The result is a comforting and thought-provoking ramble. Listening to Constant Comments is like walking down 3rd Street, between Coles and Monmouth, late at night,…
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While listening to Keith Freund’s lovely Constant Comments, it’s often difficult to discern whether the sounds are coming from inside or outside the listening room. Voices, birdsong, honking horns, barking dogs, the opening and closing of doors, ocean waves and rainfall mingle, freely and happily, with crystalline and gently strummed electric guitars, synthesizer sounds, electronic burps and gurgles, tape hiss, and more.
In response to demand from its international customer base, Reference Recordings will release its first two LPs in 200-gram deluxe pressings on September 2. With disc mastering done at half-speed to insure cleaner reproduction and extended high frequency response, RR begins its new vinyl series with two highly prized analogue recordings from its extensive catalog. Dick Hyman From the Age of Swing arrives as a two-LP, 45rpm set, and Stravinsky: The Firebird Suite coupled with The Song of the Nightingale as a single 331/3rpm LP. The Stravinsky, performed by Eiji Oue and the Minnesota Orchestra…
John Atkinson reviewed the Gradient Helsinki 1.5 in November 2010 (Vol.33 No.11)
Art Dudley reviewed the Gradient Helsinki 1.5 in August 2010 (Vol.33 No.8). This unusual floorstanding loudspeaker combines a metal-dome tweeter and a 5" paper-cone midrange, each mounted in its own subenclosure, with a side-firing 12" paper-cone woofer. There is no enclosure for the woofer, giving it a dipole radiating pattern. "The Gradient Helsinki 1.5 is a remarkable product whose execution seems to lag only slightly behind its conception—and its conception is both original and, in its way, ingenious,"…
A look inside the impressive Emotiva ERC-2 CD player.
Audiophiles have been buzzing about Emotiva for a few years now. The attraction is no mystery: Emotiva’s products are solidly built and modestly priced, and the company takes pride in its strong relationships with customers. Yet, other than in the usual show report, Emotiva’s products have been absent from Stereophile’s pages.
But that will soon change: Our November issue will include Kal Rubinson’s thoughts on the Emotiva XPA-5 five-channel power amplifier, and, unless something crazy happens (always possible), I’ll discuss…
Photo: Mosaic Images
Sonny's Crib, by Sonny Clark, one of the most tragic and still-underrated pianists in jazz, is one of the greatest blowing sessions on a label—Blue Note—that specialized in blowing sessions, especially in the mid-to-late '50s, when this was laid down.
September 1, 1957 was the recording date, and that's not a gratuitous factoid. First, 1957 marked a pinnacle in Clark's brief career; he recorded 18 albums that year, most of them Blue Notes, as either leader or sideman. (He would die from a heroin overdose in 1963, at the age of 31, and the only surprise was…
Wynton Marsalis Quartet: Live at Blues Alley
Wynton Marsalis, trumpet; Marcus Roberts, piano; Robert Leslie Hurst III, bass; Jeff Watts, drums
Knozz-Moe-King (4 takes), Juan (3 takes), Just Friends, Cherokee, Delfeayo's Dilemma, Chambers of Tain, Au Privave, Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans, Autumn Leaves, Skain's Domain, Much Later
Columbia PC2 40675 (2 LPs), C2K 40675 (2 CDs). Tim Geelan, eng.; Steve Epstein, prod. DDA/DDD. TT: 117:39
Wynton Marsalis, trumpet; Marcus Roberts, piano; Robert Leslie Hurst III, bass; Jeff Watts, drums
Knozz-Moe-King (4 takes), Juan (3 takes), Just Friends, Cherokee, Delfeayo's Dilemma, Chambers of Tain, Au Privave, Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans, Autumn Leaves, Skain's Domain, Much Later
Columbia PC2 40675 (2 LPs), C2K 40675 (2 CDs). Tim Geelan, eng.; Steve Epstein, prod. DDA/DDD. TT: 117:39
Branford Marsalis: Random Abstract
Branford Marsalis, saxes; Kenny Kirkland, piano; Delbert Felix, bass; Lewis Nash, drums…
Robert Hurst puzzles me—I can't figure out if he's simply the most tastefully understated bassist I've ever heard, or just supremely adequate. Then I listen to Ron Carter, and it all falls into place. Hurst's playing is taut, concise, controlled to a fault. Though he's no Carter, Gomez, Haden, Peacock, or Mingus, he is a consummate accompanist of inspired conventionalism, drawing no attention to himself. I have to work especially hard to listen to him; not because his playing is uninteresting, but because it so seamlessly supports.
Jeff Watts is simply remarkable. I defy anyone to hear…
John Adams Son of Chamber Symphony, String Quartet
John Adams, International Contemporary Ensemble; St. Lawrence String Quartet
Nonesuch 523014-2 (CD). 2011. Judith Sherman, prod.; John Kilgore, John D.S. Adams, engs.; Chris Allen, Tom Gloady, Nathan Chandler, asst. engs. DDD? TT: 54:00
Performance ****½
Sonics ****
John Adams, International Contemporary Ensemble; St. Lawrence String Quartet
Nonesuch 523014-2 (CD). 2011. Judith Sherman, prod.; John Kilgore, John D.S. Adams, engs.; Chris Allen, Tom Gloady, Nathan Chandler, asst. engs. DDD? TT: 54:00
Performance ****½
Sonics ****
When John Adams was working on his Chamber Symphony (1992), he became aware that his son Sam was in the next room watching old American cartoons, presumably those by Warner Bros. that used music by the great Raymond Scott. Hyperkinetic borrowings from Scott's…
A recent e-mail from a reader asked why we list the recordings and systems used by Stereophile writers in their reviews. I responded that we do so in order that readers can place our value judgments in context, and predict how those products might sound with different ancillaries and recordings when they audition the products reviewed at their local high-end audio retailer.
"What local retailer?" was this reader's response. The nearest audio retailer was 200 miles from where he lived, and even that retailer had a very limited selection of products to demonstrate.
The scarcity of…
This morning, I walked right by electrician and idiosyncratic amplifier designer, Nori Komuro, and I didn’t say a word. Not even hello. Why didn’t I say anything? I don’t know. I had just emerged from the subway, and was walking up 32nd Street, toward Herald Square, and I wasn’t expecting to see an idiosyncratic amplifier designer. I was looking, instead and as usual, at the ground, at the sky, at high-heels and at skirts. I saw plenty of those. I was pulling a small handcart carrying a box of loudspeakers. Nori Komuro and I would have had something to talk about.
“Oh,…