Issue 165

In 2019 when the Zombies took the stage at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to accept their induction and then perform a few of their biggest hits, they did so with an absolute joy that has rarely been seen at these ceremonies. They are a band that has a quality seldom seen in entertainment: the Zombies are not only adored by their fans, but equally loved and admired by their peers. This is the result of continuously creating timeless music and acting as considerate and fair-minded members of the rock community. They are “the good guys!” Their songs are among the greatest in the British Invasion and rock music: “She’s Not There,” “Tell Her No,” “Time of the Season” and many deep cuts. Keyboardist and original member Rod Argent has had an equally successful solo career, with titanic hits like “God Gave Rock and Roll to You” and “Hold Your Head Up.”

Across almost 60 years the band has kept their important body of work alive through various personnel configurations. Fresh off an intense East Coast American tour, the band, led by founding members, vocalist Colin Blunstone and Rod Argent, are about to hit the road again this month, and later this year will release another record of entirely new material. There they will again be joined by Steve Rodford on drums, guitarist Tom Toomey, and the newest member, Søren Koch, who joined the band following the untimely passing of their bassist Jim Rodford in early 2018.

We had the opportunity to catch up with Colin Blunstone and discuss a whole host of things, not the least of which is an incredibly powerful new release, Live From Studio Two, which was recorded at London’s Abbey Road Studios. The CD/DVD package of this private performance will be available only at Zombies live shows. The concert presents an energy and sonic brilliance that takes some of their best-known songs and makes them really rock, roll and glisten. Blunstone and I also had the opportunity to talk about the infamous “fake Zombies”; two acts that impersonated the group after they disbanded for the first time in the late 1960s (one of the impostor bands actually included future ZZ Top members Frank Beard and the late Dusty Hill).

Colin Blunstone. Courtesy of Alex Lake.

Colin is not only a terrific storyteller but a wonderfully nice person who, with care, describes how the band can continue to remain prolific as they enter the autumn of their career.

Ray Chelstowski: How did this Abbey Road session come together? You all look like you are having the time of your lives.

Colin Blunstone: It was. I think we were just trying to find a way to play for our fans in the middle of the pandemic. There just weren’t that many ways that you could reach out to people. Then someone came up with the idea of playing a concert at Abbey Road because we have quite strong connections there. In particular, the last Zombies album with the original band [Odessey and Oracle] was recorded there [and at Olympic Studios]. It is very interesting because there’s a definite feeling in the building because there’s so much history there. We actually did the show in Studio Two, which of course is where most of the Beatles recordings were made. So it creates an incredible atmosphere. It was quite an experience. The other side of the story is that we hadn’t played together for two years, so it was a little bit like stepping out into the void. We weren’t quite sure what was going to happen. Since then we have actually done an American tour. We came over and played all along the East Coast. We kicked it off in Miami and ended up in New York. It was great to be back on the road again and felt as if there hadn’t been a gap at all. We just needed a few shows to get what we call our “match fit.”

RC: How did you decide what the set list for Live From Studio Two would look like? Was there a good amount of debate within the band on what would be included and how it would track?

CB: It is very similar [to our live shows]. There might be two or three songs that are different. When you are a band that has a history there are certain songs that people expect you to play and they are very disappointed if you don’t. At the same time this is a band that has always enjoyed writing and recording new songs. So sometimes that makes things quite complicated. We typically play no more than four new songs [in a concert].

RC: Your touring schedule is really intense, where you are doing shows on consecutive nights for weeks at a time. At this point in your career, what is the objective when you look at touring? Are there markets you want to play that you haven’t, or want to play again?

CB: I think that in regard to American tours, our agent and our management company handle those decisions. We aren’t that personally involved as a band at that point because we don’t know America as well as they do. I would say that I did notice on the last tour that it was fairly intense, but generally speaking we play three shows and then have a night off. That really helps. We have to be careful about the singers, so that people don’t damage their throats, because that can threaten an entire tour.

RC: Your voice is in remarkable form. How do you keep it in such fine shape?

CB: We do play all of the songs in their original keys. I began singing them when I was 19 years old and I am just lucky that I have been able to keep my range. Two things help. One is simply common sense and living a sensible and well-nourished life while you are on the road. Most importantly, you have to stay hydrated. Then you have to get a proper amount of sleep, especially when you are in the autumn of your career. Secondly, I started with a singing coach when I was 45 or 50 years old. He would coach a lot of singers in the West End [of London]; your equivalent would be Broadway. They have to sing every night so their voices have to be strong and accurate. He just taught me about the technique of singing, what levers you need to pull to be able to control your voice. He also supplied me with some vocal exercises that I do twice a day when we are on the road. I do them once before sound check and once before the show. I find this all really helps me.

RC: Are there any new songs that you perform live that are really connecting with the audience and surprise you each night?

CB: There’s one track, “Different Game” which I believe will be the opening track to the new album. It seems to be getting on very well. There’s another song with a very strange title that we didn’t play on the last tour but we are going to try on this one. It’s called “Dropped, Willing, and Stupid.” That’s one to look out for.

RC: What’s the most fun for you in all of this at this point in the game? In public you seem the happiest you have ever been.

CB: Well, Rod is the predominant writer in the group. I write mostly for my solo albums. But I really enjoy the whole process of experiencing the spark of a new song and seeing where it comes from. Is it a story that happened to you, or a chord progression? Somehow it appears, and you watch it go through the process of recording where layers are added and it develops even further. Hopefully when you get a wonderful reaction from the audience you can remember the where and when of how the song first started. That really appeals to me.

RC: You all have kept the band’s music alive all these years in one form or another. But it seems like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nomination really energized your resolve as a band, and in a way more formally relaunched your career.

CB: Oh, I think so, yes. It was almost humbling, really. To be nominated and inducted by your fans and Hall members is just wonderful. It’s a confirmation that your body of work does have value. It did raise our profile and add a different energy to how people perceived us and to how actually we perceive ourselves. Without a doubt, the induction ceremony was the most exciting night of my career. But I’m really happy that this band that started in such a small way playing very small venues has built up quite a sizable fan base.

RC: It seems as though acts from the 1960s and 1970s are now no longer under consideration by the Hall. Do you feel like you just made it in under the wire?

CB: I agree. I was thrilled when we were just nominated. We [had been previously] nominated for four years out of five, and I began to think that we were never going to be inducted. Just being nominated was a very pleasant surprise. I had heard a general whisper that they would not go back to the 1960s again. Things can change but I did get the feeling that that was it for the ’60s. I’m just really happy that we cracked in just before they moved on.

RC: The “fake Zombies” story is astonishing. After the release of Odessey and Oracle, the band broke up in 1969, and the Zombies’ US management company created a fake band to capitalize on their name. (Another fake group toured in 1988.) How did you learn about it at the time, and did you ever talk about it with either of the fake bands’ members at some point?

CB: In all honesty I know that musicians need to work, and if that was all that was offered to them, there’s no ill feeling on our end. But it was a little bit strange because [original member] Chris White was in the Rolling Stone offices and they got him to phone the manager of one of those bands, and the manager presumed he worked for the magazine. So, [the manager] went into his spiel and said that they had formed the band to honor the late lead singer of the Zombies who was recently killed. It’s a very sobering experience (laughs) to [hear] your epitaph before you’re actually going through the motions of dying. I think [Chris] explained the situation to him and I think the guy almost died. It was kind of a strange experience.

RC: What does the current band lineup allow you to do that you might not have been able to do before?

CB: It certainly is a different sound. I think there’s more energy on stage than there was before. We were always a very relaxed band in the 1960s. With the original Zombies the sum of the parts was greater than the whole. No one in the band, myself included, was particularly accomplished. We were also very young. But when we came together it somehow worked. It was always fresh and different.

RC: What’s next after this tour ends?

CB: At the end of this tour we will be looking forward to the release of the new album. But then we have another tour in the autumn where we will be going through Scandinavia, Holland and maybe Belgium. So, in the immediate future I’ll be looking forward to that.

Header image of the Zombies courtesy of Alex Lake.

Another summer is now here, and I’m reminded about how, growing up, songs that were hits during the summers of my youth helped to define and more importantly remind me of past summers and the good times I connect to them.

1963

In the summer of 1963, my parents rented a bungalow in Mountain Lodge Park, about 50 miles north of Manhattan off Route 17.

To the many New Yorkers who know that area, part of that drive also included passing by a huge roadside restaurant called the Red Apple Rest. You didn’t want to miss the signs leading up to it because, as a family, someone would need to use the bathroom, or you’d stop to get lunch. The signs were big and told you you were 1,000 feet from the Red Apple Rest, then 500 feet from the Red Apple Rest, then 100 feet from it…

It was kind of like a culinary rite of passage.

After that it was another hour or so to Mt. Lodge Park.

I was 11 years old that summer. It was the summer that Jackie Kennedy lost her baby and it seemed that we all mourned with her.

It was also the summer that I carried a transistor radio everywhere and where I would sit for hours in a tree house I built, listening to my favorite radio station: WABC.

The summer started off with a bang with one of the most unbelievably inappropriate hits that was ever broadcast: “If You Wanna Be Happy” by Jimmy Soul. The song is about the benefits of marrying an ugly girl. The premise being that the girl would be so grateful that she would cook and clean the house happily every day and remain totally faithful, as opposed to the disadvantage of marrying a pretty girl, who would leave you for the next guy and break your heart.

The song is so happy and poppy and I’d never bothered to pay attention (nor did anyone else, apparently) to the lyrics much. I remember my friends and I singing the chorus, however, when we were riding the IRT train on our way to a swimming pool uptown.

“If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife, so from my personal point of view, Get an ugly girl to marry you.” At the end of the song there is a conversation between Jimmy and one of his other singers. Here it is verbatim: “Hey man, I saw your wife the other day. Man, she sure is ugly.” “Yeah, (Jimmy replies), but she sure can cook!”

What an insane message to an 11-year-old (boy or girl)!

That song, along with the Tymes’ “So Much in Love,” followed by “My Boyfriend’s Back” by The Angels, were the soundtrack of that summer.

When I hear any of these songs, it takes me back to the summer of 1963 in Mountain Lodge Park and the treehouse.

Perhaps the greatest memory of the summer of 1963, however, was that it came between three monumental events (at least in the mind of this 11-year-old):

The October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, in which we were all ultimately relieved that the world was not consumed by a nuclear war (remember the bomb drills when we had to shelter under our school desks?)

The assassination of president John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

Five weeks later, the release in the US of the Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand” on December 26, 1963, which went to Number One the following week and further fueled the Beatlemania that followed.

It really is hard sometimes to remember a time when the Beatles were not affecting the entire cultural zeitgeist of our lives. That is what the music that summer brings me back to.

