Sound Prints is also the name of the tribute band (a riff on Shorter's classic Footprints album), and, judging from the two times I've seen them play at the Village Vanguard, they're among the most vibrant, dizzying jazz bands around. Douglas and Lovano bounce off each other with an energy and virtuosity I've rarely seen either sustain…
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Trumpeter Dave Douglas has two very different new albums out: Sound Prints: Live at Monterey Jazz Festival (Blue Note), featuring a Wayne Shorter tribute-band co-led by tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano; and High Risk, a collaborative excursion into electronica.
The Blues Boy is gone. And with him the second generation of bluesmen; the guys who came north, most from Mississippi, after the original acoustic Delta blues cats like Son House, Skip James and Robert Johnson had seen their time in the spotlight fade. For this younger generation, electricity was the calling card. Microphones and electric guitars their weapons. As it must, time marches on and the crew that included Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and B.B. King, one that changed blues, rock ‘n’ roll and really all of popular music forever, has now gone into that good night as Riley…
José James: Yesterday I Had the Blues, The Music of Billie Holiday
Blue Note B002283102 (CD). 2015. Yoshihisa Saito, exec. prod.; Don Was, prod.; Chris Allen, eng., mix. DDD? TT: 49:33
Performance ****
Sonics *****
Blue Note B002283102 (CD). 2015. Yoshihisa Saito, exec. prod.; Don Was, prod.; Chris Allen, eng., mix. DDD? TT: 49:33
Performance ****
Sonics *****
Unlike the conundrum of today's country music, whose lyrics celebrate family and tradition even as the country-music community ignores and disrespects the giants of the music's past, jazz and rock have for the most part remembered and celebrated their musical pioneers and game changers, and the singular, monumental virtuosity of artists like Billie Holiday.
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The day before I began writing this, John Atkinson posted on Stereophile's website a chart from Nielsen Soundscan showing the ski-jump–like path CD sales have been on since 2004. In 2004, total sales were 651 million units; in 2014, 141 million units. All that is lacking from that impactful visual to make the ski-jump analogy perfect is the little uptick at the end to launch the skier into free air. Those numbers look to me like a total decline in sales of 78%. Ouch.
My audio retailer friend Bob Saglio stopped by today. He had with him the first CD he'd bought in living memory: Shadows in…
Ready, set go. It may not look crowded at 9am on the first morning of High End 2015 in Munich, but we who were dashing in an hour early for the Devialet press conference soon found Atrium 4.1 (shown) filled with people. Attendees included, in addition to consumers, dealers from multiple continents, some of whom are now skipping January's CES in Las Vegas because they find the trip to Munich more productive and far more enjoyable. Also present were manufacturers and reps who prefer to make the rounds rather than display. All in all, it's fair to say that, for many in the industry, High 2015 is…
Clearaudio began making moving-coil cartridges in the 1970s, and only later got into the moving-magnet business. Moving-magnet cartridge designers must now be mindful that most of today's tonearms are of medium to high mass and that therefore, to be compatible, their MMs must be of low to medium compliance and of higher mass than those of the 1960s and '70s.
At $1200, the Maestro V2 is among the most expensive, if not the most expensive, MM cartridges you can buy today. Like all but one of the four other models in the V2 line, it features a resonance-optimized body of ebony. Clearaudio's…
Sidebar: Specifications
Description: Moving-magnet phono cartridge. Weight: 8.4gm. Output voltage: 3.6mV at 1kHz. Channel separation: >30dB. Channel balance: <0.2dB. Coil impedance: 660 ohms at 1kHz.
Price: $1200.
Manufacturer: Clearaudio Electronic GmbH, Spardorfer Strasse 150, 91054 Erlangen, Germany. Tel: (49) (0)1805-05-95-95. Fax: (49) (0)9131-40-300-119. Web: www.clearaudio.de. US distributor: Musical Surroundings, 5662 Shattuck Avenue, Oakland, CA 94609. Tel: (510) 547-5006. Fax: (510) 547-5009. Web: www.musicalsurroundings.com
An hour after High End 2015 opened in Munich on Friday May 15, the stairways to the second floor were packed. Multiply this mob scene by 7, and you have an idea of how many consumers and dealers were eager to fill the corridors, halls, and rooms at the show.
When I initially encountered Rosso Fiorentino loudspeakers at the first AXPONA in Jacksonville, I was so blown away by how well they handled full-range symphonic material that I encouraged Darren Censullo of Avatar Acoustics to import them into the US. Four years later, designer Francesco Rubenni, whose sporty outfit leaves…
An entire page of the High End magazin was devoted to an introduction to Meridian's MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) technology. Bob Stuart, who with Peter Craven, invented MQA, spent a generous amount of time with me discussing both the latest developments with the process, and some of the scientific research behind it.
Already, Arcam, Onkyo Music, 2L, Roon, and Tidal have signed on as MQA supporters, and over 100 potential business partners have been identified. Nonetheless, MQA's launch has been delayed 1–2 months because there's "something" Meridian is adding to increase its…
One of the major entertainment attractions at High End 2015 was US jazz vocalist (jazz-sängerin) Lyn Stanley. Performing twice daily in the room of her sponsors, Purist Audio Design, Stanley sang live into a microphone to recorded accompaniment, and then invited people to compare the amplified results to the playback of the same track on her LP (using Purist cabling, of course).
Stanley's deliciously deep voice sounded fantastic on Day 1, but technical snafus got in the way. Reverb on her mike was of outer space proportions—I'm told it got much better on subsequent days—rendering any…