"He showed me a tune he'd written, and I couldn't believe it," Price recalled. "We…
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As Price rediscovered her jazz soul, Vilray experienced his own rebirth. "I didn't feel comfortable playing songs that everybody knew, so I played obscurities, the B-sides of '30s and '40s hits, like Fats Waller's 'My Very Good Friend the Milkman,' until Paul McCartney covered it." Immersing himself in classic songcraft, he gradually discovered his own vocabulary. "The plan was to write songs and tell people I'd found a songbook in someone's attic. But my ego got in the way, and I admitted to writing them."
Margot Price: Strays
Loma Vista Records (16/44.1 WAV download; also available on CD, LP, cassette tape). 2023. Jonathan Wilson, Margo Price, prods.; Jonathan Wilson, Dexter Green, others, engs.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****
Loma Vista Records (16/44.1 WAV download; also available on CD, LP, cassette tape). 2023. Jonathan Wilson, Margo Price, prods.; Jonathan Wilson, Dexter Green, others, engs.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****
Artists with ambition must grow or their vision gets stale and repetitive. They also need something new to sell streams, concert tickets, and records. One sure way to change things up is a guest list that includes Mike Campbell, Sharon Van Etten, and Lucius. Another is to put your art in the hands of a new producer, in this case Jonathan Wilson, who has…
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade
Curtis Symphony Orchestra/Osmo Vänskä
Curtis Studio (24/96 WAV download). Drew Schlegel, prod. and eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ****
Curtis Symphony Orchestra/Osmo Vänskä
Curtis Studio (24/96 WAV download). Drew Schlegel, prod. and eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ****
The best American conservatory players can match fully fledged professionals in musicality and polish, so it's no surprise that the Curtis Institute has launched its own label. Kicking off with a showpiece like Scheherazade might have been a gamble, but not with Osmo Vänskä, recently of the Minnesota Orchestra, at the helm.
Once past the self-conscious opening gestures, the conductor limns an unusually…
The Necks: Travel
Chris Abrahams, piano, organ; Tony Buck, drums; Lloyd Swanton, bass
Northern Spy NS158 (CD; also available on LP, download). 2023. Tim Whitten, prod., eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ****
Chris Abrahams, piano, organ; Tony Buck, drums; Lloyd Swanton, bass
Northern Spy NS158 (CD; also available on LP, download). 2023. Tim Whitten, prod., eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ****
The Necks are an acoustic product of the digital age. The longstanding Australian piano trio has worked, with rare exception, in hour-long spans of gradual development that would make Miles Davis and Gil Evans green with envy. On stage or in studio, they execute their warm yet machine-like repetitions with great precision. In 2017, they broke with formula to meet the…
Turntables, tonearms, and phono cartridges are tuned systems. That each of them can be adjusted to maximize the sound quality—especially the quality called tunefulness, which is difficult to quantify—drives vinyl deniers crazy. Today, one of them e-mailed me: "You are the stupidest motherfucker I have ever encountered. Go shove a tone-arm up your ass." He followed that with this: "You are demented, deluded, and deaf. Records suck, and always have."
Just ignore them. I do. (Well, I try.)
The ability to fine-tune a vinyl playback system is part of what makes it possible to combine…
Setup and Use: The Döhmann Helix 1 comes in a compact road case and is relatively easy to set up. It sits on adjustable leveling feet, from which the turntable itself is completely decoupled. It's big: 23.4" wide by 5.2" high by 18.7" deep. The MinusK suspension requires no tuning or tweaking, other than to adjust the vertical "travel" once the arm(s) has been installed: The suspension is very sensitive to weight.
Audio Union supplies a pair of thick, mirror-imaged aluminum armboards that can be machined to accommodate your choice of tonearm. The boards are bolted, from above, to…
Turns out rock stars are human after all. Which means music fans should prepare themselves for the coming toll. The next few years are certain to be brutal: Bob Dylan, 81; Paul Simon, 81; George Clinton, 81; Brian Wilson, 80; Carole King, 80; Keith Richards, 79; Jimmy Page, 79; Sly Stone, 79; Rod Stewart, 78; Neil Young, 77; Pete Townsend, 77, and the inexorability rolls on. The news is even worse among the pre-rock era stars, where it's a matter of any day now: Tony Bennett, 96; Burt Bacharach, 94 (footnote 1); Sonny Rollins, 93. Even the ageless one, Willie Nelson, is 86.
January 2023…
Music Matters, the mostly annual audio showcase from Definitive Audio in Seattle, made a welcome return March 8–9 after a two-year pandemic-imposed hiatus. Divided into two two-hour sessions, the 16th edition of the private, ultra-concentrated audio show in miniature saw invitees moving between 20-minute presentations in four rooms, with ample time left for visiting systems in two others and schmoozing with industry legends.
Between several national and regional product premieres, presenters at Music Matters 2023 emphasized the importance of Definitive Audio (with locations in…
Most of us were not born with musical tastes intact. Tastes develop over time as we learn and experience new music and other things. An open mind, an ear attuned to songs and sound, and a procession of mentors and musical guides make for a musical life that's rich and full. To my way of thinking, the best life has a soundtrack that's varied and constantly expanding.
Which is not to say there aren't transformative events. Prior to my lightning-strike moment—about which, more in a minute—the blues were all around me, as they always are around all of us. As a kid attuned to rock'n'roll,…
Stravinsky: Violin Concerto & Chamber Works
Isabelle Faust, violin; Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth, cond.
Harmonia Mundi 902718 (reviewed as 24/96 WAV download). 2023. Jiri Heger, prod.; Aurélien Bourgois & Alix Ewald, engs.
Performance *****
Sonics ****½
Isabelle Faust, violin; Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth, cond.
Harmonia Mundi 902718 (reviewed as 24/96 WAV download). 2023. Jiri Heger, prod.; Aurélien Bourgois & Alix Ewald, engs.
Performance *****
Sonics ****½
You might think that by 1931—the year Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) completed his unforgettable Violin Concerto in D Major—orchestral instruments were the same as those used today. Far from it. According to the website of Claire Givens Violins (footnote 1), pure-gut D strings began to disappear after WWI and were…