1964

I was at the Ten Mile River Boy Scout camp in Narrowsburg, NY, with my trusty transistor radio always under my pillow.

The songs that summer were:

“Rag Doll” – the Four Seasons

“A Hard Day’s Night” – the Beatles

“Where Did Our Love Go” – the Supremes

It should be noted that all of these acts are now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!

1965

Back to Ten Mile River scout camp in July. My parents rented a house in Ocean Beach, Fire Island, for August.

“I Can’t Help Myself” – the Four Tops

“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” – the Rolling Stones

“I Got You Babe” – Sonny & Cher

“Satisfaction” was the Rolling Stones first Number One song, 18 months after the Beatles arrived, contrary to most memories!

1966

I’m back in Fire Island for the entire summer.

“Strangers in the Night” – Frank Sinatra

“Hanky Panky” – Tommy James and the Shondells

“Wild Thing” – the Troggs

“Summer in the City” – the Lovin’ Spoonful

“See You In September” – the Happenings

“You Can’t Hurry Love” – the Supremes

As you can see, the summer of 1966 was pretty volatile in the world of Top 40 radio in New York!

1967

“Can’t Take My Eyes off You” – the Four Seasons

“Windy” – the Association

“Light My Fire” – the Doors

“All You Need Is Love” – the Beatles

I was attending the Shaker Village summer camp in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. My bunkmate was Ben Chaney, the brother of slain civil rights worker James Chaney. It was the summer of my political awakening. This was the summer that FM radio began to gain prominence for rock listeners, and the path to my pop music soundtrack memories took a decidedly different trajectory.

Although never reaching Number One in the US, “A Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procol Harum is my song of the summer of 1967, and the entire Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was my album of the summer. That does seem fitting, as that album really ushered in, for most of us, the album as the creative voice of an artist not an under-three-minute single.

Where were you?

Do you remember the songs you grew up with?

Were they important?

I want to read your comments and memories.

All songs are listed in chronological order from the last week of June to the first week of September of their respective years. All chart listings courtesy of WABC Musicradio 77.

Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Patrick Gruban.

AES Europe Spring 2022 was held at The Hague in The Netherlands from May 16 – 19, 2022. The overall high standard that the Audio Engineering Society has maintained in their trade show events has been impressive, and this latest event was no exception. The range of online panel discussion topics and educational exhibits alone provided a wealth of insights to professional audio engineers and audiophiles alike

The on-demand streaming of events, developed as a result of the pandemic, has become an essential tool for many, with the added advantage of enabling participants to monitor numerous events that may have overlapped or been held simultaneously in real time. AES is to be commended on its emphasis in ensuring the availability of these resources. As a result, I am selecting a cross-section of different events to cover that I believe will be of particular interest to Copper readers.

Why Does Anyone Still Invest in Analog Equipment?

Swiss audio engineer Daniel Dettwiler has developed a formidable reputation, specializing in recording and mixing film scores and acoustic jazz with world-class orchestras and ensembles. No less a luminary than the late Al Schmitt sang praises for Dettwiler’s work.

One of the first events was his presentation: Why Does Anyone Still Invest in Analog Equipment?

Hosted by MC and composer Oisin Lunny (who was the MC for practically all livestream and in-demand content for AES Europe Spring 2022), Dettwiler weighed in on a topic that has divided camps in both the audiophile as well as audio engineering/production arenas: the preferences and criticisms in the digital vs. analog equipment debate.

Dettwiler recalled that when he first began his career around 1990, he was already sold on Pro Tools (the industry-standard computer audio production software) and digital technology, and admits to being resentful at the time about having to train on a huge analog console, wind tape on Studer machines, and move heavy studio gear, whose sounds could be replicated with plug-in software. He also candidly admitted that back in those days, he could not hear a difference between digital and analog recordings. However, Dettwiler conceded that his early teachers had a bias in favor of computers and digital recording, which colored his initial impressions and his dismissal of the sonic differences between digital to analog and analog to digital converters, among other gear.

Daniel Dettwiler. Courtesy of AES.

Dettwiler’s first intensive A/B comparison experience between analog and digital was the result of a challenge from a friend who only mixed on analog (using a Solid State Logic console) and claimed audio superiority over anything Dettwiler could mix in his Pro Tools-equipped home studio.

Over the next 20 years, Dettwiler found himself continually stumped by certain EQ challenges and mixing obstacles that could not be resolved through software and give him the sounds he heard in his head. As a result, he started investing in analog outboard gear to provide certain audio intangibles, such as warmth, smoother boosts, and other qualities unobtainable digitally.

Starting from the recording process onward, Dettwiler referred to his “Three Criteria of Listening” principles and the notion of “physical integrity” of instruments being captured. He noted that he wants an instrument, like a tenor sax, to sound as close as possible to the real thing at a very low listening level so that it will retain its sonic qualities when raised in volume in a mix with other instruments.

In comparing digital and analog formats for mixing, Dettwiler pointed out that digital has a huge dynamic range with a sound that doesn’t alter if mixed “hot” or not, while analog has a noticeable noise floor, a narrower dynamic clean range up to unity gain, and then some minor harmonic distortion and saturation with a perceptible “glue” that holds a mix together up to +10 dB, with a “punchier” sound and added harmonic distortion up to +25 dB, at which point heavy distortion can ruin a mix if it passes the +25 dB level.

Dettwiler stressed the importance of dynamic range and high “physical integrity” in his recordings because, in his opinion, the final commercial product that goes out to audiophiles and music lovers alike should contain as much of the harmonic content as possible from his original mix.

Daniel Dettwiler’s “Three Criteria of Listening.” Courtesy of AES.

While some audiophiles will often own equipment that has specifications designed to reproduce a good portion, if not the entirety of harmonic content from his mixes, he acknowledged that a sizable proportion of that harmonic content might never be heard by the majority of listeners on their home hi-fi systems (see chart).

Therefore, when heard on an average home audio system, the narrower dynamic range of analog equipment can actually help to “restore” the harmonic content that would ordinarily be “lost” from a digital format that ironically would be closer to sonic reality!

Although all of the mixing and A/B sound comparisons of tracks, guitars and drums that Dettwiler demonstrated were from digital stems and multi-track files, he explained how the use of analog equipment, such as the Pulsar 1178 compressor, can be used to restore the harmonic content of an instrument that loses those aspects at lower volume levels.

Interestingly, Dettwiler’s analyses have led him to conclude that there is an underlying degree of analog-friendly harmonic distortion that we gravitate towards as a sound that is pleasing to the ear, and which is extremely difficult to recreate with plugins in the digital realm. The problem is that trying to reproduce this aural effect digitally often results in aliasing, which can ruin a mix and has a noticeably “artificial” sonic quality.

Daniel Dettwiler’s harmonic content chart. Courtesy of AES.

Dettwiler showed charts that displayed the harmonic distortion generated through analog gear at 3 kHz and 6kHz (on the left of the chart below). The right chart displays the attempts to reproduce the harmonic distortion using digital plug-ins, and shows an unacceptable level of added aliasing and latency.

Dettwiler was quick to emphasize that unlike many of his peers who started on analog and then were won over to digital, he was basically a hardcore digital fan who was seduced by the sound options offered by the analog realm. He sees both technologies as equal but different and will take whichever one best delivers the sound he envisions while mixing, a job that draws more from emotion than from analysis – at least for him.

Analog harmonic distortion (L) vs. digital harmonic distortion (R). Courtesy of AES.

The Potentials and Limitations of Audio Wearables

Audio wearables are a new frontier in portable high-fidelity sound. They’ve gone beyond in-ear and over-ear headphones to include products like sunglasses with built-in audio, clip-on and neckband Bluetooth speakers, and even a vest that delivers 360-degree audio! The Potentials and Limitations of Audio Wearables featured a panel of accredited people from a wide range of fields to discuss the topic.

Moderator Thomas Gmeiner started off the presentation by describing his work with established audio companies like Sennheiser, as well as with fashion companies seeking to incorporate microphones and speaker systems into clothing. He also noted the challenges in overcoming extraneous noises that such a design task imposed, from wind and exterior noise to the sound of the clothing fabric itself – all of which can impede the sound quality of the desired microphone or speaker system.

Thomas Gmeiner, wearable audio presentation, courtesy of AES.

He also mentioned potential applications in other professions where portable, yet clear sound for communication is an important component of the job, such as heavy construction, aviation, and audio for sporting events.

Aili Niimura, a spatial audio designer for Microsoft Mixed Reality, discussed developments in virtual reality (VR) sound and in creating holistic sonic environments.

Pauli Minaar of IDUN Audio summarized the large growth in wearable audio, which he attributes primarily to edge computing and how significant increases in processing power and memory have made the use of multiple sensors and connection to 5G, Wi-Fi, ultra-wideband (UWB) and LE Audio (the next, upcoming generation of Bluetooth audio) a reality.  He also noted that a trend towards people not using smartphones as conspicuously in public, in favor of using more discreet devices like earbuds and smart watches. This has also increased interest in wearable audio, which is also tied into the increased consumer consumption of podcasts, music, audiobooks, and audio-based media.

One of his areas of research is in the use of dynamic spatial audio processes for sound picked up by wearable sensors, in order to transmit localization of sounds for the listener in an enhanced fashion.

Aili Niimura. Courtesy of AES.

Amy LaMeyer represented the venture capitalist perspective on wearable audio. Her WXR Fund specializes in early-stage financing of VR, AR and AI companies who have female executive management.

Matt Neutra, who worked with Amy and Aili to design an AR product, mentioned that the obsession with technology results in frequently overlooking the human brain and the psychological aspects and impressions that are derived from the technology, and which are, ironically, the impetus for developing the technology. He is especially fascinated as to how spatial audio can be rendered through hardware, to now exceed the capabilities of human hearing.

The last guest was Jan Abildgaard Pedersen. A former executive consultant to Bang & Olufsen, Dion Audio and Amazon, he commented about the physical limitations of wearable audio, such as the tiny size of the microphones, the limitations of near-field audio, limited power (battery) capability, and limited audio bandwidth. However, he does see wearables as an excellent innovation platform for combining audio and sensors with other technologies and applications.

Neutra commented that wearables can subdivide their sensor functions to augment Bluetooth capability, separating low-, mid- and high-frequencies and routing the audio to different speakers or performing processing for headphones to create artificial spatial location. He noted that making the user experience the most important aspect was the best impetus for faster development towards commercially-viable products.

Amy LaMeyer. Courtesy of AES.

Gmeiner noted that the increased use of wearables featuring concealed microphones and cameras could create new issues regarding privacy and unauthorized recording, topics that the product developers have frequently overlooked.

Matthew Neutra. Courtesy of AES.

