High points in this trend include the Gillespie-Parker Quintet’s June 1945 concert at Town Hall, Monk and Coltrane’s ’57 concert at Carnegie Hall, Mingus’ ’64 concert at Cornell, Bill Evans’ final 1980 sets at the Keystone Korner, Miles Davis’ mid-‘60s quintet at the Plugged Nickel (to say nothing of the gargantuan 20-disc…
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A trend of sorts has taken hold the past few years: albums (in most cases, multi-disc boxed sets) capturing not just the highlights of a jazz concert but the whole concert—or a whole week’s worth of concerts, the entire run of a gig at a nightclub—every note of it.
I’ve told you a bit about my favorite cassette label, Al Bjornaa’s Scotch Tapes, out of Batchawana Bay, Ontario, Canada. In this Impose article, Al goes into more detail, explaining how he built the label, and revealing some of his big plans for the remainder of the year, which include 60-70 new tapes, 4-5 vinyl releases, approximately 20 lathe cuts, a dozen zines, a couple of 8-tracks, and a monster summer compilation. (You can also download a Scotch sampler.)
Al don’t sleep.
The summer comp, Fuck Winter: A Scotch Summer Mixtape, including tracks from some of my…
I’m on the N train heading to Manhattan from Bay Ridge and there’s a fat Mexican baby in a dull red stroller. She is screaming her heart out. I’m trying to read an article in New York magazine recommended to me by a co-worker, but I don’t think I’ll make it to the end. I’ve read enough about addiction to know how ugly it can be; I don’t want to live through it again.
In any case, my own thoughts are fighting against the words on the page. A few days ago I wrote, “Children need to love their parents in order to better love themselves.” Today, I wonder if it works another way.…
The Jazz Journalists Association held its 2010 awards bash at City Winery, a warm, spacious eatery (with an excellent wine list) in the SoHo section of New York this evening. Below are most of the winners, followed by the musicians for whom I cast my ballot. The awards covered the period from April 15, 2009, to April 15, 2010.
RECORD OF THE YEAR:
Winner: Joe Lovano, Folk Art.
My Pick: Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Infernal Machines. Lovano’s quintet album was excellent, but Argue’s debut approached the astonishing. (My choice in the first round of voting was Keith Jarrett’s…
The July 2010 issue of Stereophile is now on newsstands. It had been far too long since we received a letter complaining about our love of reviewing insanely expensive products, so we decided to make this our “Special Aspirations Issue,” featuring, almost exclusively, products you’d have to be CEO of BP to afford.
I’m kidding. Sort of. “Special Aspirations” does not only reflect the price of the components we review, but also refers to their quality. And we like quality. The loudspeakers from Vivid, Wilson, and Focal, as well as the phono preamps from Boulder, AMR, and Vitus…
I took her advice and went for a walk, but didn’t get more than half a block from the office before spotting two large, green dumpsters filled to their brims with paperwork, notebooks, and other office supplies. As I approached, something else caught my eye. Atop the pile of stuff were two fully-stocked, wooden cassette shelves in very good condition.
The very moment I decided to inspect the goods, two other music nerds, wrapped up in headphone cables and iPods, suddenly appeared.
Vultures.
“Anything good?” one music nerd asked.
“Nah,” I replied. “Just a…
“These are pretty,” she wrote. Attached to the e-mail was a picture of the new Davone Ray loudspeaker. Pretty, indeed.
Introduced at the popular and successful Munich High End Show, the Ray is the second offering from Denmark’s Davone. Like its predecessor, the striking Rithm, the Ray employs a coaxial driver configuration: A 1” tweeter is situated at the center of an 8” woofer. Sensitivity is specified as 89dB. The speaker measures approximately 28” H x 23” W x 18” D and weighs just 25lbs. With its unusual elliptical shape and sleek steel stands, the Ray resembles a pair of…
Tris McCall has some trouble getting a hold of Joanna Newsom. Apparently, he’s not the only one. Photo: Annabel Mehran
Friend and neighbor, Tris McCall, reviewed Joanna Newsom’s massive three-disc set, Have One On Me. It’s a very good read, and I hope you’ll take the time to enjoy it. When I reached the end of Tris’ review, I felt like I should stand up and applaud. Funny: The same thing happens when I get to the end of Newsom’s album.
Here’s a little bit of Tris’ review:
Have One On Me isn’t the first album to blame sociobiology for the breakdown of a…
Keith Jarrett’s “Standards Trio” played Carnegie Hall Thursday night, to predictable glories.
The concert—which lasted over two-and-a-half hours, including an intermission and three encores—started with “It Could Happen to You” and ended with “I Thought About You,” bracketing, among others, an ethereal “My Funny Valentine,” maybe the most heartbraking take on “All the Sad Young Men” since Anita O’Day's, and a startlingly funky “God Bless the Child” with K-Jay laying down a fierce backbeat while still carving serpentine solos of vast sophistication.
This time, he didn’t yell at the…