search

Iris Records Closes

Where did I hide that Replacements record, dammit?

A message from Steve Gritzan of Jersey City’s Iris Records:

yes folks, the time has come. i've decided to pack in the retail side of the business. the reasons are numerous: slumping sales (the recession?), the onslaught of technology, the endless brunswick street blues (most other businesses have shuttered), but the primary reason is that i am looking to shift things around in my own life. i'm not leaving the record and cd business at all (or this space), but the pressure of running a retail store (even just two or…

Best Jazz of the Year (and the Decade)

My annual piece on the Best Jazz Albums of the Year appears in today’s edition of Slate (for which I write a regular column, though usually on foreign and military policy). This time, I also drew up two lists of the Best Jazz Albums of the Decade—one for new recordings, the other for previously unreleased historical recordings (treasure troves of which were excavated this past 10 years). Readers of this blog may recall reading about most of these albums in this space.

In the Slate piece (see the External Link below), I included 30-second sound clips for each of the best albums of 2009.…

Why Cassettes?

I was introduced to Scotch Tapes, “the worst hi-tech music label ever,” on December 9, by a Twitter post from Jagjaguwar. Oneida would be releasing a limited-edition cassette through Scotch Tapes. This was interesting news to me, first because I’ve been fascinated with the idea of a “cassette tape revival,” and second because Oneida is a well-established name in the world of underground rock bands. Why would Oneida release work on a format that had been all but forgotten by the music industry? Why cassettes?

As soon as I had asked myself the stupid question, the obvious answer…

White Man's Blues

John Hammond has always been a strange case. Son of the legendary record producer and scout John Hammond Sr. who worked with Billie Holiday, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, young John who sang and played guitar staked out a difficult piece of musical turf when he decided to make playing acoustic Delta–styled blues on the National Steel guitar his signature move.

Because acoustic blues only appeals to a fairly limited crowd—the old beer and biker bar crowd like their blues electrified—Hammond’s career has been low key. Larger success has alluded him which is not a…

The Jazz Book of the Year

The jazz book of the year is called, simply,Jazz. Written by Gary Giddins, the best living jazz critic, and Scott DeVeaux, one of the most astute jazz historians, it’s a vital reference for those well versed in the subject and an essential guide for those who get lost in its thickets and want to know how to listen to the music so that it at least makes sense.

There are plenty of jazz encyclopedias and histories out there. What’s distinctive about this book is that it takes you through the century’s sweep of jazz—its soloists, singers, and sidemen, its innovators and embellishers, its…

Where the Tapes Is

I’ve received two packages in the mail today. Both were from Portland, Oregon, a hotbed for outstanding independent music, and both contained tapes.

Happy Holidays from Ye Olde Hometapes: A cassette tape sampler of some of what was good and right in the world in 2009: Megafaun, All Tiny Creatures, Cyne, Bear in Heaven, and Slaraffenland.

Thanks, Hometapes! I’ve got a feeling that 2010 is going to be a very merry (and very analog) year.

Now on Newsstands: <i>Stereophile</i>, Vol.33 No.1

The January 2010 issue of Stereophile is now on newsstands. Hooray! A new volume! A new year! Twelve more issues of Stereophile! Whee! We are pretty excited about starting the year off with a review of a PC soundcard. And at just $200, the ASUS Xonar Essence is the least expensive product to ever grace the cover of our magazine. Plus, it’s got that pretty golden tiger thing on it. What aroused John Atkinson’s interest, however, was the ASUS’s claimed signal/noise ratio of 124dB: “True high-end territory.”

But let’s forget about equipment reports for a second and turn the…

Charlie Parker's "White Christmas"

I’m a little late with this, but if you’re still in holiday spirits, can’t stand to hear Paul McCartney’s ditty or Mel Torme’s jingle one more time, and cringe, thoroughly bummed out, at Bob Dylan’s piss-brew of raspy cheer, take a listen to Charlie Parker’s take of “White Christmas.”

He played it spontaneously, at a customer’s request, on Christmas Day, 1948, at the Royal Roost in New York City—with Kenny Dorham on trumpet, Max Roach on drums, Al Haig on piano, Tommy Porter on bass—and it is nothing short of astonishing.

The band lays out the melody in the hippest syncopation…

Cassettes and Vinyl

Today I received my first package from Scotch Tapes! Inside the cardboard-reinforced padded envelope were five cassettes and three 7-inch EPs:

Terrorbird: We Were Monsters
Whore Business: Never Gave A Shit
Cavebears: Live at the Whiskey 1977
Tayside Mental Health/Great Slave Lake split cassette
Marlo Eggplant/My Cell Phone Is Better Than Your Cell Phone split cassette
Tayside Mental Health/Endometrium Cuntplow split 7-inch
Al Qaeda: Collaborative Works with Mike Watt, Gabe Serbian, Chris Carrico, Occasional Drift 7-inch (on yummy green vinyl!)
MCPIBTYCP…

<i>Nevermind</i> and Original Recordings Group

For Christmas, I received the new vinyl reissue of Nirvana’s seminal 1991 album, Nevermind. This beautiful thing, mastered by acclaimed engineer, Bernie Grundman, and pressed at RTI on extremely quiet 180gm vinyl, is brought to us by Original Recordings Group. Thank god for them.

Nevermind always sounded good, but never this good.

I haven’t done a side-by-side comparison with an old compact disc, but upon setting needle to groove, I was immediately struck by the awesome presence of Dave Grohl’s drums. They come from beyond my front wall and rush forth with a power that…