Minaar cited that one of the goals of wearable audio designers is to migrate the focus from the smartphone being the hub device around which other devices are viewed as peripheral, to the wearable being the new hub, in which a smartphone is but one of several interactive devices.

LaMeyer stressed the importance of comfort and ergonomics, especially with wearables meant to be worn for extended periods of time. Her past experience made her aware that VR headsets that were too complex to use and uncomfortable to wear had created obstacles towards commercial acceptance.

The panel, overall, was in accord with the future prospects for wearable multimedia platforms and specifically, wearable audio.

Audio Archiving and Restoration: A Special Focus on Collections Recorded on Analogue Discs

A topic near and dear to the hearts of all music-loving Copper readers is audio archiving and restoration – especially for recordings that would otherwise be lost to antiquity. Audio Archiving and Restoration: A Special Focus on Collections Recorded on Analogue Discs featured a panel discussion including:

Nadja Wallaszkovits – Vienna Phonogrammarchiv audio engineer and Professor for Conservation of New Media, University of Stuttgart

Ilse Assmann – sound and A/V conservation consultant, University of Johannesburg

Jessica Thompson – GRAMMY-nominated mastering and restoration engineer

Brad McCoy – senior studio engineer, Library of Congress

Rob Allingham – South African music archivist and film sound engineer

Wallaszkovits began the presentation with a checklist of specific challenges faced by preservationists and archivists, such as poor storage conditions that accelerate deterioration of discs or tapes. This manifests in a number of ways:

• Warping and breakage
• Dust and dirt contamination
• High humidity and temperature, which can lead to acetate brittleness, mold, and other problems
• Poor handling, leading to scratches and surface damage

As an example, she cited an old shellac recording that was warped like a potato chip. The restoration specialists were able to apply extreme cold refrigeration and center pressure from a CD (they used an actual CD as a flattening device) in order to sufficiently flatten the disc and get an acceptable transfer for archiving.

Another key area of restoration and recovery in archiving is in the replay system: variables between turntable speeds, types of styli, equalization options, and other parameters intended to maximize sound replay and minimize extraneous noise can yield a wide range of results.

Wallaszkovits cited the use of the AES playback-standard curve established in 1950 (i.e., a 400 Hz bass turnover and 2.5 kHz treble transition frequency) and how it differed from the commonly-used RIAA playback curve established for vinyl records in 1953.

Examples of bad disc storage conditions. Courtesy of AES.

Ilse Assmann and Rob Allingham discussed their work in the restoration and preservation of old South African 78 rpm recordings. Allingham recounted the early history of recording in South Africa and Cape Town in particular, from the very first spoken word records by the London-based Gramophone Company in 1906 and going into the Depression era, where pioneer Eric Gallo created the indigenous South African music recording industry with his first records, after years of importing American records for the South African market.

While World War II halted the bulk of activity in South Africa, Gallo convinced his good friend, Sir Edward “Ted” Lewis of Decca Records in the UK, to declare in a 1960 speech that South Africans were the largest record consumers in the world on a per capita basis.

The South African recording industry had exploded after the War, and scores of private companies, each with as many as a dozen or so separate labels, emerged to cater to the widely diverse South African market, which was audience-subdivided by different tribes, languages, and demographics.

Some of the countless South African record labels from the 1950s and 1960s. Courtesy of AES.

Allingham noted that the relative insularity of South Africa resulted in the 78 rpm format still being used as late as 1968. As a result, a significant portion of South African masters have been lost to history, since those records were made from direct lacquer masters that eventually wore out or broke, rather than from tape. He has thus become especially precise in his restoration work when it comes to stylus choice, since the range of lacquer master quality was so wide, and optimum transfer of sound information can only be derived from choosing the best stylus to match the groove curve depths of each particular disc, combined with the right EQ to maximize fidelity.

Allingham summed up the task as one so monumental that to fully accomplish it might take a cultural initiative on the part of the government or by institution-level funding by private collectors who view the project as a historic and cultural imperative.

Audio engineering preservation specialist Brad McCoy’s presentation detailed the work he does at the US Library of Congress. The massive Culpepper, VA repository holds:

• More than 1 million moving image collection materials, including movies, TV, commercial ads, educational, and industrial content
• More than 3.6 million audio collection commercial recordings, radio broadcasts, and historic recordings
• More than 2.2. Million supporting documents in the form of photos, screenplays, press kits and manuscripts.

The collection grows at the rate of approximately 150,000 new items per year.

Brad McCoy and the Simon Yorke turntable. Courtesy of AES.

The Library of Congress uses Simon Yorke turntables exclusively for analog disc work.

For analog disc playback for restoration, preservation and archiving, the Simon Yorke turntable used by the Library of Congress offers incredibly precise specifications, with the ability to adjust speed to 1/100th of an rpm. McCoy noted that in order to replay 78 rpm records precisely for correct musical pitch, the speed must be at 78.26 rpm, for example.

McCoy walked participants through the protocols he employs, which start with disc cleaning. McCoy uses a collection of Keith Monks disc cleaning machines for all source-material analog discs.

Keith Monks disc cleaners. Courtesy of AES.

To avoid contamination, three Keith Monks cleaners are each dedicated to cleaning only vinyl, lacquer, and shellac discs, respectively. The process employs a custom vacuum which literally sucks the grime out of the grooves.

McCoy concurred with Allingham that selecting the right stylus is crucial for optimum playback fidelity. However, McCoy and his colleagues, all engineering veterans, rely more on their ears than on measurement equipment, so a huge collection of stylus choices from Stanton, Shure, and other companies is available to them.

McCoy also noted that lacquer acetates can often come with protective coatings, such as aluminum, which, though noisy, can yield acceptable-to-good fidelity results when cleaned properly. He personally transferred some of the first ever 1933 Leadbelly prison recordings of “The Midnight Special” and “Goodnight Irene” by Alan Lomax from a bare aluminum disc, with exceptionally satisfying results.

From an Archiving 101 perspective, McCoy emphasized:

• Always save multiple copy backups in different locations.
• Preserve the original whenever possible in a temperature- and humidity-controlled storage place.
• Actively maintain both the preservation copy master and the original.
• Always make the best archival transfer possible and seek a preservation specialist if proper resources are unavailable.

McCoy sees archiving trickling down to other formats, such as wire recording and audio cassettes, and notes that new technologies and processes are always in development.

San Francisco-based engineer Jessica Thompson spoke about the specifics of vinyl source restoration and dealing with sonic problems related to vinyl, including how to deal with clicks and pops. She also pointed out some resources for useful software tools to help with the archiving process.

Thompson likens the work of vinyl restoration to archaeological excavation. As she puts it, “what we do is excavate a beautiful music recording that is covered under layers of vinyl dirt, grime, nicks and dings on the surface.”

When working on vinyl restorations, Thompson prefers using iZotope RX software (see my article, “Elvis is Back in the Building,” in Issue 127) for audio transfers, in its full spectrum mode with the de-click module. This method allows her to both see and hear the results of what she is doing.

Using examples from other restoration projects she had done, Thompson pointed out how certain instruments, like the harp, can become a nightmare, since iZotope RX has difficulty distinguishing between the sound of a harp pluck, and a click noise in the vinyl. In such cases she has to go into manual mode in order to individually remove the quieter clicks and pops without deleting the harp sounds as well.

Thompson’s strategy tips for click and pop removal include:

• Adjust the sensitivity in Auto mode for the maximum possible level, without affecting the audio.
• Use multiple passes to compare results.
• Treat intros, outros, and quiet passages differently than the bulk of the other content.
• Listen for ticks and thumps that might actually be part of the source material.
• Use Manual mode when needed to remove individual clicks and pops.

Although there was insufficient time to go into detail, Thompson also mentioned that iZotope RX was useful for removing groove distortion, sibilance, and rumble from a source recording.

iZotope RX screen sample from Jessica Thompson. Courtesy of AES.

McCoy applauded Thompson for her subtle and meticulous approach towards removing what was needed, without “sucking the life out of the recording.”

Wallaszkovits summarized the presentation by pointing out that engineers should trust their ears most of all when doing archiving and restoration work, rather than depending on looking at a computer screen. She concluded, “the best filter you have is the brain between your ears.”

The next part of our AES Europe Spring 2022 report will delve into presentations on new developments in loudspeakers and headphones.

In my article “My Favorite Venues, Part One” (Issue 164), we explored some of the larger venues on the Front Range of Colorado. While there were occasional jazz acts, these concert locales attracted a largely rock audience. By 1980 I was moving away from rock and more into mainstream jazz and jazz fusion. Live music was becoming so ubiquitous that many restaurants had local jazz bands playing in their lounge on the weekends, generally for free, although some places had a two-drink minimum or a small cover. A good meal followed by some live music made for a great evening of entertainment. We’ll start on some small venues and save the masterpieces for last.

Small Club Venues

There have been so many small club venues that have sprung up over the years and are now defunct that it’s impossible to discuss them all. Many seemed to come and go so quickly.

Simms Landing, a nautical-themed restaurant, had a wonderful piano bar that had a magnificent view of downtown Denver. It was just large enough for a piano, an upright bass and a small drum kit, along with a few tables. Usually, there was just a piano. Under the current ownership, it’s now Simms Steakhouse, and you can now get a $50 steak à la carte in that room instead of live music.

Regas’ Café in Denver had a small jazz club upstairs about the same size as the piano bar at Simms Landing. It was cozy. After a nice meal in the restaurant, you could settle in for an evening of jazz. Rob Mullins was the house act and will always be remembered for his rendition of Vince Guaraldi’s “Linus and Lucy.” He moved to Los Angeles and disappeared for a while, but he’s back, on the internet, and occasionally plays at Dazzle in Denver. Dazzle is a supper club and features a single admission ticket price where you get the music along with your table reservation for dinner from a prix fixe menu.

The Diamond Cabaret is a gentlemen’s club in downtown Denver. In the 1980s, when the witching hour arrived, they sent the girls home and the basement became a jazz club. Guitarist Dale Bruning could often be found there.

The Blue Note on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder was a great jazz club, which brought in big-name acts. It was more commercial than the restaurant clubs, with formal shows and ticketed admission. It had good acoustics.

A few of clubs turned into cultural icons. It’s worth discussing them in some detail.

The Oxford Hotel

The Oxford Hotel. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons/Trueshow111.

Denver’s Lower Downtown, named as it is slightly lower in elevation (in Colorado, up and down are colloquially referred to elevation, not north and south on the map), was a disaster in 1970. If you drove through the area, the most obvious sight was all of the drunks sitting on the sidewalk leaning up against the dilapidated buildings, often holding a bottle. The first redevelopment project was Larimer Square, a one-block area of Larimer Street just north of Speer Boulevard and Cherry Creek. Larimer Square became an area filled with boutique shops and nice restaurants. Its success spurred other redevelopment projects, reaching to the north, one block at a time.

