New Jazz:
1. Maria Schneider, The Thompson Fields (ArtistShare)
2. Steve Coleman, Synovial Joints (Pi).
3. Vijay Iyer, Break Stuff (ECM.
4. Fred Hersch, Solo (Palmetto).
5. Charlie Haden & Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Tokyo Adagio (Universal/Impulse!).
6. Dave Douglas, Brazen Heart (Greenleaf).
7. Erik Friedlander, Oscalypso (Skipstone).
8. Ran Blake…
search
It's that time of the year again. Here are my picks for the 10 Best New Jazz Albums of 2015 and the 3 best reissued/historical albums, with links to reviews that I wrote in this space over the span of the year.
There needs to be a new musical term coined: “Daptone-ized.” Is there anything Gabe Roth and his funky band of players, writers, arrangers cannot turn into snappy, retro but somehow still new, horn-peppered funk? The perfect vehicle for his talents has always been the great singer/shouter Sharon Jones who has been bravely waging a war on cancer these past three years. Jones typically goes all in here on a collection of charged Christmas classics like, her zooming take on “White Christmas” and a straight take of Charles Brown’s “Please Come Home For Christmas,” where she shows she can belt out…
Christmas music can often be a sonic challenge. Endless reissues of popular tunes, Bobby Helms, “Jingle Bell Rock,” comes to mind, have produced endless tape copies that degrade sonically the further they get from the master—if one even still exists. I’m fairly sure a lot of Christmas music compilations—yes, I’m a fan—have tracks cut from CDs.
All of which makes, The Wonderful Sounds of Christmas, Acoustic Sounds fabulous new Christmas music double LP set—pressed on separate red and green 180 gram vinyl LPs—such a pleasure to listen to. I have never heard Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas…
The Tannoy E11 ($349/pair) is the company's least-expensive model in a wide range of consumer loudspeakers. Tannoy is most often known for its professional models, especially their nearfield, dual-concentric monitors that have become de rigueur on the top of recording consoles. The E11 is a two-way, ported design with a 6.5" woofer and 1" dome tweeter. Both drivers are manufactured by Tannoy, instead of being sourced from a driver manufacturer. The woofer is made from a polyolefin co-polymer, a plastic material with high rigidity and good self-damping properties. To improve power handling and…
Sidebar 2: Measurements
Driving the E11s with a sinewave oscillator revealed minor cabinet resonances at 30Hz and 90Hz. At 200Hz, the cabinet started to vibrate and take on a buzzing sound. At 220Hz, the buzzing produced by the cabinet was louder than the tone produced by the woofer. This will certainly be audible as an inability to distinguish the pitch of notes near this area. Another lower-amplitude resonance was heard at 380Hz.
Fig.1 shows the E11's impedance magnitude and phase angle. The impedance is quite high, dropping to 6 ohms in the lower treble only over a narrow…
In 1995, as the compact disc enters its second decade of commercial reality, it's fair to say that the associated hardware has come of age, exorcising at last the digital gremlins of time-base jitter and quantization noise. Digital-processor maturation is particularly evident in the design of the all-critical D/A processor. The simplistic digital circuitry of yesterday has given way to considerable design sophistication that deals directly with jitter and low-level nonlinearities.
It should be realized that no DAC is perfect. The conversion process from the digital to the analog domain…
Sidebar 2: Specifications
Description: Two-way, stand-mounted loudspeaker with 6½" woofer and 25mm aluminum-dome tweeter. Bass alignment: reflex (rear-firing port). Crossover frequency: 3kHz. Crossover type: first-order low-pass, overdamped second-order high-pass. Frequency response: 55Hz–20kHz ±3dB. Recommended amplifier power: 10–90W. Nominal impedance: 8 ohms. Minimum impedance: 6 ohms. Sensitivity: 88dB (2.83V at 1m).
Dimensions: 8¼" W by 15¼" H by 8" D. Weight: 11.4 lbs. each (5.2kg). Internal volume: 11 liters.
Price: $349/pair (1990); no longer available (2015). Approximate…
The trumpet and harpsichord are two instruments that are often treated unkindly by CD players. On Kathleen Battle's and Wynton Marsalis's Baroque Duet (Sony Classical SK 46672), both Wynton's up-front trumpet and Anthony Newman's background harpsichord popped into space with immaculate timing with the DP-90. The flow of transient attack and decay were closer to the real thing than I've ever experienced from CD. The bouncy, rhythmic pluck that underscores harpsichord timbre was readily resolved—in fact, for the first time I was able to precisely discern its exact phrasing. I simply felt…
Sidebar 1: Measurements
The Accuphase DC-91 had a maximum output level of 2.64V from the balanced outputs, 2.54V from the single-ended outputs. The output impedance measured a low 49 ohms (balanced) and 52 ohms (unbalanced) at any audio frequency. These low output impedances suggest that the DC-91 will drive any preamplifier and cable with ease, and will not be loaded down by low input impedances. The DC-91 doesn't invert absolute polarity from the single-ended outputs, but the XLR connectors are wired with pin 3 hot—contrary to the AES standard of pin 2 hot. This will cause the DC-91 to…
Sidebar 2: Specifications
DP-90 CD transport: Digital outputs: ST-type connector with Hewlett-Packard optical link; AES/EBU balanced XLR; EIAJ-standard optical TosLink; S/PDIF coaxial. Power consumption: 12W.
Dimensions: 18.75" W by 5.875" H by 14.625" D. Weight: 45.2 lbs.
Serial number of unit reviewed: E3Y570.
Price: $7595 (1995); no longer available (2015).
DC-91 digital processor: Multiple Multi-Bit, 20-bit resolution D/A converter. Digital filter: 20-bit, 8x-oversampling. Frequency response: 4Hz–20kHz ±0.3dB. THD: 0.002% (20Hz–20kHz, no level specified). S/N…