ways, the most adventurous—John Hollenbeck's Songs We Like a Lot (on the Sunnyside label).

Perhaps the greatest strength left in the music business these days, and the major labels in particular, is their catalogs of recordings and on the reissue side of the business, no one has been better at exploiting a catalog and actually creating new releases of older unreleased music than Sony Legacy.