In a few years, the redevelopment of LoDo caught up with the Oxford Hotel. Opening in 1891, it is Denver’s oldest. In 1983, a multiyear renovation of the hotel was completed and it reopened in its still intact Art Deco splendor with live music in the corner room. The cover charge was low. I remember paying $3.00 for jazz acts. That room, which was behind a giant sagging stained-glass window, later became a restaurant. But for a while, there was a wealth of good music there.

We saw saxophonist Richie Cole twice, along with a many local acts. The stained-glass window is no longer visible in current pictures. I suspect it collapsed before it could be saved. The outward bulge at the bottom was about four to five inches and it was in dire straits even then.

Dana Crawford was instrumental in the redevelopment of Larimer Square. She also played a major role in redeveloping the Oxford and has been involved in almost every redevelopment project in the LoDo area. She was nicknamed the Dragon of LoDo as, much like Barry Fey, she had a fierce bite, but a velvety exterior. She got things done, and sometimes, that’s what it takes. For more information on her, check out this Colorado Encyclopedia article. The Crawford Hotel in Union Station is named in her honor.

El Chapultepec

El Chapultepec. Courtesy of Rocky Mountain PBS.

After 87 years, El Chapultepec is also gone. It was one of my favorite haunts. It consisted of two rooms. One was just large enough for a billiards table and the other one had a bar, a few booths, and a stage the size of a freight pallet. During the early 1980s, redevelopment hadn’t made it this far north and it was a bit seedy during the day with a largely working crowd as patrons. The Pec was known for their green chile, and it was delicioso. There was usually no cover charge, but it was courteous to purchase food.

Somewhere around 7:00 PM, the tables started to turn over and the upwardly mobile would start to show up for live music. The key was to get there exactly at the right time to get one of the few, maybe eight, tables, and bring cash. Then, you waited for musicians to show up, usually sharing a table with others. You never knew who would stop by to jam, but it was always the best jazz available, seven nights a week. Even Bill Clinton showed up there once with his saxophone.

While the neighborhood was a little questionable, in the 1980s you could usually get parking on the street within 100 feet of the front door and safety was never an issue…then. Acoustics, well, about the same as your untreated living room, but being within touching distance of famous musicians made up for it. The redevelopment of the LoDo area and the opening of Coors Field for the Colorado Rockies baseball team were just too much for the tiny venue to handle, and it recently closed. Some blame this on the pandemic, but the owners say it was more related to the large unruly crowds.

For more than 40 years, Freddy Rodriguez Sr. had a standing gig at the Pec. He passed in March 2020 due to complications from COVID-19. He was 89 years old.

The Margarita at Pine Creek

Eat your carrots! Courtesy of the Margarita at Pine Creek.

The Margarita at Pine Creek isn’t a concert venue per se, but it is a great hangout. A bit art gallery, a bit restaurant, with some excellent Southwestern cuisine and a lounge downstairs with live Celtic music. It’s a fun place on the Northwest side of Colorado Springs. I spent many an evening there. When I lived on Monument Hill, long before the advent of Uber, I had my car trained to take me there. All I had to do was point it downhill. Now, if I just could have trained it to take me home at the end of the night, I would have been on to something big.

The Margarita opened in 1974 with a mission of hosting local musicians as part of the fine dining experience. Baroque music is featured in the dining room on Saturday nights. The Margarita may be the only restaurant in Colorado Springs with a harpsichord.

In the late 1970s, the lounge downstairs was opened and featured a variety of folk acts. Blarney Pilgrim, a Celtic Dulcimer band, was the mainstay every month and you could hear hoots and hollers coming up the stairs while waiting at the maître d’s station. A variation of that band, Swallowtail, still plays there once a month. You can also catch bluegrass, calypso jazz, Cajun and other eclectic sounds there three times a week.

During the summer, the outdoor patio opens and the music moves outside to add to the whimsical patio atmosphere. The Margarita also hosts the Colorado Farm and Art Market farmer’s market.

They have brought in a new chef in the kitchen since I was last there, so the menu is more seasonal eclectic than Southwestern now, and the lounge is temporarily closed, due to the pandemic affecting staffing levels. During the pandemic, they filmed all of the live music performances for customers to enjoy while dining on takeout.

Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre

Playing to a full house. Courtesy of Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre.

The steep slope of the lawn. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons/Heath Alseike.

Fiddler’s Green seated (or maybe slid is a better word) nearly 18,000. It was originally a big, steep, grassy bowl of an outdoor sculpture for community and symphonic events. Numerous lunchtime concerts were offered for workers in the surrounding office buildings. That wasn’t lost on the concert promoters. In the beginning, there was no stage, and cranes were brought in to handle the tasks of holding the trusses for lights and so on. The stage, sound system (by ListenUp), 7,900 fixed seats, and other infrastructure were added in the mid 1980s.

When the Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre opened for rock concerts in 1988, the number of concerts at Red Rocks dropped from 55 to 21. Barry Fey responded by flying airplanes above the venue trailing banners that read, “I’d rather be at Red Rocks.” Red Rocks recovered.

Music under a Colorado sunset. Courtesy of the Museum of Outdoor Arts, Englewood, Colorado.

In 2013, the venue owner, the Museum of Outdoor Art, announced a 15-year partnership with concert promoter AEG Presents: Rocky Mountains to run the Amphitheatre. A major facelift was completed, making the venue what it is today. If Barry Fey saved Red Rocks, then you can easily argue that Chuck Morris, the president and CEO of AEG Presents: Rocky Mountains, did the same for Fiddler’s Green.

Brown Note Productions now handles the sound system configuration for AEG, and it varies by individual concert requirements. Of interest is their use of time delay to sync the speakers throughout the Amphitheatre, a technique used in large venues to ensure that the sound arrives at your ears simultaneously from the stage and from speakers that are farther away, if you’re sitting at a distance from the stage.

July 4, 2016 at Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre. Photo courtesy the Museum of Outdoor Arts/Heather A. Longway.

Shortly before leaving Colorado, my brother showed up on my doorstep with my marching orders.

Bro: “Pack a bag. We won’t be back here tonight.”

Me: “Where are we going?”

Bro: “I have tickets to Jeff Beck!”

I grabbed my gym bag, some clean skivvies, two sets of earplugs, and two ponchos, and we headed out the door. We checked into the Sheraton Denver Tech Center Hotel, grabbed a quick burger in the fern bar and took the shuttle to Fiddler’s Green. The shuttles had special access. For the cost of a tip for the driver, you got door to door service and went to the front of the line at admissions.

My brother had seats all right; front and center, third row VIP seats. Swag, too. What a concert to remember. The opening act was a local band. The second was none other than that little band from Texas, ZZ Top. It was 2014 and the last year Jeff toured with Tal Wilkenfeld and Vinnie Colaiuta.

It was an awesome performance and crazy loud. A local ordinance limits sound levels to 105 dB at the mixing booth. I had grabbed 20 dB-attenuating ear plugs on the way out the door and we needed every one of those dBs. We needed the ponchos, too. As is typical on a hot summer evening in Colorado, the skies opened and drained on us. Jeff never missed a beat. This concert goes down as one of the best ever.

The only downside all evening was the lack of a shuttle back to the hotel. It was about a one-mile hoof in the dark and having no night vision made it less than fun. The next time I’ll bring a flashlight.

Observations

While it took a number of years to figure out what should have been obvious all along, we had finally arrived at the best way to experience live concerts at big venues. Arrive early, check into a hotel close to the venue, leave the car behind, and leave for home at your convenience. In the next article in this series, we polish these principles to perfection.

And remember, support live music. With recording contracts being what they are today, touring is one of the few ways artists have to make a living. Find what works for you regarding your concerns for health and safety, and patronize live music venues, and especially local talent. Coddle and foster those artists to help them thrive. Without them, we audiophiles would have nothing to play on our high-end systems.

Header image of El Chapultepec courtesy of Rocky Mountain PBS/KUVO.

Poets are not exactly part of mainstream culture these days. I’m only familiar with a few headliners from the last 3,000 years: Homer, Geoffrey Chaucer, Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, and Allen Ginsberg. It’s nothing to be proud of, but most poets don’t speak to me in the way my favorite musicians do. I remember in Miss Hill’s 11^th grade English class having to memorize and recite a poem – with express instructions that we could not use song lyrics. I went through our textbook and tried to find an excerpt from something that grabbed me and would impress Miss Hill. The Faerie Queene, written in 1590 by Edmund Spencer was similar to some of the other works we studied:

Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske,
As time her taught in lowly Shepheards weeds,
Am now enforst a far unfitter taske,
For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds,
And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds;
Whose prayses having slept in silence long,
Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds
To blazon broad emongst her learned throng:
Fierce warres and faithful loves shall moralize my song…

With my stage fright, I could barely memorize this one stanza let alone two from this epic work of more than 36,000 lines. Maybe I could recite something similar I had already committed to memory. So on my performance day I went right into “My Fairy King” by Roger Meadows Taylor. It was close enough to Edmund Spencer:

In the land where horses born with eagle wings
And honey bees have lost their stings
There’s singing forever, ooh yeah
Lion’s den with fallow deer
And rivers made from wine so clear
Flow on and on forever…

The “poem” was a deep cut from Queen’s 1973 debut album Queen and it was written by Freddie Mercury. In a class full of Duran Duran and Run DMC fans, no one knew any better, not even Miss Hill. She was unimpressed by “My Fairy King,” but I was happy to maintain my solid C-average in her class. I have not given much thought to poetry since high school until Don Letts’ documentary Punk: Attitude (2005). Forty-two minutes into the film, a man in dark glasses resembling Bob Dylan from the 1960s, sang verses as he walked down a dilapidated urban landscape. It was the Bard of Salford, John Cooper Clarke, describing an overnight jail stay in “36 Hours”:

…Steel shoes on the stone cold floor
I hear the screws screaming in the corridor
The bad news and the slammin’ of the door
The “what did i do’s” and the “what am I here for’s”
Shades of doubt fall deeper than the slag mine
Lights out… sack time…

Clarke’s words, appearance, and level of cool was much more appealing than Beat poets from a bygone age of smoky cafes full of Ivy league students drinking espresso. He was clearly a man of the people and a true rock and roller.

John Cooper Clarke was born on January 25, 1949 in Salford, just outside of Manchester, which is within 50 miles of Liverpool, Leeds, and Sheffield. Inspired by an English teacher, Clarke decided poetry was his calling. As every sensible person knows, choosing to write words over an honest day’s work is either brave, desperate, or just plain stupid, but brilliance sometimes perseveres despite imperfect circumstances.

