John Marks

<I>"Most people really don't like music&mdash;they just like the way it sounds"</I>

Medford, Long Island&ndash;based manufacturer Shahinian Acoustics has announced a recapitalization and a manufacturing-facilities expansion to meet demand for its quasi-omnidirectional loudspeakers. In a related development, Vasken Shahinian has succeeded his father as president and managing director.

<I>What has happened will happen again, and what has been done will be done again, and there is nothing new under the sun.</I>&mdash;Ecclesiastes 1:9

Perhaps I first should have consulted my horoscope in the local newspaper. But I can't imagine what it could have said that might have warned me off. So, in blissful ignorance, I went to the local big-box consumer-electronics chain retailer and laid down my lettuce. I thought I was buying the SACD version of Norah Jones' <I>Come Away With Me</I> (Blue Note 5 41472 8), but, by the end of the affair, I felt I'd gotten <I>The Royal Scam</I> (footnote 1).

<B><I>Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll, 1947-1977</I></B><BR>
by James Miller<BR>
New York: Fireside/Simon & Schuster, 1999. Paperback, 8.5" by 5.5", 416 pp. $15.00. ISBN 0-6848-6560-2.

<B><I>TEMPLES OF SOUND: Inside the Great Recording Studios</I></B><BR>
by Jim Cogan and William Clark; Foreword by Quincy Jones<BR>San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2003. Softcover, 7.5" by 10", 224 pp. $24.95. ISBN 0-8118-3394-1.

The other night I heard The Tallis Scholars&mdash;the world's foremost exponents of Renaissance polyphony&mdash;sing in the Chorus of Westerly's performance hall, in Rhode Island: an 1886-vintage former Roman Catholic church with nearly all of its original horsehair plaster intact (footnote 1). Even sitting back in the cheap seats, the sound was glorious. I have never heard a vocal ensemble sing with more finesse, pitch security, or blend of tone.