About a month ago, I <A HREF= "http://blog.stereophile.com/fredkaplan/0312jazz/">lamented</A&gt; that Sonny Rollins, the greatest living tenor saxophone player, had decided not to put out a CD of his Carnegie Hall concert of last year with Roy Haynes and Christian McBride. Rollins was dissatisfied with his playing and so he canceled his release-plans.

Speaking of vinyl, Sonic Youth has announced the <i>vinyl-only</i> release of <i>SYR 7</i>, the seventh installment of their self-released improvisations. These long pieces are often entirely instrumental, and they are lovely, moving, and beautifully-recorded. The hypnotic artwork is by artist and filmmaker, <a href="http://www.visitordesign.com/">Chris Habib</a>. In the past, the CD packaging for each release has mimicked a gatefold LP, with the CD simply sliding into an inner sleeve.

It may seem odd to end <I>Stereophile</I>'s coverage of the 2008 FSI with a report on the opening-day keynote speech. However, Noel Lee, founder and CEO of Monster Cable, had said much that I wanted to mull over. Noel may be a ruthless businessman, but he is one of the smartest, most insightful business people I have known&mdash;I first <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/1289lee/">formally interviewed him</A> 20 years ago for <I>Stereophile</I>, but I have known him almost since the beginning of Monster Cable&mdash;and FSI getting him to give the Show's keynote speech was a large feather in Show President Michel Plante's hat.

For me, the last day of a show like FSI is for checking up on rooms that I somehow missed (and that I heard people talking about), and re-visiting rooms that were particular favorites.

John Atkinson opened Saturday afternoon's "Ask the Editors" session with a brief introduction in French&mdash;which got applause from the audience&mdash;but the rest of the session was conducted <I>en anglais</I>, and the quality of questions from the audience was easily up to best that I've experienced at such sessions at the Home Entertainment shows. The questions covered a wide range, dealing with topics such as the cost of producing LPs and SACDs, advances in loudspeaker technology, the sonic quality and pricing of cables, how to allocate resources in assembling a system, and discussion of what systems had particularly impressed us at the show. I think I can speak for John Atkinson, Wes Phillips and John Marks (as well as myself) in saying that we had a good time and were most impressed with the level of interest and dedication to good sound showed by the audiophiles participating in this event. Here's a picture of the <I>Stereophile</I> crew, taken just after the "Ask the Editors" session (from left to right): John Marks, yours truly, Wes Phillips, and John Atkinson.

The Montreal Sheraton Centre is a nice hotel, with hotel rooms that are reasonably well-suited to audio demonstrations, plenty of larger suites in which to set up more ambitious systems, friendly and efficient staff, fast elevators, and a great bar. The hotel's weak spot is the provision of places to eat. You can eat at the bar, which is all right as such things go, but there is no restaurant serving dinner, and there's a caf&#233; serving breakfast that seems overpriced, and, judging by the "Complet" breakfast that I had on the first day, mediocre at best.* Fortunately, the Sheraton is in an area with a lot of restaurants within easy walking distance, and I found a place that served a better breakfast than the Sheraton at a lower price, in a charming atmosphere. I got good vibes just going into the Caf&#233; Vasco da Gama, and I knew that I picked the right place when I got to the cash register. There in a large ice bucket, along with bottles of beer and some bottles of wine to be served by the glass, was a bottle of Veuve Cliquot champagne. Now, that's class!

On Saturday at noon, the John Atkinson trio (JA on bass, Bob Reina on piano, and Mark Flynn on drums) performed their own takes on some jazz standards, to the appreciation of a fairly substantial audience. (As usual, Saturday was the best attended day at FSI.) There were also two original items on their program: one of which was a tribute to Frank Sinatra, composed by Bob Reina. It's an interesting piece, with no actual quotes from any of the numbers that are associated with Sinatra, but somehow capturing the spirit of the songs in his repertoire. I think Ol' Blue-Eyes would have approved.