That last one is the payoff. Great literature allows us to benefit vicariously from the hero's hard-won self-…
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This month I am writing about the Loudness Wars! But first a DVD, They Came to Play. The quest, or the hero's journey, has been a major theme of literature for as long as there has been literature. From the epic of Gilgamesh to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to Moby-Dick to The Lord of the Rings, the quest's plot trajectory has remained pretty much consistent: be confronted by a challenge; leave home; bond with a new friend; survive climactic showdown; discover true self.
I have no inside knowledge, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the compression used on Everything Must Go was digital, whereas the compression on The Nightfly had to have been of the more benign analog kind, because digital compressors were not yet available in 1982. Indeed, The Nightfly was one of the first digitally recorded rock albums. (The first one was Ry Cooder's Bop Till You Drop, in 1979.) Digital recording was comparatively new, and there were as yet no digital effects boxes (footnote 5). (Trivia: The Nightfly, perhaps for its feeling tone of bittersweet but optimistic…
My review of Helado Negro’s Canta Lechuza will appear in our June issue, and the album hits stores on May 10th, but you can listen to the hazy, languorous tunes right now on NPR’s First Listen. Helado Negro (Roberto Carlos Lange, son of Ecuadorian immigrants) is interested in sound, texture, color, rhythm, and you can hear all of that stuff swirling around and bubbling about in Canta Lechuza.
It’s great fun to listen to on the hi-fi, even better through a good set of headphones, and perfect for the warmer weather. Hello, spring.
Helado Negro performed recently at Union Pool in…
BOBBY KING & TERRY EVANS: Live and Let Live!
Rounder 2089 (LP), CD 2089 (CD). Larry Hirsch, eng.; Ry Cooder, prod. AAA/AAD. TT: 44:42
Rounder 2089 (LP), CD 2089 (CD). Larry Hirsch, eng.; Ry Cooder, prod. AAA/AAD. TT: 44:42
If you've heard a Ry Cooder album in the last 12 years, you've heard Bobby King and Terry Evans—they're the gorgeously voiced gospel/R&B singers who've backed up Ry while he's learned to sing in public—and from whom he can't help but have learned a lot. To crib from the liner notes, King is from a Louisiana gospel background, while Evans sang R&B in Mississippi. Their music together is a seamless blend of the best of both sides of the…
Whistling ductwork, whirring fans, murmuring pipes—along with being jazz's most storied location, a living shrine to the memories of Bill Evans, John Coltrane, and so many others, Manhattan's Village Vanguard, on Seventh Avenue South, was, on this winter's night, the Das Boot of jazz. In every corner, every stairwell, every square foot of available backstage space, some kind of furnace machinery audibly ground, banged, and/or wheezed away.
All I really wanted was a little quiet so I could record an interview with tenor-sax great Joe Lovano, whose latest album, Bird Songs, was opening…
Not surprisingly, the "Barbados" on Bird Songs again perfectly captures the loose, Latin-tinged vibe that makes it one of the most underrated gems in Parker's catalog of original tunes. Lovano and Us Five currently end their live sets with a joyous, energetic, pull-out-all-the-stops version of "Barbados" that gets Spalding bouncing and leaves Lovano breathless.
Rather than a straight tribute to Parker, Bird Songs (see sidebar for full review) is a variation on the old chestnut "What would Jimi Hendrix have become musically had he lived?" In this case the pondering focuses on Bird, who…
SIDEBAR: Bird Songs
Joe Lovano, tenor, mezzo-soprano, straight alto saxophones, Aulochrome; James Weidman, piano; Esperanza Spalding, bass; Otis Brown III, Francisco Mela, drums, percussion
Blue Note 05861 2 (CD). 2011. Joe Lovano, prod.; James Farber, eng. DAD. TT: 65:11
Performance ****½
Sonics ****½
JOE LOVANO/US FIVE: Bird Songs
Joe Lovano, tenor, mezzo-soprano, straight alto saxophones, Aulochrome; James Weidman, piano; Esperanza Spalding, bass; Otis Brown III, Francisco Mela, drums, percussion
Blue Note 05861 2 (CD). 2011. Joe Lovano, prod.; James Farber, eng. DAD. TT: 65:11
Performance ****½
Sonics ****½
At this late date, a set of Charlie Parker compositions is not an inherently thrilling album concept. But Joe Lovano is the most important tenor saxophone player of his generation. Bird Songs is the second recording by the band he…
The name Muse Electronics is probably unfamiliar to most audiophiles, requiring some background on the company. Muse is the hi-fi offshoot of a company called Sound Code Systems, a manufacturer of professional sound-reinforcement speaker cabinets and power amplifiers. Founded in 1980, SCS enjoyed some success with its line of MOSFET professional power amplifiers. In 1988, SCS's Michael Goddard and Kevin Halverson, both audiophiles and tube aficionados, redesigned their amplifier for the high-end hi-fi market.
The results are the Model One Hundred (a 100Wpc stereo power amplifier) and the…
Through the Muse monoblocks, bass reproduction was exceptionally tight and well-defined. This is perhaps the 150s' most salient characteristic. Mid- and upper-bass frequencies approached the liquidity of tubes, while the extreme bottom was tight and punchy, a characteristic more commonly associated with solid-state electronics. Pitch was clearly defined, with each note distinct from others. Midbass had a warm, round fullness that was particularly pleasing. This was especially evident on John Pattituchi's acoustic bass on "So In Love" from the Chick Corea Akoustic Band CD (GRP GRD-9582). In…
Sidebar 1: RH's 1990 System
The playback system included a VPI HW-19 Jr. turntable with an AudioQuest PT-5 tonearm and Sumiko Boron vdH cartridge, Marantz CD-94 CD player, and an Audio Research SP14 preamplifier. Interconnects were Magnan and Expressive Technologies, both of which made obvious audible improvements in the system. The amplifiers drove MartinLogan Sequel IIs and my trusty Vortex Screens through AudioQuest HyperLitz Clear speaker cable. The MartinLogans were bi-wired, with the woofer polarity reversed to reduce the midbass suckout (see Dick Olsher's "Followup" review in Vol.…