Clarke’s language is raw and unadorned except for the twang of a northern accent, more like that of Liam Gallagher than a teacher of poetry in Oxford. He performed against a backdrop of Margaret Thatcher’s administration and opened for the Sex Pistols, Clash, Buzzcocks, and other acts whose fans spit all over his suits. In the early days, Clarke’s rough subject matter was softened by The Invisible Girls, his back-up band, who provided ambient soundtracks to stanzas like those in “Beasly Street”:

… From the boarding houses and the bedsits
Full of accidents and fleas
Somebody gets it
Where the missing persons freeze
Wearing dead men’s overcoats
You can’t see their feet
A riff joint shuts – opens up
Right down on Beasly Street…

The late 1970s and early 1980s were a fertile period for Clarke, but there were many years following that proved to be challenging, as he dealt with heroin addiction and financial struggles. He even shared an apartment with Nico of Velvet Underground fame, also a heroin user at the time. But seeds planted in the Punk era continued to blossom later in Clarke’s life as he enjoyed a resurgence in the 21^st century. He was rediscovered by young musicians like the Arctic Monkeys, became a frequent guest on chat shows, and spread his Mancunian wisdom to far-flung places. His poem “Evidently Chickentown” was featured in a 2007 episode of The Sopranos. In 2013, Clarke was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Salford for 50 years of influencing culture and creating poetry for non-traditional audiences like the working class, punks and underachieving students like me. Ironically, his work is now part of the national curriculum in British schools. He’s also been busy writing, and recently completed a new collection of poems for his book, The Luckiest Guy Alive (2018), and a memoir, I Wanna Be Yours (2020).

Dr. John Cooper Clarke hit the road with Squeeze for a long-awaited 2018 tour of Australia, and the man I first learned about in Letts’ documentary was also making annual visits to New York. In 2019, I attended my first official poetry reading at Joe’s Pub in the Public Theatre in Manhattan. With his 116-pound rail-thin frame, angular face, and oversized hairdo (think Robert Smith of the Cure), Clarke was equal parts rock star, raconteur, and comedian. He performed without a band as poems old and new flowed like music to their own natural beat. Although most people came to see Clarke, Joe’s Pub was also graced by Mike Garry, Clarke’s frequent tour partner and former librarian from Manchester, who brought the audience to tears with a poem about his primary school teacher, Miss McCoombe, “Signify”:

…And in that Classroom her voice was music
Echoing prayer and hymns and songs
She was a living angel
But you’d know if you did wrong
She took us on school trips
To castles with moats across oceans on boats and we would float
And we hadn’t even left the classroom…

John Cooper Clarke. From the John Cooper Clarke website.

As Garry started reciting to a roomful of adults panic-buying cocktails before the servers vanished, we were suddenly transformed into quiet children riveted by someone reading aloud to us again. Who could believe that live poetry could be so enthralling? It is, after all, simply a combination of the correct words arranged in perfect positions like in my poem, “Ode to Miss H”:

Miss Hill was then my least favorite teacher and not one to anger
She had a steely countenance; rarely did I see her smile
and her piercing gaze was as good as a slap in the face
But she read The Canterbury Tales and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight aloud in Middle English
and brought them to life in Morningside Heights
She knew everything about grammar and history
and I believed she was fluent in Latin, French, ancient Greek, and perhaps Old English as well
I wish I weren’t so wary and fearful
I can’t imagine what went unlearned
But, only she, for-ever made me love words – some of the best ones
The old words from Beowulf, Macbeth, and The Wife of Bath’s Tale…

I could not think of a final blockbuster line except maybe, “So, it wasn’t all hell,” or “It still turned out pretty swell.” Even with heartfelt memories and emotions, there was no avoiding poor rhyme scheme, lack of imagery, and terrible verbosity. Furthermore, I am completely derivative of Garry’s beautifully-delivered poem to Miss McCoombe. The time it took to me just to write something hokey is staggering. From now on, I will leave it to professionals.

At 73, Clarke is currently making appearances throughout the UK and Ireland, and he will be doing shows in Toronto, Boston, and New York City later in the fall. If you want to see a singular legend of spoken word, do it this year. Clarke was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, so we have no idea how many tours he will able to do. Even with this sad news, Clarke sees the bright side. “There are three benefits of Alzheimer’s, one, you get to meet new people every day; two, you can hide your own Easter eggs, and three, you get to meet new people every day.” Spoken like a true poet.

If you still haven’t fallen in love with poetry, I will give you one more chance with my favorite John Cooper Clarke piece, “Reader’s Wives”:

Make a date with the brassy brides of Britain
The altogether ruder readers’ wives
Who put down their needles and their knitting
At the doorway to our dismal daily lives…

Header image from the John Cooper Clarke website.

(Cat haters might want to hit the “Next” button, but if you do, you’ll miss a photo of Otis, my neighbor’s Golden Retriever puppy, a serious candidate for the world’s cutest puppy.)

I love dogs. I will pet any and every dog that crosses my path (as long as their owner says it’s okay). When I was growing up, we couldn’t have dogs or cats because of my brother’s allergies. As a result, we became the neighborhood reptile experts, with a rotating array of lizards and snakes occupying terrariums in our house (usually alligator lizards and gopher or bull snakes – garter snakes don’t do so well in captivity). Our mom was cool with that, and it made for great show-and-tell days at school. Neighbors would call us to say there was a lizard or snake in their garage and ask that we come get it. It was fun, but I would have loved having a dog.

The author at 14.

That said, my non-human domestic companions have all been cats. I understand the responsibilities of dog ownership, and I am not up to the task day in and day out. My late mother was always disappointed that I never wanted children. “You’d make such a great father,” she would say. My reply was “Mom, I have a cat because I don’t want the responsibility of a dog – if I don’t want the responsibility of a dog, I got no business having kids!”

I think I’ve had pretty good luck with cats. I have never had a finicky eater or a furniture destroyer. A later kitten did do a bit of damage to a few record album covers, but that was nipped in the bud. I thank my lucky stars that speaker grilles have never been a temptation.

Kitter, my first cat.

I got my first cat when I was in my mid-20s. It was a young female that my girlfriend and I named “Kitter,” a sort of play on the name of actress Margot Kidder. Kitter was a sweet girl and a champion fetcher. I could throw a ping pong-sized ball of tinfoil down the hall and she would chase it, bring it back and drop it for another run. We even set up a couple of hurdles over which she would bound – forward without the ball and then back with it in her mouth.

We were waiting for her to have her first heat before we planned to have her spayed. Thinking we had caught her in the very beginning of the cycle, we kept her inside for two weeks, during which she yowled and perched on the windowsill, hoping for “you know what.” Neighborhood toms came by and threw themselves at the window. After things calmed down, we let her out again. A few weeks later, we noticed her belly was growing. Dang! She must have found “love” in the hours before we confined her.

Kitter gave birth to four kittens. We had set up a birthing box and I sat next to it when she seemed ready, but she jumped on my lap and started pushing, so I quickly relocated her to the box. As we had planned to give all four away, we didn’t name them, thinking that would be the new owners’ privilege. Instead, we called them by their birth order number. We ended up keeping “One,” so coming up with a proper name was our next task. This began a tradition of naming my cats after British musicians whenever I could. “One” spelled backwards is “Eno,” and that became his name (after Brian Peter George Saint John the Baptist de la Salle Eno, founding member of Roxy Music, producer of U2, and innovator of ambient music). Eno (the cat, that is) picked up his mother’s fetching habit quite readily.

All was well until one day when I came outside to find Kitter lying dead in our front yard, with no signs of trauma. We had to assume that she had been poisoned somehow. Eno was hiding in the narrow space between our house and the next. It took some coaxing to get him out, but he ended up adjusting pretty well to life on his own.

Then, another tragedy – he had followed me as I walked across the quiet street to the little grocery on the corner. When I came out, he was lying in the street, with a little bit of blood from one claw, but no other indication of trouble. We took him to the emergency vet clinic, and an X-ray revealed a broken hip. I think that he may have been hit by a bicycle rather than by a car. We couldn’t afford the treatment necessary to properly address the injury, so we took him home and hoped for the best. Within a day or two, he was jumping on my lap, with his leg just dangling. He recovered to the point where he could run and climb almost as though nothing had happened.

Eno, son of Kitter.

After a year or two, and a move to a bigger house, we figured it was time for a companion cat for Eno. Some friends were having a “kitten adoption” party, and one little guy jumped on my lap and started purring away. We took it as a sign and brought him home in a box. When we set the box down, Eno took one look inside and swiped at the new boy. Uh-oh, might be trouble.

We decided to put the new kid in a bathroom with food, water, and a litter box to spend the night. Eno slept on our bed with us as usual. The kitten, of course, was not happy, and proceeded to yowl and scratch at the bathroom door until I couldn’t take it anymore (sleep was out of the question). I picked up the little fellow, who was all purrs instantaneously, and set him down on the bed to see what would happen. I crawled back under the covers and in a matter of minutes, I heard a mixture of purrs and slurping sounds. The kitten was nursing at Eno (a neutered male, mind you) and he was just lying back and letting it happen. They got along famously after that.

Eno and Fripp at Christmas (note the bow).

It was naming time again, and I felt there was no other choice but to name him after Robert Fripp, founder and guitarist for King Crimson. What made it mandatory for me was the fact that Fripp and Eno had done an album together called No Pussyfooting. So, for a few years, I had both Fripp and Eno. Of course, names tend to get messed with, and Fripp’s litany of monikers included Fripper, Fripp Dip, Fripper Dipper, and even Chip Dip.

Shortly before a vaccine would become available, feline leukemia (FeLV) raised its ugly head. Eno was diagnosed with it and had to be put down in the hope that Fripp would not be infected.

Fripp was smart, sweet, and probably my favorite cat. He accompanied me through several moves of domiciles (and girlfriends). At the age of 16, he developed cancer in his jaw and it was his time to go. We had the vet come to the house for the euthanasia, and it was the best decision. If you have to say goodbye to a pet, I highly recommend that you find a vet who will do a house call. That way, your pet’s last experience in life is being comforted by you, not a trip to the place they hate (the vet’s office).

A relationship change meant that I was back in an apartment that didn’t allow pets. After a couple of years, I moved to one that would let me have a cat. A friend told me about Hunter, a beautiful Bengal cat who was in need of a new home. His owners had gotten him as a (probably expensive) kitten, along with a dog at the same time, but Hunter wasn’t comfortable around the dog and chose to live outside for five years. Feeling he deserved better, his owners had decided to give him up. I went to visit him and was smitten with his looks. He became my fourth cat.

Hunter the Beautiful.

