The We Out Here Festival—named for a 2018 double-album on the Brownswood label—presented musicians from the burgeoning UK jazz scene, one of the most vibrant, experimental, and popular jazz scenes to arise since early '70s jazz fusion, or maybe since Dizzy Gillespie…
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Over a long weekend in late August 2021, DJ, broadcaster, and contemporary music scholar Gilles Peterson and his Brownswood recordings label hosted the We Out Here (WOH) festival in Abbots Ripton, Cambridgeshire, 80 miles north of London. 20 stages. 15,000 attendees. Peterson called it "the British Jazz Woodstock."
This visionary approach also influenced the music of Emma-Jean Thackray, whose full-length debut Yellow (Movement/Warp) combines funk and spiritual jazz. Thackray's main instruments are cornet and trumpet, but she plays everything and produces, records, edits, and arranges performances with her band and vocalists on a computer, crafting the music alone in her home studio like a modern-day Brian Wilson. She also has her own radio show at Worldwide FM, the radio station founded by Peterson in 2016, which makes her something of a tastemaker, too.
"I don't know anyone here that plays swing-…
Sidebar: The Gearbox Monitoring System
I asked Sheinman to comment on the Gearbox Audio Note system—see the components list, below. "I believe in low-powered, low-distortion, class-A amplification feeding highly sensitive and efficient speakers," he replied. "This way, one gets less distortion and a purer sound. We can resolve to 0.5dB with our equipment, across the frequency spectrum."
Tim Doyle, aka Chiminyo, watches as lacquers are cut for his LP I Am Panda. (Photo: Caspar Sutton-Jones)
Turntables: Audio Note TT-TWO; EMT 948; Dual HS130; Braun PC3 SV; Rega RP1…
On Friday, November 12, AV Therapy of Nashua, New Hampshire, will host its first annual “Groove Event,” in loving memory of Mark Terletzky, its late co-owner and Groove Champion. This is the store’s first in-person event in two years.
Featured guests from Audience Cables, KEF, Klipsch, Luxman, and Paradigm/Anthem will be available throughout the evening to demonstrate new products and answer attendees’ questions.
Event Details:
When: Friday, November 12, 5:30–9pm
Where: AV Therapy, 216 Daniel Webster Highway, Nashua, New Hampshire.
To attend this…
Two new reissues in Blue Note's Classic Vinyl series—Grant Green's Idle Moments and Kenny Burrell's Midnight Blue—capture peaks of jazz guitar's possibilities at a juncture when modernism was primed for a shift to something else. Both albums were recorded in 1963; both sport "the Blue Note sound," which engineer Rudy Van Gelder had refined to its high point. But the two albums lay out very different musical paths.
Green's album follows the modal outlines that Gil Evans and George Russell had traced a few years earlier, though Green's sextet imbues the harmonies with a still-cooler blues…
Shannon And The Clams: Year of the Spider
Easy Eye Sound (16-bit/44.1kHz streaming on Qobuz). 2021. Dan Auerbach, prod.; Richard Dodd, eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ****
Easy Eye Sound (16-bit/44.1kHz streaming on Qobuz). 2021. Dan Auerbach, prod.; Richard Dodd, eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ****
Shannon and the Clams celebrate the 1950s and '60s with New Wave and synth-pop colors of the '80s. Their terrific musicianship, led by Shannon Shaw's penetrating voice, make this Oakland band a valuable living archive of the best aspects of rock history.
When life took a stressful turn, Shaw called on the eight-armed Hindu goddess, Durga, which helped her face a lifelong fear of spiders and inspired…
Johnathan Blake: Homeward Bound
Johnathan Blake, drums; Immanuel Wilkins, alto saxophone; Joel Ross, vibraphone; David Virelles, piano; Dezron Douglas, bass
Blue Note B0034215-02 (auditioned in WAV, available as CD, 24/96 download). 2021. Johnathan Blake, Jimmy Katz, prods.; Tom Tedesco, eng.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****½
Johnathan Blake, drums; Immanuel Wilkins, alto saxophone; Joel Ross, vibraphone; David Virelles, piano; Dezron Douglas, bass
Blue Note B0034215-02 (auditioned in WAV, available as CD, 24/96 download). 2021. Johnathan Blake, Jimmy Katz, prods.; Tom Tedesco, eng.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****½
It seems like Johnathan Blake is everywhere these days. He is the drummer of choice for a wide range of bandleaders. Since 2012, he has made four albums under his own name.
The third, Trion, was one of the strongest jazz records of 2019. The…
J.S. Bach: Brandenburg Concertos
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin; Isabelle Faust, violin; Antoine Tamestit, viola
Harmonia Mundi 902686.87 (Auditioned as 24/192). 2021. Pegasus Musikproduktion: Florian B. Schmidt, prod.; Schmidt, Aki Matusch, engs.
Performance *****
Sonics ****½
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin; Isabelle Faust, violin; Antoine Tamestit, viola
Harmonia Mundi 902686.87 (Auditioned as 24/192). 2021. Pegasus Musikproduktion: Florian B. Schmidt, prod.; Schmidt, Aki Matusch, engs.
Performance *****
Sonics ****½
Once you hear the vitality and exuberance of these performances and the recording's exceptionally clear, full, natural, colorful, high-resolution sound, you'll understand why the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin followed up its 1998 digital foray into the Brandenburgs with this rerecording. "Make a…
Even though I'm the editor of Stereophile, I sometimes struggle to get my audio system to play. It's a little bit embarrassing. Just last night, I put on a record and there was no sound. I figured out the problem immediately: I'd forgotten to turn on the amplifiers. But the reason isn't always so obvious.
Back in the day, our stuff was simple; it just worked. There were power switches, a volume control, a source-selector, maybe a Tape Monitor button. Turn it on, select the right input, set the volume, and put on a record. If there's no music, make sure the Tape Monitor isn't pressed.…
The Wilson Audio Specialties Alexx V ($135,000–$151,000/pair) is the biggest, heaviest, most expensive loudspeaker I've had in my listening room. It replaces the original Alexx in Wilson's lineup; Michael Fremer reviewed the earlier Alexx, bought it, and owned it until replacing it recently with the Wilson Chronosonic XVX.
The V in the name—Alexx V—isn't the Roman number five; rather, it's a reference to Wilson's most recent proprietary composite material, "V." But more is new here than a new material. Wilson has recast its second-largest regular-production speaker along the lines of its…