Interviews

From the days of Les Paul's chum Mary Ford, through Amanda McBroom and Jennifer Warnes, right up to Patricia Barber, audiophiles have been fascinated, and sometimes obsessed, with female vocals. I nominate to membership in that select sorority another Patricia, in this case O'Callaghan, whose third CD has just been released worldwide by her new label, Teldec.

Even though she calls her new band, 4x4, a "small" group, it's a big band—almost too big for the stage of the Knitting Factory on the night of October 11, 2000, as it makes its first American appearance. Bley's piano is so far to stage left, she has to lean against the wall and stoop under a hanging monitor speaker to address the audience. Four music stands dominate the rest of the apron—her front line of tenor saxophone, alto saxophone, trumpet, and trombone stand shoulder to shoulder, blocking the audience's view of Larry Goldings and his Hammond B3, drummer Billy Drummond, and bassist Steve Swallow, who stands 15' back and on a riser. If she'd showed up with her 17-piece band, they'd have had to have hung the horn sections from the rafters, like the sound system.

Who the heck is this guy? Is he David Johansen, the lipstick-wearing front man of the seminal glam-rock, proto-punk New York Dolls? Is he Buster Poindexter, the pompadoured and tuxedoed "Hot, Hot, Hot" soca stylist? Is he a lounge singer? A Latin artist? Johansen is all of the above, having achieved success in each incarnation.

It's been three years since the February 1997 issue, when I last talked with Klaus Heymann, founder and chairman of HHN, the parent company of the Naxos and Marco Polo labels. When I heard that he'd be in New York for a visit, I jumped at the chance for another interview.

Judy Spotheim, maker of the SpJ arm and the gorgeous La Luce turntable that I reviewed a while back for Stereophile (October 1998) and that has subsequently become one of my references for LP playback. She's an intelligent, well-read individual who has a penchant for asking me, "You didn't read that in the manual?!" Ahem. Although the following interview was taped on the phone from her home in the Netherlands, I hope to meet her sometime soon.

Todd Garfinkle, guiding light of M•A">http://www.marecordings.com">M•A Recordings, travels the globe recording provocative music in unbelievably wonderful acoustic settings. Todd travels to exotic climes such as Macedonia and Southern Siberia to capture unique and beautiful traditional ethnic music and song. He records with only two omnidirectional microphones, the signals of which are fed into handmade recording equipment designed especially for his work. Kathleen and I caught up with him at St. Peter's on 20th Street, a popular recording venue in the West Village. After wrapping a session, Todd stopped by our loft, where we rolled some tape of our own...

Bo Christensen, who was the guiding light behind, first, Primare, then Bow Technologies, graduated as an architect—not surprising, considering his products' drop-dead-gorgeous looks. I talked with Bo while preparing my review of his Bow Technologies ZZ-Eight CD player (see Stereophile, August 1998, Vol.21 No.8), and started by asking him if his knowledge of electronics was self-taught.