“Adolphe Sax, a second generation instrument maker in Brussels with a penchant for design, after developing his Saxhorn family of brass valved horns of various size and pitch, and having developed the first really workable bass clarinet, installed a bass clarinet mouthpiece on one of his firm’s ophicleides. He was aware of the tonal disparity among strings, winds, and brass, families; in which the strings and winds were generally overpowered by the brass. What he produced was, in essence, a brass clarinet, and while he thought in terms of a family of such, and would soon expand the line accordingly; the first of what he would call Saxophone, deriving from the ophicleide, was a bass instrument. This he patented in Paris in 1846…”

“Even the process of removing recording noise that often obscures the first and second overtones ensures that they cannot be synthesized out of thin air, again, literally. In a mono recording all the noise and distortion are part and parcel of the production, and cannot be removed except at a cost…”

“These two titles couldn’t be any different from each other, I’m sure, but they share an excellence of production and execution, and each focuses on a major musical talent whose careers started more than 40 years apart. Chasing Sound is a look at the career and guitar and recording innovations of Les Paul, not to forget his spectacular musical dexterity with the electric guitar he invented. Paired with the irrepressibly pitch-perfect Mary Ford, they became a hit machine in the early 50s, his development of overdub recording the perfect way to showcase her singing and unique harmonies…”

“Most collectors will be attracted to the Chesky discs because of great care the Chesky team takes to get the most “natural” sound they can obtain. On the end of a horizontal arm they attach a single microphone around which the musicians gather, except when Roy Hargrove is part of the group. Because of the sound stage is so clearly defined you know he likes to move around….”

“I’ve been following the recent 3D hype for over a year, wondering when all the dust will settle. As a youngster, I lived through the first 3D bubble, which like a balloon, quickly deflated as the thrill wore off. I remember ducking the arrows in Massacre At Feather River, and watched quite a few 3D movies at the Seneca Theatre In Niagara Falls with either red/blue or polarized glasses. There were a few that were in black-and-white, which kind of took the edge off the realism.”

“I initially hesitated to include Günter Wand in this group: for one thing, like Sergiu Celibidache and Jascha Horenstein, he was never really out of a conducting career. He had long tenures in the opera house, and led orchestras, if only as a guest, on both continents. A perfectionist who required seven to eight rehearsals, he was best suited to the German radio orchestras who could accommodate him. After an association with the Gürzenich Orchestra and the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, in 1982 he became chief conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra. A contemporary of Karajan, he more closely resembled Celibidache , or Klemperer. My first and main Brahms Symphony cycle on CD was his. My choice also for Schubert 8th and 9th…”

“Those jam sessions encompassed a “Who’s-Who” of Jazz at that period. The loft, where Hall Overton had installed pianos and drum kit, became an after-hours magnet for local and touring musicians. Regulars included: Zoot Sims, Charles Mingus, Roland Kirk, Jim Hall, Bill Evans, Bob Brookmeyer, Jimmy Giuffre, and Steve Reich. Visitors: Doris Duke, Norman Mailer, Salvador Dali, Bob Dylan, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Smith recorded and photographed everything until 1965…”

“I rode my first train in 1950, give or take a year. Harry Patterson was taking his two sons, Jim and Will—childhood friends— and me, fishing on the “Little Mississippi” just north of Kingston. This was a half-hour or less by car, but as he did not drive, we took the Canadian Pacific train from the downtown Kingston station.This was in fact the old Kingston-Pembroke Railway: what was affectionately—or otherwise— known as “The Old Kick and Push”…

“The Guarneri String Quartet (so named because of the instruments they play - Guarneri was a rival of Stradivarius in 17th Century Italy) were for many years the “house” quartet of RCA/BMG/Sony in its various iterations over the years. They were responsible for recording a substantial chunk of the conventional string quartet repertoire. Now, 45 years after their founding, they have decided to retire, and Sony has done them proud by re-releasing a great deal of the music they recorded over their long career…”

