I was of two minds about requesting the loan of the B-1s. First, at $15,000/pair, they're above my usual price range. More important, I was concerned that, given the greater complexity of a three-way crossover, the larger speaker, with tweeter, midrange, and woofers front and rear would not sound as beguilingly coherent as the two-way V-1.5, with its simpler crossover. I am delighted to report that I was quite wrong, and in more than one respect.

KEITH JARRETT: Dark Intervals
Keith Jarrett, piano
ECM 1379 (837 342-1, LP; -2, CD). Kimio Oikawa, eng.; Manfred Eicher, prod. DDA/DDD. TT: 58:22

After a five-year hiatus in which he explored jazz standards, classical music, the clavichord, and the unclassifiable Spirits, Keith Jarrett has returned, however briefly, to the form that gained him his widest reputation: solo piano improvisations. But with a difference—only a single LP this time (instead of two, three, or ten), that LP composed of eight short sections, each with a title. This is a far cry from unbroken piano improvs spanning three LP sides, titled only with the name and date of the venue.

On March 25th, interested parties can join music producer and mastering engineer Ian Shepherd in his commemoration of rich and sonically inviting recordings by participating in Dynamic Range Day.

Courtesy of ABKCO Music & Records, Inc.

The tides of the digital audio industry are turning as hi-rez audio downloads are pushed further into the mainstream. On March 2, 2011, HDTracks welcome ABCKO's Remastered Series of the Rolling Stones to their catalog, available at 176kHz/24bit and 88kHz/24bit.

I ignored my own advice and did not attend Sunday’s Collect-i-Bowl record show at Brooklyn Bowl. (Robert Baird was there, though, and says it was a great and delicious time.) I did, however, attend Saturday’s Record Riot in Jersey City, sponsored in part by Steve Gritzan of Jersey City’s own vinyl speakeasy, Iris Records. Because I’ve been spending so much money on records lately, I told myself that I would not spend more than $20. Well, you know how it goes: $20 soon became $40, and so on.

The Complete Art Pepper at Ronnie Scott's Club, London, June 1980, a 7-LP boxed set released by Pure Pleasure Records, is a total surprise and a sheer delight.

Art Pepper, who died in 1982 at the age of 56, was not only one of the great alto saxophonists of his era but a self-transformer to boot. In the early 1950s, he routinely ranked No. 2 in Downbeat polls (beat only by Charlie Parker), then vanished in the '60s (locked up in various prisons on drug charges), only to emerge in the mid-'70s with a totally different sound.