As is recommended when relocating a cat, I kept Hunter inside for a couple of weeks, during which he made no moves to go out, even when I did. Eventually though, he felt the need for the great outdoors and tentatively ventured out, only going down a few stair steps before running back in. In time, he got to the bottom of the stairs and explored his surroundings. One time, he followed me out and didn’t come back for a week. I feared he might be trying to find his way back to his old place. I posted flyers and left food by my door. One quiet night, I could hear the food being eaten, but when I got to the door, the culprit was gone. Was it Hunter? After a couple of nights like that, I found Hunter meowing at the door, and he became a reliably indoor/outdoor cat.

About a year later, we (Hunter and I) moved in with a new girlfriend who had two cats of her own, George and Nikita (a female), along with a large Rottweiler. I was concerned that Hunter might not want to be around the dog, but they all got along well. Over time, her cats disappeared one by one, possibly victims of predators. A few years later, one of our friends passed away, leaving two cats, Smokey and Sammy. Smokey was a robust and confident black cat, full of personality, while Sammy was an orange tabby with a much more laid-back demeanor. The friend had left her house to her (less-than-responsible) teenaged son. It soon became apparent that the cats were not being cared for, and I ended up surreptitiously feeding them every morning on my way to work. They quickly learned to recognize the sound of my car. After a while, my girlfriend insisted on our “catnapping” them and bringing them to our place. I was apprehensive at first, but I did it. The son never even acknowledged what we had done.

(Part Two, which will explore life with Smokey and Sammy, Mr. Earl (nee Miss Pearl), and Maddy (my current cat), will appear in Issue 167.)

Now, as promised, here’s Otis the Golden Retriever!

Header image courtesy of Pexels.com/Kelvin Valerio.

You probably all realize by now that I’ve been trying to grab as many of the Steven Wilson-remixed/remastered CD/Blu-ray/DVD-A sets as possible. Having come somewhat late to the game, I’ve found some of them to be nearly impossible to find, and often cost-prohibitive when I do come across them. It had appeared to me that many titles from the British band XTC were definitely nowhere to be found, when last October, I stumbled onto the CD/Blu-ray set of Drums and Wires on the Import CDs website. Buoyed by that discovery, I started searching like mad for the other available XTC titles, which at this point includes Black Sea, Drums and Wires, Skylarking, Nonsuch, and Oranges & Lemons. I was pretty distressed to find information on a Steven Wilson website where he referenced his remix work on the albums, and his personal disappointment that the multi-track tapes for English Settlement have yet to be located. WTF – I freaking loooove that album!

From October into November, of 2021, I had zero luck tracking down any of the other available albums, and just about gave up. About a month ago, however, I did a random search for Oranges & Lemons, and that led me to an Amazon listing for the CD/Blu-ray set! Expecting it to be sold out, I clicked on the listing…and the seller was Import CDs! I raced to their site and was amazed to find that all the XTC CD/Blu-ray sets had been re-pressed and were again available. You wouldn’t believe how quickly I pulled the trigger! To top things off, no master tapes had yet been located for English Settlement; however, another version of the masters had been found, and the album was now available on CD. All of the above are on XTC’s own Ape House label, and the CD/Blu-ray sets are truly outstanding in every way. My listening is limited to strictly stereo at the moment, so no comments are forthcoming about my impressions of the surround mixes, but most everyone on the boards seems to love them.

In my usual fashion, I don’t base my impressions from disc playback – I rip the stereo CDs with dB Poweramp software, and use a combination of DVD Fab and DVD Audio Extractor to rip the Blu-ray discs to get the 24/96 stereo files. The CDs typically include multiple bonus tracks, and the Blu-ray discs in this series have a wealth of available options, with many of them in uncompressed PCM 24/96, which goes for the multichannel tracks as well. The sound quality of Steven Wilson’s remix/remasters is superb, and in my experience, exceeds that of any digital disc version preceding these releases. All come very highly recommended! I’ll start with three of the titles I’ve grabbed and continue with the rest in the next issue.

I also have been doing all my listening with the new Gustard X26 Pro DAC and C18 Constant Temperature Clock unit. I’ve been futzing about with various clock cables, trying to determine which is best for ultimate fidelity (it does make a difference). I’m pretty sure I’m just about there, and the sound I’m getting is truly astounding!

XTC – Drums and Wires (Steven Wilson remix/remaster)

With the release of 1979’s Drums and Wires, XTC had gelled into the lineup that would remain constant for the next three albums. In addition to principal songwriters Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding, Terry Chambers was added on drums, and Dave Gregory joined on guitar. Chambers would make it through 1982’s English Settlement, getting the sack soon afterward, but the core trio of Partridge, Moulding, and Gregory has remained consistent ever since. And since XTC – not at all unlike the Beatles – stopped touring completely in 1982, they’ve been perfectly satisfied to use a stable of studio musicians to fill their drum and keyboard needs.

At the time the group entered the studio for Drums and Wires, bassist Colin Moulding was quoted as saying that they were tired of all the quirky nonsense from the earlier records and were ready for a “more straight-ahead pop” sound. The group was impressed with Steve Lillywhite’s production work on recent records for Ultravox and Siouxsie and the Banshees, and he was quickly recruited for the Drums and Wires sessions. XTC reportedly told Lillywhite that they wanted a drum sound that would “knock your head off.” First up they recorded Moulding’s “Life Begins at the Hop,” and the label liked it so much they immediately released it as a single. Colin Moulding is basically the “junior” songwriting partner – being not nearly as prolific as Andy Partridge — and he was quite surprised that his song was chosen as the album’s first single. “Life Begins at the Hop” became XTC’s first-ever single on the British charts. While it wasn’t included on the original album release, it has since appeared on every other version of the record.

The album kicks off with Moulding’s “Making Plans for Nigel,” which is undoubtedly one of XTC’s best-known songs. Moulding was really beginning to make an impression on the critics and the record-buying public with his songwriting abilities at this point. Terry Chambers’ drums, along with Moulding’s solid bass line, punch through the song’s opening and set a perfect template for the rest of the album. Partridge contributes a total of eight of the albums’ 12 songs, but the tunes that seem to really have gotten everyone’s attention were those penned by Moulding: “Day In Day Out,” “Ten Feet Tall,” and “That Is The Way,” in addition to “Nigel” and “Life Begins at the Hop.” Moulding might have been overshadowed by Partridge’s sheer number of compositions, but his were almost always equally memorable (or even more so). That’s not to deny the talent of Partridge, who contributed quirkily poppy tunes like “Helicopter,” “Reel by Reel,” and “When You’re Near Me I Have Difficulty.” The duo has often been compared to Lennon/McCartney, and I really do feel that’s a spot-on comparison.

The 24/96 FLACs I ripped from the Blu-ray disc sound better to me than any previous digital version of this album I’ve known for decades. Steven Wilson remastered it at a perfect level, with plenty of dynamic range, and his remixing is superb here — Drums and Wires has never sounded so good. The Blu-ray disc includes an almost shocking array of extras, including high-res tracks of the original studio album in both stereo and multichannel, along with 11 bonus tracks available for each version. A DTS HD Master Audio surround track is also included, so if you’re into surround, they’ve got all the bases covered here! In addition, the set offers multiple bonus features, including the remixed album as instrumental-only tracks; the original album mix remastered in 24/96; and a plethora of other bonus tracks, rehearsal tracks, and videos, although not all of those are in high-resolution audio. Still, this is Drums and Wires like you’ve never heard it before – very highly recommended!

Ape House Records, CD/Blu-ray 2-disc set

XTC – Skylarking (Steven Wilson remix/remaster)

XTC experienced a bit of a commercial lull following the success of English Settlement, and their next three albums (1983’s Mummer, 1984’s The Big Express, and 1985’s 25 O’Clock by The Dukes of Stratosphear, an XTC spinoff group) didn’t sell to the record label’s expectations. Reportedly, XTC were threatened with being dropped by Virgin Records if their next record didn’t sell more than 70,000 copies. The label also was said to have expressed that the group perhaps sounded “too English,” and recommended they work with an American producer. Among the choices that were offered, the only name Andy Partridge or Colin Moulding recognized was Todd Rundgren, and reportedly guitarist Dave Gregory had been particularly impressed with Rundgren’s self-produced Hermit of Mink Hollow, and insisted that they choose him.

The band arrived in early 1986 at Rundgren’s Utopia Sound recording studios in upstate New York with 20-plus demo tapes they’d put together, and Todd Rundgren took a listen. The tracks had a very different feel compared to previous XTC albums, with a mellow and more lush aesthetic, almost like a continuation of the vibe from the Dukes of Stratosphear album from a year earlier. Rundgren proposed doing a concept album of sorts, where the songs would essentially flow into each other, helping to bridge the contrasts of Moulding’s more contemplative tunes and Partridge’s poppy anthems. Despite well-documented tensions in the studio between Partridge and Rundgren, the album was completed in June of that year. Again, the lead single from the album was a Colin Moulding tune, “Grass.” Skylarking streeted in November, and only reached Number 90 on the UK and Number 70 on the US album charts. However, Skylarking enjoyed significant airplay on US college radio, helping to boost its sales. Virgin Records apparently decided not to drop them after all. All was not well, however, with the album’s sound quality…

All of the comparisons to the Beatles notwithstanding, Skylarking was undeniably XTC’s most Beatlesque record, and has ultimately gone on to become the band’s most popular and highly-regarded album. The album spent 29 weeks on the US charts and got a lot of traction from the song “Dear God,” which was not only popular on college radio, but also benefited from a video that ended up winning Billboard’s Best Video award. The video was also nominated in three categories at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards. “Dear God” was originally only released as a single, but thanks to its overwhelming popularity, Skylarking was quickly re-pressed to include the song.

The high-res 24/96 ripped FLACs sound superb – not to flog a dead horse here, but these rips I did from the discs are so very much better than any previous digital version of the album. The Blu-ray disc contains the now-expected metric ton of extras – including a very curious one. Most people who follow XTC are probably aware that in 2010, Skylarking was reissued in a Corrected Polarity Edition that reportedly compensated for problems with the original master tape delivered by Todd Rundgren to the studio. Apparently, both XTC and Virgin Records were unimpressed with the sound of the original master, and requested that Rundgren resubmit a remixed master tape. And then a third one, after the record label expressed their dissatisfaction with the second tape. A disgruntled Todd Rundgren complied, but also quit the project for good after the third master tape was completed. The third version was the one eventually chosen for release, but the band was less than ecstatic about the sound quality, complaining that it had no bass, very little top end, and a particularly muddy midrange.

