Earlier this week I was invited to Per Se, a sleek restaurant in the Time Warner Center here in NYC for a lavish lunch sponsored by Concord Records. Co-owner Norman Lear was there. So was former SNL and now Letterman band leader Paul Shaffer who served as MC. The occasion was the release of another Ray Charles project which I will be writing about in more detail in an upcoming issue of the magazine. Titled <I>Ray Swings—Basie Swings</I>, it's an elaborate studio creation. Again though, Look for more in December's <I>Stereophile</I>.

The name of the essay is "Fervor," and that's what Ross writes with. If you can read the last paragraph of this tribute to Ms. Hunt Lieberson without tearing up, you have my condolences.

Holy moly! <I>An Aquarium Drunkard</I> has posted an entire album's worth of outtakes from the 1962 <I>The Freewheeling Bob Dylan</I> sessions. That's 25 tracks&mdash;cancel work for today!

The theory was perfect but the patient stubbornly died. Two new books set Druin Burch a'thinking.

Why you get more of a buzz from that cold beer on a hot summer's day. (News you can use!)