Audiophile Vinyl Reviews 19 Jul 2010, 12:00 am

Audiophile Vinyl Reviews July 2010 11 Classical, Pop, Rock & Jazz Albums We haven’t covered vinyl since February - shame on us! Here’s a portion of the generally terrific hi-res analog audiophile discs that have been piling up here; more to come soon:   STRAVINSKY BALLET SET (3 LP box set) The Firebird - London Symphony Orchestra/Antal Dorati Petrushka - Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra/Antal Dorati The Rite of Spring - Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra/Antal Dorati Mercury Livi...

Chandos 96K/24bit Classical Downloads 28 Jun 2010, 12:00 am

CHANDOS 96K/24bit Downloads New from Chandos is a selection of recordings for download in various qualities including 96 kHz/24-bit.  A few - already available on SACD - are available as multichannel files, the remainder not issued on SACD come in stereo only.  A sample selection of the latter sort is mentioned below. Chandos has a large catalog of enticing material recorded at 24/96 and many collectors will already have made their wish lists for issue.  The benefits of higher...

15 Film Soundtrack CDs  6 Jun 2010, 12:00 am

15 FILM SOUNDTRACK CD REVIEWS MAX STEINER: The Charge of the Light Brigade - complete film score (1936) - Moscow Symphony Orchestra/William Stromberg - Tribute Film Classics TFC-1005 (2 CDs), 65:18, 34:54 [www.screenarchives.com/]: Unlike Korngold, Max Steiner (1888-1971) wrote scores for hundreds of films. He arrived in the United States during the early days of the First World War, having been working in London at the outbreak and so in danger of being interred as an enemy alien. ...

Los Angeles Jazz Institute Presents: East Coast Sounds 3 Jun 2010, 12:00 am

Los Angeles Jazz Institute Presents: East Coast Sounds  Out of the Cool & Into the Hot - May 27-30, 2010 - Los Angeles Airport Marriott Hotel There are moments for a jazz CD and concert reviewer when the stars align and the skies clear to let heavenly musical bliss flood your senses. It can occur when listening to a CD and a particular passage straightens your spine, brings a smile to your lips, and perhaps a mini-bolt of electricity brings a warmth that flows from your fingers down ...

April Audio Fools Links 1 Apr 2010, 12:00 am

A number of the April First issues each year of AUDIOPHILE AUDITION in the past decade have featured something of a musically humorous nature.  Here are some current links to other sites offering musical humor, as well as a couple to past issues of AUDIOPHILE AUDITION from April First. Plus a new opera review hot off the press!  Preston & Beachwood Music Jokes site Classical Music Bloopers Spike's Music Collection, includes mondegreens - misheard lyrics Music Humor Site, jokes...

Portland Jazz Festival Review - Feb. 25-28, 2010 3 Mar 2010, 12:00 am

Portland Jazz Festival Review - Feb. 25-28, 2010   (Sponsored by Alaska Airlines, Horizon Airlines and US Bank)Having sold out seven of its eight concerts, and having a cash infusion from US Bank, it is likely that the Portland Jazz Festival - for at least next year’s 2011 Festival - is on sound footing. After last year’s shaky funding situation, where Alaska and Horizon Airlines had to step in at the last minute to rescue the Festival, which in the month before the 2009 Festival had been ...

Latest Audiophile Vinyl Reviews - 26 Albums! - Part II of II 21 Feb 2010, 12:00 am

Richard Holmes & Gene Ammons – Groovin' With Jug - Pure Pleasure Records Limited PPAN ST32 180 gram audiophile vinyl,  37 minutes ****: This LP is a live/studio record split with side one containing three tracks recorded at The Black Orchid on August 15th in 1961 and the second side was recorded on the same date but at Pacific Jazz Studios.  The re-mastering was done by Steve Hoffman and Kevin Gray.  The players are: Richard “Groove” Holmes (organ), Gene Ammons (tenor ...

Latest Audiophile Vinyl Reviews - 26 Albums! - Part I of II 21 Feb 2010, 12:00 am

[Part II Here] Diana Krall - All For You: A Dedication to The Nat King Cole Trio - Original Recordings Group/ Verve ORG 006 audiophile vinyl (2 discs) *****:                                     (Diana Krall, piano & lead vocal; Russell Malone, guitar; Paul Keller, bass; Benny Green, piano; Steve Kroon, percuss...

