Looking for a small, manageable paperback to read on a commute to Great Neck and back, I picked up a vintage paperback of Ross Macdonald's <I>The Drowning Pool</I>, a novel I'd read 25 years ago. I didn't exactly remember the plot clearly, but my recollection of my fling with Macdonald was that most of his plots dealt with the sins of the grandfathers being visited upon the third generation after.
Last week's poll revealed continuing support for FM radio, though other broadcast services are clearly making inroads. If you listen to "radio," what service do you listen to <I>most</I>?
<A HREF="http://nhthifi.com/">NHT</A> is back. Less than five months after the veteran speaker company, aka Now Hear This, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/nht_takes_a_break/">declared</A> that it would sell off remaining inventory, pay its bills, and spend time rethinking its future, it has regrouped and returned with a new marketing approach.
Acoustic Sounds, Chad Kassem’s Oz of analog wonders, has expanded its line of 45rpm jazz reissues to the Impulse! catalogue. Like the Blue Notes, which Kassem and Mike Hobson’s Classic Records have already covered (at 45, 33-1/3, 180g, 200g, black vinyl, clear vinyl, just about any format you might imagine), the great Impulse! albums were engineered by Rudy Van Gelder and featured the masters of their day—Coltrane, Mingus, Rollins, and, one of the most innovative big-band arrangers in modern jazz, Gil Evans.
It’s a sure thing that Michael Jackson’s life was not going to end pretty. In fact, it can be argued that this mode of death is not the worst thing that could have happened. Seeing him waste away from cancer or die in prison, or collapse and die onstage would have all been worse. You could feel that how ever it was going to occur, Michael stood a good chance of going out in spectacularly tragic fashion. If the rumors are true, it was a shot of Demerol and he stopped breathing. At least it was mercifully fast. Can you imagine the mad scramble that’s now going to occur for his assets being carried out while he was still breathing? And who gave him this alleged shot? I have a feeling that a number of Dr. Nicks are about to be uncovered. At least his poor tortured soul departed quickly for what I hope is a better life somewhere else.
Released in July, <I>Live at Otto's Shrunken Head</I> (STPH020-2) is the latest Stereophile CD from reviewer Bob Reina's jazz quartet, Attention Screen. Unlike the group's first CD, <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/musicrecordings/907att"><I>Live at Merkin Hall</I></A> (STPH018-2, released in 2007), which was recorded with multiple microphones, I captured the eight improvisations on <I>Live at Otto's</I> using a single pair of mikes.
<B><I>It's a Vinyl World, After All: Michael Fremer's Guide to Record Cleaning, Storage, Handling, Collecting, & Manufacturing in the 21st Century</I></B><BR>
MF Productions mxangle3 (DVD). 2008. Michael Fremer, prod.; Joe Shelesky, Andre Kruger, Jeff Wilerth, dirs.; Joe Shelesky, editor. $30; available from <I>Stereophile</I>'s <A HREF="http://ssl.blueearth.net/primedia/home.php">secure e-commerce page</A>.
It starts quietly enough, with a simple falling-fifth motif, but the first movement of Sergei Rachmaninoff's neglected Piano Sonata 1 develops into a work of epic proportions nearly 40 minutes in length, with haunting melodies, massive dynamic contrasts, and lush, sensual harmonies.
