The venue was the Midtown Bar. If they'd known what she was doing, her parents would have objected and her musical peers would have sneered, so Eunice Waymon performed under a pseudonym: Nina Simone. Adding to the indignity for this classically trained pianist, playing wasn't enough; she was also expected…
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Seventy years ago this summer, a young pianist from Tryon, North Carolina—a town of fewer than 2000 residents—made her professional debut in Atlantic City. This was not the culmination of a dream but rather an economic choice born of the racial circumstances of the era. It was a letdown.
Most of the 1950s Contemporary Records catalog is the bullseye of "West Coast Jazz," a smoother, more laid-back flavor than the hard bop and soul jazz styles percolating back east. Set in that context, tenor saxman Harold Land's The Fox stands out for its aggressive speed and punch. Its style would seem more at home on Blue Note or Prestige.
Read the back notes on the beautifully packaged new reissue from Craft Recordings and Acoustic Sounds and clarity emerges. The Fox wasn't born in Contemporary's studio/shipping room. Instead, it was laid to tape at Radio Recorders, Studio B, Los…
It's no secret that the musical history of New Orleans is rich and varied. From Buddy Bolden to a young Louis Armstrong being consigned to the Colored Waif 's Home for shooting off his stepfather's pistol on New Year's Eve, to the many pianists who accompanied the irresistible allure of Storyville, musicians and their music have forever been a key ingredient in NOLA's flamboyant DNA. Most elemental of all—did he facilitate the birth of rock'n'roll?—are those honeyed days at Cosimo Matassa's humble but groundbreaking studio J&M Recording on Rampart Street (1947–1956). There, his infallible…
Country is a music of diverse pleasures: the bel canto balladry of George Jones and Tammy Wynette, the psychologically acute portraiture of Tom T. Hall, the politically rousing storytelling of Loretta Lynn, the self-deprecating mythmaking of Billy Joe Shaver, the bone-chilling spirituality of Ralph Stanley. It's also full of contradictions: Maligned by some as hackneyed and simplistic, its lyrics can attain a sophistication rarely encountered in other music. Dismissed for reactionary politics, it has consistently offered up fierce critiques of inequality, bigotry, and injustice (see Johnny…
Waylon Jennings: Honky Tonk Heroes, 1973
A Falstaffian figure in country music, Waylon Jennings at his best sounded the way every shower singer dreams of sounding: commanding, joyous, and up to no good. Possibly the most appealing thing about him is that he was always slightly full of shit but let you know he knew it. In Billy Joe Shaver—as brilliant a songwriter as they come and something akin to a modern-day cowboy—Jennings found the perfect auteur for the outlaw persona he was trying to craft after shaking off the middle-of-the-road trappings of his '60s material. On Honky Tonk…
After lifelike timbres and speed-train momentum, how a loudspeaker projects its energy into my room is the main thing that determines how my sound system feels as I listen to it. When I review loudspeakers, I try to notice the unique tone and force of their "voice" as they speak into my room. Do they stand too close, stick out their chests, and brag loudly in third harmonics? Or do they have small voices that force me to lean in to make out what they're saying?
With a miniature box speaker like my reference Falcon Gold Badge LS3/5as or the similarly sized Harbeth P3ESR XDs, which I'm…
With the First Watt SIT-3: When the Nelson Pass–designed First Watt SIT-3 power amplifier clicks with a speaker, it presents recordings in a manner that has bones, core strength, and a natural way with vocal and instrumental timbre. One of the speakers the SIT-3 really clicked with was Harbeth's P3ESR 40th Anniversary Edition; see the first link in footnote 1 for details. The SIT-3 is an 18W, transformer coupled, single-ended, single-stage class-A amplifier that uses vertically stacked, static-induction field-effect transistors exclusive to First Watt. It uses no negative feedback and…
How big is the performance gap between TechDAS's new Air Force Two ($52,000) and original Air Force One ($105,000) turntables? How do you halve the price without also sacrificing the build quality and features of the flagship model that defines the brand? Even $52,000 is more than most people pay for an automobile, not to mention a turntable. Still, TechDAS's assertion on their website (footnote 1) that the price of their new model price is "reasonably improved" over the old strikes me as an understatement.
How much sound and build quality, and which features, do you give up by saving $53…
Meanwhile, I've enjoyed the Air Force Two's stay here 100%. It performed as a neutral conduit should, allowing the various tonearms, cartridges, and phono preamplifiers I tried with it to assert themselves, without inserting itself into the sound. And this was an exceptionally quiet turntable. Even using a stethoscope, I could hear no noise of any kind, even when I started up the motor. Speaking of which, it takes approximately 15 seconds for the AF2 to reach and lock to the chosen speed, but it's well worth the short wait, and a fluorescent screen at the front of the top panel lets you…
I recently started buying records again after a 30-year hiatus, thanks to my youngest daughter. She was 9, and I was gutting it out through the implosion of my first marriage. I was invigorated by the challenge of outfitting a new apartment on the cheap. I'd walk the aisles of Value Village in search of serviceable kitchen gear, and she loved to come with me, sifting through used books and house dresses while I assessed the quality of a skillet or stovetop percolator. She'd leave wrapped in threadbare pastel, cradling an armful of books by Lemony Snicket and Geronimo Stilton.
One…