In 2010, Skylarking was scheduled to be remastered and reissued, and engineer John Dent happened to notice that there was a definite polarity issue with the tapes. Which he then fixed in the studio, and the resulting LPs and CDs were released with controversial new artwork (depicting male and female genitalia!) as the “Corrected Polarity Edition.” Rundgren has commented that it was all “absolute BS,” and that at some point during one of the album’s many transfers, someone screwed up and obviously inverted the polarity. Regardless, included on the Blu-ray disc are 24/96 files for the Corrected Polarity Edition, and I have to admit – they sound really great! That said, I encountered a quirky problem during the ripping process: because relatively few people seem to bother uploading metadata for Blu-ray rips, the available metadata is often flawed. That was definitely the case with this version of the album – some of the tracks were misidentified, and it took a couple of listens to sort things out. Anyway, Skylarking has never sounded better in a digital format. Very highly recommended!

Ape House Records, CD/Blu-ray 2-disc set

XTC – English Settlement (2016 remaster)

As I mentioned at the outset, Steven Wilson has expressed his dismay that he’s been unable to thus far locate the multi-track master tapes for English Settlement, XTC’s iconic 1982 studio release. That, of course, has prevented him from doing a full-on remix of the original tapes. Rather than do a pseudo-remix/surround mix from what’s available, he’s decided to continue the search in hopes of eventually finding the multi-track masters. Bummer, but in my research over the last six months or so, I kept seeing references to the 2016 CD version of English Settlement, which had been mastered from the original half-inch stereo master tapes created for the album’s original release as an LP in 1982. Wilson apparently discovered them during his search for the multi-track tapes.

Wilson realized the significance of his discovery, and brought the half-inch stereo master tapes to the attention of engineer John Dent, who used them to prepare an “Original Master Edition” LP release in 2016. Reportedly, Andy Partridge was so thrilled with the sound quality of the LP, later that same year he personally commissioned Dent to create a CD release. As I was researching the whys and why not’s concerning the absence of a Steven Wilson CD/Blu-ray set for English Settlement, I kept seeing references to the 2016 CD being the digital version to have in the meantime. And as I looked for that version, in the typically convoluted listings for anything on the web, I found it particularly difficult to track down that exact CD. I ended up going to the Burning Shed (UK) website; they’re the official location in the UK for most of the Steven Wilson releases. And things got even more convoluted there, with multiple versions of the CD available, but none of the general listings touting the particulars of any of them at first glance. After clicking through the listings, I finally found one on XTC’s Ape House label, and its product description proclaimed its provenance as the 2016 Original Master Edition. I ordered a copy pronto, and it got here in a little over a week.

As CDs go, the 2016 release of English Settlement is a gem, and the sound quality of the files ripped from this CD are simply amazing compared to any previous CD version I’ve owned. The booklet artwork resembles the appearance of the original LP sleeve more than any of its predecessors in my collection. But the sound quality is what really matters, and this version is head and shoulders above the rest. A note on the inlay tray reveals that this reissue marks the very first time that a CD of English Settlement has been produced from the original master tapes – every other CD version released previously had been authored from a work copy or some other source other than the original masters.

This version really has it going on, and is a must-have for XTC fans. There’s none of the “loudness wars” crap going on here – the disc was mastered at an optimum level that shows no compression (that I can hear) and allows you to hear all the details of the music clearly. My impression of previous versions of this recording is that, while the music has always been gripping and involving, the recordings seemed congested and murky, with not particularly well-defined bass. They also had a fair amount of tape hiss, but there’s absolutely none to be found here. It’s like the proverbial veil has been lifted from the music, and the recording has absolutely silent backgrounds. The opening track, “Runaways,” has a really effective strumming of multiple acoustic guitars that are suddenly crushed by Terry Chambers’ bass drum strokes, and the dynamics here are so much better than those found on previous versions. The kick drum that opens the following track, “Ball and Chain,” just shakes the walls of my house. Then there’s “Senses Working Overtime,” the classic track that probably gave many people their first exposure to XTC when they saw the constantly-in-rotation video on MTV. When Terry Chambers’ drum kit comes crashing through in the opening, the effect is absolutely jarring. Highly recommended, even if this isn’t the high-res version we all dream about!

Ape House Records CD

Header image courtesy of the author.

In the wake of the AudioJumble – see my article in Issue 164 – there has been a palpable buzz about vintage gear, not least because of activity on social media. The AudioJumble’s organizers posted a few images, one of which caused excitement with a Copper reader living as far away from Tonbridge in England as San Francisco. It was the Made-In-England 1920s Western Electric horn and receiver which caught his eye, surely worthy of museum placement. Alas, the items ended up on eBay, selling for huge sums.

After the dust settles on the AudioJumble come the regrets. Why didn’t I snag that professionally-rebuilt Audio Research D115? What about that Scott FM tuner? I saw a couple of tonearms I wouldn’t have minded adding to my audio repertoire, and those as-new Leak Stereo 20s are impossible to forget. Then there were the massive 1970s Japanese receivers and integrated amps which are now back in fashion, a smattering of mint Luxman items, a couple of high-end cassette decks, a gorgeous top-of-the-range Sony reel-to-reel for £750/$940 and that table full of brand-new tubes.

When the next one rolls around in on October 2, and (fingers crossed) COVID retreats further back into our memories, I’m hoping most of the absent regulars return, as well as the foreign visitors – notably the vintage-hi-fi-oriented Italian contingent and a few hardy souls from the Pacific Rim. I saw a Polish enthusiast leaving with a two-wheeler trolley stacked with gear to take back with him – apparently the resale value on something like a 1980s Sansui amp makes it worth the effort.

There was plenty of activity at AudioJumble.

As for me? I still have 550 open-reel tapes remaining to curate, and I expect to find at least another dozen duplicates among them to offer at the next fair – including a spare of the underrated Andy Williams knock-out, Get Together, in which he turns a handful of late-1960s rock classics like the title track into easy listening gems. I know I have at least one copy already cleaned up and fitted with leader and tail, so this one will be targeted at a good home.

Andy Williams?!? I’ve mentioned before that this open-reel tape lark has been changing my attitudes toward assorted artists of whom I’d previously been (foolishly and arrogantly) dismissive. You know the drill: filing John Denver, Mantovani, the Carpenters, Engelbert Humperdinck, the Chad Mitchell Trio, Jerry Vale, Ray Conniff, Percy Faith and far too many others filed under “Guilty Pleasures.” But, damn, if the Osmonds don’t swing behind Andy.

Yes, open-reel sound will do that to you.

One of a number of Akai 4000D decks, the ideal beginner’s reel-to-reel.

There were turntables of all kinds.

A rare Cooper-Smith British-made monoblock amplifier from the late 1950s/early 1960s.

New old stock Mayware moving-coil cartridges.

Ready for the cassette revival: a Nakamichi 700 deck.

A Revox E36, for spares or a rebuild project, £150/$190.

More gear that’s ripe for spares or refurbishment: a Revox G36 for £200/$250.

A Tandberg TD20A for £500/$630.

A wonderful Garrard 401 with SME tonearm in a mint SME plinth, with owner’s manuals!

Yamaha’s rare, freaky piano-shaped (or ear-shaped) drive unit.

Immaculate Icon Audio MB30 power amps at £1800/$2270 for the pair, a savings of £1000/$1260 off list.

Some new products were also on display, including this cool tube amp from JJ Electronic.

Header image: Nice Revox G36 for £300/$375, one of a number of Revox decks at the event.

It’s a debate we’ve all heard before: “Who’s better? The Beatles, or the Stones?”

When it comes to these two bands, there are two distinct camps: on the one side, you’ve got the folks who favor the Fab Four, and on the other, you’ve got the fans who steadfastly believe the Glimmer Twins and company are far and away superior. (Copper’s Jay Jay French asked the question in Issue 117.)

I find the argument to be ultimately somewhat pointless, as these bands really couldn’t be more different. Sure, on the surface they’re both rock ‘n’ roll bands from England who originated in the early 1960s, but beyond that, the similarities basically end. Still, the comparisons and debates rage on. So, let’s go another few rounds, and see who comes out on top.

In my opinion.

Round One: The Early Years

When talking about the Beatles, you go in with the understanding that you’re talking about a band which, despite the fact that they only existed for around a decade, is still generally considered to be “the greatest band of all time.” Look, I get the argument. I understand the influence. I wholeheartedly respect the legacy, but, to me, calling the Beatles “the greatest band of all time” does seem a bit farfetched, and this is coming from someone whose favorite album happens to be Abbey Road. The Beatles were a great band, and their music is legendary, but when we call them “the greatest band of all time,” what are we basing this on?

Here’s a hot take: the Beatles didn’t actually start making “great music” until around 1965 with the release of Help! and Rubber Soul. The Beatles’ first four records had a lot of fun, catchy, and memorable songs, but let’s be real here; are With The Beatles, or Beatles For Sale great albums? The fact is that the Beatles didn’t really do anything – aside from a few admittedly, undeniably great singles – which would make them historically stand out until Help!  Before 1965, the Beatles were a typical pop-rock band, adored by teenage girls, a band who molded themselves in the images of Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, and Chuck Berry. Again, do the Beatles’ early records do anything to truly distinguish themselves from the rest of the contemporary music of the time? If you’re being honest, the answer is no. That’s not to say the Beatles’ first four records aren’t good albums, but when I think of “the greatest band of all time,” I simply want more than that.

Regarding the Rolling Stones, we’ve got a similar trajectory, but not quite the same. The Rolling Stones were operating around one or two years behind the Beatles’ schedule, with their formation coming two years after that of the Beatles, and their debut record, The Rolling Stones (US version)/England’s Newest Hit Makers (UK version), hit shelves about a year after the Beatles’ debut in 1963. To be completely fair, as is the case with the Beatles, the Stones’ early work is also not exactly life-altering, and it relied heavily on covers that paid homage to their early rock and blues roots. The Rolling Stones have never been shy regarding where they come from, and they’ve leaned into it from day one. With that being said, while the Stones’ first truly interesting record, in my opinion, is 1967’s Their Satanic Majesties Request, unlike the Beatles, their earlier albums, while not being totally cohesive, did feature some songs that pushed boundaries, which the Beatles simply weren’t doing at the time. I would take “Time Is On My Side” over “Eight Days A Week,” and I much prefer “Get Off My Cloud” to “Can’t Buy Me Love,” and “Paint It Black” basically betters anything the Beatles had put out to that point. For me, the Stones were engaging in a way that The Beatles simply were not (at that time). For these reasons, Round One goes to the Rolling Stones.

Round Two: Things Get Interesting:

As I mentioned earlier, for me things really got interesting with the Beatles with the 1965 releases of Help! and Rubber Soul. With these two records, the Beatles drew a line in the sand and started to really explore the depths of their songwriting capabilities. Things got even more intriguing in 1966 when the group put out Revolver. Tracks such as “Taxman,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “I Want To Tell You,” and “Tomorrow Never Knows” show the Beatles exhibiting a form previously unknown to their contemporaries. With Revolver, we also see the band showcasing its now-famous studio trickery, much of which can be attributed to George Martin.

