Music and Recording Features

Tenor Saxophonist Kamasi Washington: Giant Steps

Robert Baird Nov 04, 2015 First Published: Nov 04, 2015

Tinseltown. La-La Land. Smell-A. First, of course, there's the climate. No way to hate sunshine and ocean breezes. And if you were somehow able to erase all the people in Southern California, the land itselfrising from the blue Pacific to high desert to timbered, sometimes even snowy mountaintopsis gorgeous. Then, of course, there's the unusually attractive human flora and fauna roaming SoCal. How did Brian Wilson put it . . . ? "Dolls by a palm tree in the sand."

Music and Recording Features

Gary Clark Jr.: Up From The Blues

Robert Baird Oct 15, 2015 First Published: Oct 15, 2015

Playing the blues gets old fast. Since this most fundamental American popular music, stopped being the African-American party music of choice, and became a traditional music, celebrated as the precursor of rock'n'roll, blues players face a stark choice: change, or be content with playing small clubs and bars.

Interviews Music and Recording Features

Trip and Jitter: the Electronic World of Dan Deacon

Robert Baird Apr 15, 2015 First Published: Apr 15, 2015

Violet- and orchid-colored LED banks shimmer across the room. Green and pink spots radiate out and back. A steady stream of beats and keyboards from other electronica luminaries rumbles out of the speakers. Let's dance! Or maybe just listen?

Onstage, Dan Deacon is busy tweaking his gear. Out on the floor, the audience is oddly antsy. To fight the waiting, one woman hangs on her boyfriend. Clumps of hipsters conviviate. Very strong drinks (a sponsorship deal?) flow for seven bucks a pop. Anticipation thickens. Impatience turns to pacing. Young men make solo air grooves.

Music and Recording Features

To Save a Soul Like Mine: the Blind Willie Johnson Project

Robert Baird Apr 10, 2015 First Published: Apr 10, 2015

He is easily among the most accomplished and influential slide-guitar players ever to put a ring of glass or metal around his finger. In 1977, on the golden record carried by the space probe Voyager, alongside the first movement of Beethoven's Symphony 5 and recordings of "footsteps, heartbeat, and laughter," his greatest song, "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" went off to represent humanity to the stars.

Interviews Music and Recording Features

Jackson Browne: Enter The Natural

Robert Baird Jan 29, 2015 First Published: Jan 29, 2015

For famously civilized and jaded New York City, the crowd at the resplendent Beacon Theatre is uncommonly involved. Loud requests, many in tangled liquor dialects, boom from the balcony:

"'REDNECK FRIEND'!"

Onstage, Jackson Browne smiles and shakes his head.

"'COCAINE'!"

"I could do that, but it would have to be the rehab version." [crowd roars]

"'FOR A DANCER'!"

Oh, waitI'm yelling that.

Music and Recording Features

Rarities and Reissues: Blue Note Records Turns 75

Robert Baird Oct 08, 2014 First Published: Oct 08, 2014

Fifty-four years after it was recorded, Hank Mobley's immortal Soul Station has become a tale of two LPs.

One, the original pressing (mono or stereo), is an artifact, an insanely valuable antique, the object of fevered jazz collectors the world over.

The other is a fresh vinyl reissue, cut from a high-resolution digital remastering of the original master tapes, that's meant to bring in younger listeners, or those interested enough in the music that they'll pay $19.95 for a new LP.

Music and Recording Features News

Callas Remastered: "La Divina" Receives Her Due

Jason Victor Serinus Sep 20, 2014 First Published: Sep 20, 2014

Move over John, George, Ringo, and Paul. There's another remastering that's come on the scene, and it's every bit as important as the Beatles Mono Edition. It's Warner Classics' high-resolution, 24/96 digital remastering of soprano Maria Callas' entire studio-sourced discography. Consisting of arias, recitals and complete operas recorded 19491969, the remasterings reach the international public on September 22, and US music lovers on September 23. Their sound, whether in the 69-CD box set of her entire studio recordings, or HDtracks' 24/96 downloads of its individual components, is revelatory.

Music and Recording Features

Louis Armstrong: A Man and His Horn

Robert Baird Sep 03, 2014 First Published: Sep 03, 2014

He was a victim of his own success. From 1925 to 1929, when he was in his mid-20s, Louis Armstrong changed the world of jazz music forever with his Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings, and his solos in tunes like "Cornet Chop Suey," "Potato Head Blues," and "West End Blues." Almost immediately, however, he was faced with a question: Now what?

Interviews Music and Recording Features

Regina Carter: A Family Affair

Robert Baird May 06, 2014 First Published: May 01, 2014

Making a recording is always a personal journeyeveryone has a story to tell. Jazz violinist Regina Carter's latest, Southern Comfort, is an eloquent musical expression of Carter tracing the roots of her paternal lineage back five generations. For the project's sound engineer, Joe Ferla, it's the final project of a engineering career, and the beginning point of his new life as a practicing musician. The entwining of these journeys gives the album's music and sound a rare honesty.

Music and Recording Features

Many Happy Returns

Corey Greenberg Mar 17, 2014 First Published: Jun 01, 1991

Today is the 60th anniversary of the iconic Fender Stratocaster electric guitar, the instrument that in the hands of Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Mark Knopfler, Buddy Guy, Hank B. Marvin, and many other virtuosi, shaped and guided rock music ever since. To celebrate the day, we are reprinting the tribute by Corey Greenberg, himself a Strat player, to the guitar's inventor, the late Leo Fender, that was published in our June 1991 issue.Ed.