"Punch me."

"What?"

Conversations with Tim Lefebvre are often like this. That was backstage at the Jazz Standard last week after the Donny McCaslin Group's final set. I later realized that Tim wanted me to be in a compilation of timelapse video clips involving slow motion punches. Naturally, I gladly obliged.

In August 2015, I visited loudspeaker manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins in England. It was an exciting prospect to see the factory, and meet the people who designed and built the speakers I've been using for years. Of course, as the time of my visit approached, it was impossible not to speculate that something important was afoot—there was growing Internet buzz that it was time for B&W to update its 800-series speakers. Nonetheless, B&W remained tight-lipped.

Matt Wilson is one of the most versatile and inventive jazz drummers on the scene, and Beginning of a Memory (on the Palmetto label) is, I think, his best album in his 20 years as a leader.

If you're looking for unusual, viscerally thrilling music guaranteed to give your system a run for its money, then Leos Janácek's Glagolitic Mass is for you. Recorded in Norway last summer by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Choirs, conducted by Edward Gardner, this gargantuan mass is the centerpiece of Janácek Orchestral Works, Vol.3, a new, extremely well-recorded hybrid SACD from Chandos.