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Big Top Hi-fi, or: Hi-fi Takes Manhattan

I was flipping through the current issue of Rolling Stone (RS 1068/1069, with a mustachioed Brad Pitt on the cover) and stopped at their "Rock & Roll Gift Guide."

Included alongside the cell phones and box sets were a few choice hi-fi pieces. Real hi-fi. The editors over at 1290 Avenue of the Americas selected the Debut III turntable (reviewed by Michael Fremer in our Vol.29 No.7), Sonos WiFi music system, and an Audioengine 5 / Wadia 170 iTransport combo. Excellent picks, guys!

These are four examples of perfectionist hi-fi products that have crossed over into the…

<i>Santana III</i>

I didn't know what this was when I picked it up. The jacket offers no band name or album title. Kind of like the Park Tavern on West Side Avenue in Jersey City; there's no way of knowing it's the Park Tavern unless you walk in, and once you're in, you never really want to leave.

Perhaps the band figured the crazy, intergalactic artwork would do the job. Once you open the gate, though, you know what you're getting into. This is Santana in 1971, a fire-breathing juggernaut of a band. A band in the truest sense of the word: Listening to this, even now from almost 40 years away,…

The Best Jazz Albums of 2008

Here’s my list of the 10 best jazz albums of 2008. An elaboration, with 30-second sound clips illustrating my points, will appear tomorrow in my column in Slate. (Some of you may notice that I’ve mentioned most of these CDs in this blog through this year.)

Sonny Rollins, Road Shows, Vol. 1 (Doxy Jazz)

Shirley Horn, Live at the 1994 Monterey Jazz Festival (Concord/ Monterey Jazz Festival)

Frank Kimbrough, Air (Palmetto)

Rudresh Mahanthappa, Kinsmen (Pi Recordings)

Carla Bley Big Band, Appearing Nightly (ECM/Watt)

Paul Bley, About Time (Justin Time)

…

Pony

In "Pony," Frida sings:

The stable is where you learn to
be in charge and not take shit
Dressed to the occasion:
leather boots and a stiff black whip
I don't even have to use it!

Making Love Out of Nothing At All

Dear Frida,
It is official: I have a crush on you, and it feels good. I woke up this morning with your words circling through my foggy mind. Don't you worry, love. Let me help you love. There you go, love. Oh that's brilliant love.

I knew nothing about you when your album, Silence is Wild, wound up on my cluttered desk. Now I would like to know everything. Perhaps it was a mistake, perhaps you can't help it, but, yes, you have been extra charming. It's not only me, I'm sure. I'm sure others feel the same. If it is true, as you say, that your beauty is fleeting, then it…

Strike the Harp and Join the Chorus

Dear colleagues:
The year is almost over. The air has grown cold. Our rivers are stuck in deep, deep thought. Outside my 6th-floor window, countless, swirling bits of snow are decorating this gray city like little answers blowing in the wind, like so many true loves: A sure sign that the annual Consumer Electronics Show in glittery Las Vegas is right around the bend. It opens on Thursday, January 8th and runs right on through Sunday, the 11th.

I will not be there this year. I will miss you.

In June, when our managing editor, Elizabeth Donovan, packed up her red…

Too Hot, Sugar

This weather is pointless. Pointless! What's the use of all this snow and ice? Don't tell me it looks pretty. I'm just not fit for this sort of cold. It's days like today after windy winter nights like last, when the temperatures plunge into the single digits and my apartment's old pipes freeze, that I wish I had an entire fleet of fiery amps to keep me warm.

I want an amp that's known for its prodigious heat. I want an amp that's too hot to touch. I want an amp that runs so hot you think the thing is broken. I want an amp that goes up in flames. If it makes beautiful…

We Can Agree to Agree

In his essay, "Can We Agree to Disagree," Peter W. Mitchell states:

Whenever I read a statement in The Absolute Sound or Stereophile suggesting that the LP is the most lifelike and natural-sounding music medium, I am both annoyed and amused. I have only to play an LP of a Brahms symphony from CBS or DG to make such an assertion seem ludicrous on its face. But I think I understand why my LP-loving friends and I disagree so profoundly, even though none of us are cloth-eared numbskulls.

PWM's three-part thesis is interesting. The funny thing is: I agree with him, but I…

Feeling Immortal

(Who wouldn't feel immortal with hair like that?)

Two Fingers

Pete gave me the two fingers.