“John Edward Bain is a photographer, music lover, and guitarist, and a frequent correspondent to yours truly about these matters and others of mutual interest. Our paths first crossed in Kingston Ontario as part of the folk scene there in the mid 60s. He plays, in his own words, “folk and blues: what John Fahey coined ‘American primitive Guitar’”. He now lives in Halifax with his wife Colette, “in quiet and somewhat reclusive retirement, surrounded by books, records, musical instruments, and cameras.” This is his first blog for AIG, combining music and book reviews, insights into the lute, and interesting related links…”

“In my original review of this turntable cartridge combination I said the results were pleasing but, but I thought that going for the more costly Ortofon Kontrapunkt B cartridge would offer better value for money. In the event, I was dead wrong. I tried to like the 2Xperience-Rondo Blue. It was so nice to spin some vinyl and hear some old favourites again. But, the longer I listened the closer I came to realizing that the sound just wasn’t as good as it should be…”

“What a feast for Python fans! Starting with a contextual look at the Python origins, and followed by interviews with members, this series is utterly riveting, even going right back to my undergraduate idols, The Goons, led by Peter Sellers. It was the wild and surreal radio antics of The Goon Show that inspired the first Pythons. They bridged the gap from the unseen and imagined to the visual craziness that amazed and entertained British viewers while mystifying and enraging BBC programming executives…”

A couple of experiments with interconnects has led me to a discovery. The connectors at either end of the IC have a “sound”. I will explain but first, let us agree that interconnects have an effect on overall sound and that different ones can change the way a system sounds. Usually it is a slight change, but a change nonetheless. As obvious as this seems now, there was a time when I didn’t believe such a thing was really important and that paying hundreds of dollars for a pair of interconnects was outrageous. I still think that the price asked for some interconnects is outrageous…”

“You ain’t heard Money For Nothing until you’ve heard it in 5-channel bedlam! There’s so much going on in the mix that it just picks you up and grabs you by the balls…it’s loud, it’s rude, it’s fantastic! And it’s my favourite crank-the-system song! Of course, it’s the full-length version, not the censored short single…”

“In my most recent column I reviewed the ProJect 2Xperience belt drive turntable with the supplied carbon fibre arm and an Ortofon Rondo Blue cartridge. I can report that the sound from it continues to delight. Although the financial outlay involved is far from chump change, it would be hard to think of a more worthwhile investment if you are at all inclined towards vinyl…”

“Part of the reason for the lapse is there hasn’t been much to write about until now except the music; and let me say I have heard some wonderful music as the year has progressed. My inspiration to share now can be spelled out in one word: v-i-n-y-l. I have a new turntable and cartridge. I had been listening, on a very occasional basis, to LPs on my Kenwood direct drive with a Fidelity Research FR64 arm and an Ortofon Kontrapunkt b cartridge. The sound I was getting from it was far from perfect, and I felt it should be replaced…”

“This album was a project of Concord records producer John Burk, who discovered the tapes from European concert dates in the Fantasy Records archive that contained these unreleased Norman Granz Pablo masters. Burk had spearheaded Ray’s last great recording project, Genius Loves Company (see below), and saw potential in the great vocals in otherwise unreleasable multitrack tapes…”

“Coaxial Ribbon LineSource models come in two versions. The LineSource Reference [floorstander] is suitable for front loudspeakers in medium to very large rooms with virtually no restriction on height as they are completely scalable. [In other words,] the LSRs are highly configurable and tuneable to allow the ideal match for room and listening requirements…”

“The artists featured in these two releases, consisting of 3 SACD multichannel/CD hybrid discs, comprise the Fry Street String Quartet, who came to these recording sessions with a string of awards and prizes in their young history. Winners of the Milennium Grand Prize at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, the First Prize at the Yellow Springs Competition, and also receiving an award at the Banff International String Quartet Competition, the Fry Streeters have been a busy bunch. They’re currently in residence as the Faculty Quartet at Utah State’s School of the Arts…”

“The Kullervo Symphony was the first large orchestral work attempted by Sibelius. Based on a tragic and quite gruesome story from the collection of epic Finnish tales known as The Kalevala, the work was very successful at its first performance. The work is diffuse and rambling at times with definite echoes of Wagner and Tchaikovsky…”