THE BEATLES REMASTERED 14-album Stereo Reissue Set Apple/Capitol/EMI 13 Dec 2009, 12:00 am

THE BEATLES REMASTERED 14-album Stereo Reissue Set Apple/Capitol/EMI SRP: $260Please Please Me With The Beatles A Hard Day's Night Beatles For Sale Help! Rubber Soul Revolver Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Magical Mystery Tour The Beatles Yellow Submarine Abbey Road Let It Be Past Masters It’s finally happened, similar to the recent Disney reissue of the classic animation features such as Snow White on Blu-ray, we now have the entire recorded catalog of the Beatles beauti...

Christmas Discs Survey 12 Dec 2009, 12:00 am

Christmas Discs Survey It’s that time of the year again, and what a delightful way to start it off. Let’s put the classical ones at the head of the list and proceed from there: Carols by Candlelight = Music for Advent and Christmas – Choir of Magdalen College Oxford/ Bill Ives, director/ Martin Ford, organ – Harmonia mundi 907495, 73:46 ****: Ah, Christmas as only the English can do it—or at least used to. With Britain fast becoming the most secularized post-Christian society in the world...

A Sampling of Sampler Discs 17 Nov 2009, 12:00 am

A Sampling of Sampler Discs I recall in my college years a friend whose entire LP collection consisted of sampler discs, which then mostly went for 99 cents, as well as some that were free. Sampler albums have been with us ever since.  Some of those below are currently available at reduced prices. Most of the 14 I’m going to survey herewith are from audiophile labels intending to showcase not only their repertory and artists but also the sonic quality of their tracks - especially those i...

A Dozen Piano Concerto Discs 27 Sep 2009, 12:00 am

A Dozen Piano Concerto Discs If you’re as much of a fan of piano concertos as I am, you’ll want to check out these 12 CDs devoted to them.  The little stack has been piling up in my office for far too long, so pardon me if some of them are not exactly new releases.  If you’re getting tired of the same old same old in piano concertos both on recordings and on symphony concert programs, you’ll find many new very worthwhile discoveries among these discs. -- John Sunier It seems improbab...

Monterey Jazz Festival – 52nd Edition - Sept. 18-20, 2009 26 Sep 2009, 12:00 am

Monterey Jazz Festival – 52nd Edition - Sept. 18-20, 2009 – Monterey, CA I have attended the Monterey Jazz Festival several times over the last five years and have previously reviewed the festival for Audiophile Audition.  The Monterey Jazz Festival has always had a built-in guaranteed audience base - attendees have to renew their long held seats every year or they will lose their precious seats close to the stage. For years, if not decades, that has happened and MJF devotees have been r...

Summit Multichannel Hi-Res Wireless Surround 14 Jul 2009, 12:00 am

Summit Multichannel Hi-Res Wireless Surround Focus Enhancements, Inc – Semiconductor Division Address: 22867 NW Bennett Street, Suite 200 Hillsboro, Oregon 97124 USA Email: info@focussemi.com Website: www.focussemi.com Tel: 503-615-7700 Most readers of Audiophile Audition will be familiar with the tremendous increase in complexity of setup and operation that has occurred as home electronics has moved from the simple stereo audio system to multichannel audio and video. Many purch...

Rachmaninoff in Re-performance - Live at Zenph Studios 15 Jun 2009, 12:00 am

Rachmaninoff in Re-performance - Live at Zenph Studios   Zenph’s newly restored 1909 Steinway Concert Grand inside the Kenan Recital Hall at Peace College in Raleigh, North Carolina. In addition to the array of microphones for stereo and multichannel sound, note the Neumann dummy head device for binaural recording. Photo by Mark Manring – www.manring.net. Every generation or so, a convergence of art and technology and the inspired thinking of brilliant minds traverses time and spa...

19 Recent Soundtrack CDs 3 May 2009, 12:00 am

19 Recent Soundtrack CDs Time again for us to survey some of the soundtrack music that’s been issued on CD, for both new films and classic films. Here’s our quick look at some of the listenable CDs that might appeal to movie music collectors: MILK (Danny Elfman) - Decca:  A great film of the year, with a superb score by Danny Elfman.  In addition to his tone-painting for the dramatic story of the life of the San Francisco politician, there are six tracks from other sources design...

Vinyl Feature for April 4 Apr 2009, 12:00 am

Reviews of 15 Jazz, Blues & Pop Audiophile LPs Diana Krall – Live in Paris – Verve Records/Original Recordings ORG 003 – 180 gram Audiophile LP edition – 2 LPs, (2001-2002)  ****: (Diana Krall, piano, vocals; Anthony Wilson, electric guitar; John Pisano, acoustic guitar; John Clayton, bass; Jeff Hamilton, drums; with specials guests, Paulinho Da Costa, percussion; Michael Brecker, tenor sax; Christian McBride, bass; Rob Mounsey, keyboards; Luis Quintero, percussion; Lewis Nash, ...

