Andre Previn and His Pals: West Side Story
Andre Previn, piano; Shelly Manne, drums; Red Mitchell, double bass.
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab MFSL 1-095 (LP). Lester Koenig, prod. TT: 38:16

Aaron Copland has called jazz "contemporary chamber music," and this is certainly true of these improvisations by Previn and his friends. I consider this chamber jazz at its best, varying in mood and tempo but never losing interest. The program consists of eight variations on themes from Bernstein's well-known musical, and includes "Maria," "Jet Song," "I Feel Pretty," and "Something's Coming."

This is not nostalgia. Far from it. The man still has much to say. His gifts have grown richer. And the devil is a waitin’

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It's August as I write this, and I'm looking back at some things that need to be discussed, and forward to the fall audio shows—particularly the 2014 New York Audio Show, which, by the time you read this, will have been held in Brooklyn, September 26–28. I grew up in Brooklyn, not in "the city," Manhattan, a place that we traveled to only for special reasons. Audio shops were rare in Brooklyn—I remember only Audio Exchange—but in Manhattan there was a small cluster near Grand Central Station, there was Lafayette Radio near the Holland Tunnel, a few scattered elsewhere, and the magnet of Liberty Street in lower Manhattan, where more than two city blocks were packed with audio shops.