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Kenny Barron Trio, <I>Book of Intuition</I>

Kenny Barron's Book of Intuition (on the revived Impulse! label) is an infectiously joyous album, bursting with riffs and vamps and sparkling chords over head-swaying melodies, some infused with a Latin tinge, others crooning with lyrical balladry, all of them propelled by a forceful forward motion, whatever the tempo.

At 72, Barron is a master pianist of unflagging energy who has always guided his own path: virtuosic without making a show of it, romantic but never sentimental, steel-fingered precise while at the same time swinging and supple.

This is his first trio album in 20…

Dear Non-Audiophile

It's me, Jana. I know you're probably not reading this because you most likely don't spend your down time on Stereophile.com, but I feel compelled to write to you nevertheless on the off chance that you might. If I've managed to catch your attention so far, please don't go away.

I know it can be difficult to understand why this hobby exists and why we do what we do, but let me try to explain it to you, for it was not so long ago that I was you. Even though I began studying music at the age of four, and later even proceeded to attend a conservatory in New York, my love for music had no…

Live Jazz This Week in New York City!

Some jazz musicians whose albums I've recently praised in this space are playing in New York jazz clubs these next couple of weeks . . .

At the Jazz Standard: Kenny Barron Trio, May 3–8 . . . Fred Hersch's duo series (playing with a different partner each night), May 10–15 . . . The Gil Evans Project, led by Ryan Truesdell, May 19–22 . . . Donny McCaslin Group, May 24–25.

At the Village Vanguard: Steve Coleman's Five Elements, May 10–15.

At Roulette in Brooklyn, Dave Douglas' High Risk, May 7.

And more, at more places, from groups I haven't written about yet but…

Munich High End Starts This Week

Munich High End, an audio show so big that it claims representation from 95% of high-end brands worldwide, opens this week in Munich's MOC Convention Center. The show opens on May 5, which intentionally coincides with Germany's annual Ascension Day holiday, with a "Press and Industry Day" whose attendance is so large as to be mind-boggling. Then, from May 6–8, Munich High End opens its doors to thousands upon thousands of "the public" from 10am–6pm.

That public, it should be noted, represents a far larger cross-section of the populace than at North American shows. Although the demographic…

Observations and Prognostications for 1965

Well, the New York Hi-Fi wingding has come and gone once again, and now is the time when audio editors dutifully adopt the role of oracle, divining the future of high fidelity, and generally sketching out The Big Picture for those of us too blind to see the graffiti on the wall. So, who are we to shirk our duty? Herewith, The Stereophile's audio observations and predictions for 1965.

First, what's new this year? Very little, really. The only genuinely new innovations are in the pickup field: the elliptical stylus and the 15° standard vertical tracking angle. There are plenty of new…

Peter Wolf: A Hard Drivin' Man

Well, hold on this song has a little introduction to it
It ain't supposed to be sad though you might feel it that way
It's a song about desperation
Every now and then we do get desperate

This is a song about L O V E and if you abuse it you're gon' lose it
And if you lose it you're gon' 'buse and if you 'buse it
You ain't gon' be able to choose it
'Cuz you ain't gon' have it further on down the line

Things ain't gon' be so fine, you're gon' to be sitting there
On your little machine tryin' to look and keep it clean
And you're goin' to be playin'…

Murray, Allen & Carrington Power Trio, <I>Perfection</I>

Perfection (on the Motema Music label) shows David Murray in his finest form, and playing in his most simpatico band, in a decade, maybe longer. The bandmates are Geri Allen on piano, Terri Lyne Carrington on drums, and that's it—no bass: odd, and possibly unprecedented for a Murray trio, but Allen's left hand and Carrington's foot pedal are so deft and strong, you scarcely notice its absence.

Murray, now 61, was the voice on tenor sax in the New York jazz scene of the 1990s. A romantic revolutionary, with equal parts Ben Webster, Sonny Rollins, and Albert Ayler, he could jet from lush…

Music in the Round #78

The number of devices that can constitute a home-audio streaming system ranges from one—a laptop computer running a music program to play internally stored files—to x the unknown. These days we have storage devices, servers, streamers, renderers, bridges, controllers, players, and DACs, at least one of which is hoped to have a volume control. Any combination of these elements can be put in a single box and described by one of many new hyphenated product categories—or can be given a name along the lines of exaSound's PlayPoint Network Audio Player: a model designation that at least hints at…

Music in the Round #78 Page 2

In terms of installation and setup, the two are distinct. I've listed the several ways one can link the e28-PP to one's music source. The NADAC uses an ASIO driver (as do most USB DACs), which seems simpler. However, that driver and the NADAC depend on the Ravenna protocol, which places significant demands on a typical home network. Still, once the configuration is established, these issues will be of little long-term concern.

In terms of sound quality, the exaSound and Merging Technologies installations set the standard for multichannel playback, but they weren't indistinguishable. With…

Music in the Round #78 Contacts

Sidebar: Contacts

exaSound Audio Design, 3219 Yonge Street, Suite 354, Toronto, Ontario M4N 3S1. Canada. Web: www.exasound.com

Theta Digital/ATI, 1749 Chapin Road, Montebello, CA 90640. Tel: (323) 278-0001. Web: www.thetadigital.com