Favorite Classical Music Bloopers (April Fool's Special) 1 Apr 2009, 12:00 am

Favorite Classical Music Bloopers Bloopers in Student Reports of Concerts • Courtesy “Spike’s Music Humor” Site * Once the band was ready to start they came out of the curtain in an orderly fashion to begin the concert.  * On occasion, the two would make eye contact, just to make sure they were still together. This showed me that they were completely concentrated...  Earlier Bloopers  * There was something good too about the dress that they were wearing. The tr...

Polyhymnia Tenth Anniversary 20 Mar 2009, 12:00 am

Polyhymnia celebrated its 10-year anniversary at the end of 2008, and to celebrate we created a SACD sampler and small booklet for our clients and friends, with highlights of our first 10 years as an independent recording company. Here is an abridged version of that chronicle. The Philips Legacy and the Birth of Polyhymnia The Polyhymnia story begins with the story of Philips Classics. The Philips Classics recording centre was founded in the Netherlands in 1950 to provide top quality world...

Portland Jazz Festival – Somethin’ Else – Feb. 13-22, 2009 7 Mar 2009, 12:00 am

Portland Jazz Festival – Somethin’ Else – Feb. 13-22, 2009 It was just around four months ago, when it appeared that the long anticipated 2009 Portland Jazz Festival was given last rites, due to a major donor pulling their funding because of the trying times that major companies are facing in our financial crisis of 2008-2009. Northwest hearts were broken due to the fact that the theme of this year’s Festival had so much promise - the celebration of the seminal jazz label, Blue Note Records...

British Light Music Pianist BILLY MAYERL 17 Feb 2009, 12:00 am

British Light Music Pianist BILLY MAYERL Billy Mayerl died exactly fifty years ago; after a brief period in the wilderness, his works, largely for piano, have gathered a wide following, his renaissance beginning perhaps with a fine series of recordings made for Chandos by Eric Parkin. Billy was born in London in 1902 and was a student at the Trinity College of Music, playing Grieg’s Piano Concerto at the Queen’s Hall in his early teens. He was a pianist for silent films and dance bands, ge...

AUROPHONIE and 2+2+2 3 Jan 2009, 12:00 am

AUROPHONIE and 2+2+2: Introduction Generally speaking the listening to so-called audiophile recordings irrespective of their inscription format is predicated on the listener’s aural perception; to wit, a good ear is a must, and good judgment a necessary requirement. Indeed, aural and psycho-acoustic perception is presumed to be directly proportional to the so-called “fidelity” of the sound emanating from the speakers and the supporting hardware. The following question is posed now: to w...

A Trio of Piano Syncopation Delights 2 Jan 2009, 12:00 am

A TRIO OF PIANO SYNCOPATION DELIGHTS FIDGETY DIGITS - Rare syncopated piano recordings, 1927-1941 - Shellwood Productions SWCD36, 69:36 [www.shellwood.co.uk]: “ONE take, folks!” says Alex Hassan in his effervescent notes to this important release of rare recordings, very well transferred by Phillip Legg; indeed, the listener is often left amazed that such virtuosity is possible. Some of those who have tried in vain to attempt to play some of these numbers may well be left feeling happily i...

GUILD LIGHT MUSIC 22 Dec 2008, 12:00 am

GUILD LIGHT MUSIC When the Guild label issued GLCD5101 – The Golden Age of Light Music, An Introduction – in 2004, I, for one, didn’t anticipate celebrating the appearance in 2008 of the 50th volume in this magnificent series. The quality of the contents has remained high, and I understand there is excellent material for many more volumes to come. Very well transferred from the original 78s and LPs by Alan Bunting, and compiled by the tireless David Ades - who has also contributed every ...

A Clutch of Christmas CDs 6 Dec 2008, 12:00 am

A Clutch of Christmas CDs We’ve sifted thru a bunch of Christmas music discs, passed on those banal ones obviously cashing in on the commercial side of the holiday, and have several to recommend to you herewith: “A Boston Camerata Christmas” Worlds of Early Christmas Music - An American Christmas; A French Christmas; A Spanish Christmas - The Boston Camerata/Joel Cohen, dir. - Warner Classics & Jazz (3 CDs) 2564 69415-0, 3 hours 17:11: This is the perfect holiday collection for th...