The Beatles followed up Revolver with what many consider to be the group’s masterpiece, and what is often bandied about as “the greatest album of all time, by the greatest band of all time”: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Now, Sgt. Pepper’s is a great album, one I truly enjoy, but let me ask something – what makes it great? Much is made of the supposedly incredible songwriting partnership that John Lennon and Paul McCartney had together, but their partnership was much closer in their early years when they weren’t as “great” of a band. In their later years, the members of the Beatles often wrote alone, and sadly, George Harrison (the best musician in the band) was often overlooked, ignored, and undermined, and the same can be said for Ringo Starr.

The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, album cover.

As far as the renowned studio trickery the band became known for, I’d like to remind everyone of the influence of producer George Martin. If not for Martin (and engineers Geoff Emerick and later Ken Scott, Glyn Johns, and others), these songs would sound nothing like they do. Next, one of my biggest issues with the Beatles as a band, in general, is the release of some of their cutesy songs. I’ve always found it infuriating and hard to comprehend why a band that was capable of recording a song like “A Day In The Life” felt the need to put something like “When I’m Sixty-Four” on the same record.

After the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Beatles continued to experiment, with varying results. The next several albums (Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine, the White Album), while still being good, followed the same pattern, alternating between great and completely filler-laden on a song-to-song basis. The White Album could have been shaved in half and been better for it. Again, why put out a song like “Piggies” when you’re capable of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps?” As far as their late-career period, while I’d consider it “great” overall, there are major issues, and to be frank, the Beatles were basically four solo artists operating under the guise of a band by this time. With that being said, Magical Mystery Tour is probably the best and most underrated of the bunch. Songs like “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “I Am The Walrus,” and “All You Need Is Love” are special, and noticeably, all of them are John Lennon tracks. If only the band would have kept this type of focus.

Regarding the Rolling Stones during this period, let’s start with the release of Beggar’s Banquet in 1968. Right off the bat, “Sympathy for the Devil” is, I’ll say it, better than the typical Beatles fare from this time. With this track, the Stones pushed boundaries by evoking provocative imagery about the devil, pretty risky for the late 1960s. Generally speaking, the Beatles never outright pushed the envelope in this way. I do believe that if John Lennon had his way more of the time, the Beatles would have been punchier, but Paul McCartney was always a bit too boy-next-door for that sort of controversy. Kicking off side two, “Street Fighting Man” is another boundary-pushing rocker that speaks to sociopolitical issues afoot at that time. With Beggars Banquet, to me, it’s undeniable that the Stones were separating themselves from the Beatles in terms of songwriting and lyrics, and in their fearless attitude in taking on the larger issues of the day.

By the time Let It Bleed was released in 1969, we’re looking at a band who is head and shoulders above anything the Beatles could muster by that point. If we’re comparing Let It Bleed to Let It Be, it’s not close; the former wins by leaps and bounds. I will say, though, that Paul McCartney’s “Let It Be” is special, “Don’t Let Me Down” showcases a fantastic vocal performance by John Lennon, and I have always been fond of “I’ve Got a Feeling” and enjoy the interplay between Lennon and McCartney. That said, the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” “Midnight Rambler,” “Let It Bleed,” and “Monkey Man” are vicious tracks, and the dirty, grimy feeling permeating throughout the album is everything we love about the Stones and rock music as we know it.

What happened next is where things get complicated, and is why it’s difficult, and again, perhaps arbitrary to compare these two bands. While Let It Be is signified as the Beatles’ “last record,” Abbey Road was recorded last; the two were just released out of order. When it comes to Abbey Road, for me, we are talking about the Beatles’ best record by an unmitigated long shot. Nothing the Rolling Stones have ever done (or presumably ever will do) can touch this record.

I mentioned earlier how exasperating at times it is for me to listen to some Beatles records because of their inconsistency, and it is obvious (at least to me) that if the band had just been able to fully come together (no pun intended), they could have made more-cohesive records and been much the better for it. I find it disturbing that the Beatles found the ability within themselves to make a record such as Abbey Road, and, after years of not doing so, finally made the album, and then chose to disband and walk away. Then, consider the wildly inconsistent subsequent solo careers the four Beatles experienced. The strange trajectories of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr as a band, and then as solo artists, are hard to comprehend, to be honest.

As for the Stones, after the Beatles broke up, they put out an incredible, genre-defining string of albums in Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street, Goats Head Soup, It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll, Black and Blue, Some Girls, Emotional Rescue, and Tattoo You. I would have a hard time believing the Beatles, had they stayed together, and given the mostly-underwhelming quality of their solo works, could have matched what Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman and company were doing at the time, but alas, we will never know.

So, who wins this round? Well, despite what I feel to be wild inconsistency, an inability to come together as a band, overrated production, and a general lack of cohesion, I give this round to the Beatles solely due to the presence of Abbey Road, which is not only the band’s defining moment but also in my opinion the greatest album of all time.

Round Three: The Bands’ Legacies, and, Who Wins?

The Beatles broke up in 1970 – 52 years ago. Most of us never saw them play, let alone had a chance to. What we know about the Beatles at this point in time consists of a lot of second or third-hand accounts, although one can always refer to the historical record of original articles and other material, and hundreds of books have been written about the band. And of course, there’s the music. That said, it seems to me that, these days, we have to deal with a lot of “bandwagoneering” and revisionist history.

Don’t get me wrong – I like and enjoy the Beatles, and I love John Lennon. I do think they’re “great.” You might not believe that after reading this, but I do. That being said, do I believe they are the greatest band of all time? No. Do I believe that the Rolling Stones are the greatest band of all time? That would also be a no. If you’re asking me, the answer to that question is: Led Zeppelin. Not my personal favorite band, but as far as rock music is concerned, untouchable.

This article isn’t about the merits of Led Zeppelin, though; it’s about the age-old battle between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. So, who wins? At the end of the day, I have to go with the Stones. While Abbey Road is the album for me, the Beatles didn’t have what it took to keep it together and carry on the way the Stones did. Furthermore, the Beatles’ inconsistency undermines their overall legacy, in my opinion. I don’t feel the Beatles maximized their talent or consistently lived up to it as they could have.

I also think people are afraid to criticize the Beatles. The things I am saying are uncommon, and may be considered heresy, but I think there is a lot of truth in them. The Beatles were a great band, held in high esteem. However, the side effect is that their legacy overshadows certain issues their music held, and so, the shadow they cast can prevent people from fairly and objectively criticizing their work. The Beatles were a great band, but the Rolling Stones still are a great band, one which has carried on for 60 years, has created more music, and has arguably written greater numbers of legendary tracks than the Beatles as a band or as solo artists. The Rolling Stones’ swagger, influence, and appeal have come to define rock music – they’re the literal template for rock bands to this day.

Comparing the Beatles and the Stones is comparing apples and oranges, but if I’m going to do it, I’m taking the Stones all day, every day. If my criticism of the Beatles seems harsh, I’m just being honest with myself.

Anyway, who’s your favorite?

At this point in our lathe appreciation journey, I feel I should invite you to have a seat on one of my specially-designed lathe appreciation chairs, complete with straps and other gadgets, and present to you what I consider to be the “poetry” of the disk mastering lathe world.

Affectionately known as the “bathtub” Scully lathe, the Model 501 (see header image), later revised to the 601, was the longest-running Scully model, and in fact the longest-running disk recording and mastering lathe model in the entire industry. It also had the longest-lasting lathe bed design, even exceeding the Neumann lathe bed lifespan, which had remained in production with only minor changes from 1931 to 1979 (from the AM31 to the VMS70).

John Scully was born in 1839, so for much of his early life, sound recording simply wasn’t a thing. He began making disk recording lathes around the late 1910s, in the acoustic era of sound recording. His machines were cutting grooves in wax and instead of a cutter head (in the electrical recording sense of the term), they had a sound box, connected to a large horn, into which the performers had to scream… erm, sorry, I meant perform. Due to the size and weight of the assembly, it was not practical to move it over the surface of the wax disk, so in those early days, it was the platter that moved under a stationary sound box. This setup lasted up until 1925 and this is where the humble beginnings of electrical recording can be traced.

The first electrical Scully lathes started appearing in the mid-1920s and remained very much the same up until the introduction of the LS-76 in 1976. (See Part Six of this series in Issue 156) for a thorough description of the LS-76.)

There were two basic models, the 501 and the 601. The mechanical design of the machines was very similar, with minor upgrades and changes over time. What did remain unchanged from around 1925 up until 1976 was the lathe bed shape, the belt-driven platter with a flywheel under the bed, the railroad-track slide system for the carriage, the massive and instantly recognizable carriage arm, and the level of craftsmanship that went into making these lathes.

The 501 had a mechanical gear shifter on the lathe bed, to set the groove pitch. The system was driven from the same motor that drove the platter, by means of another belt. The bed had two leadscrews, one for records that were cut with the groove running from the outside-in, and one for records with the groove going inside-out!

An Agnew Analog vacuum platter on the Scully lathe at Independent Mastering, Nashville, Tennessee. It has a sub-platter with adjusters for leveling the platter, also made by Agnew Analog. Courtesy of Eric Conn.

There were a few variations of the platter-bearing unit over the years, ranging from a Kingsbury bearing with an oil coupler to a much simpler plain bronze bearing unit, adjustable for wear, with a complex arrangement of hollow shafting with an internal shaft for additional decoupling of the platter. The plain bronze bearing proved satisfactory enough to be carried over to the LS-76, in an even simpler, non-adjustable form.

Platters also varied from a plain cork-covered platter, to a cork-covered platter with vacuum ports (for holding the record down through vacuum suction), and eventually an all-metal vacuum platter made of cast aluminum.

The 601, introduced in the 1950s, no longer had the mechanical gear shifter on the side of the lathe bed, but instead featured electronically-variable pitch, with a control panel mounted on the bench of the lathe. Aftermarket pitch automation systems that could be easily fitted to the Scully 601 appeared later. One of the most popular units was made by Capps, a company that was already established in this industry for manufacturing disk recording styli.

A Scully 601 lathe, with electronically-variable pitch from the factory, controlled from the panel on the bench. Courtesy of Jaakko Viitalähde, Virtalähde Mastering, Kuhmoinen, Finland.

Lacquer disks were invented by Pyral in 1931, so the earlier Scully lathes were all originally set up to cut wax blanks. Wax blanks were much thicker and were shaved flat before use. They could be reused by shaving off the old recording, and exposing a flat surface to cut a new recording on. Post-1931, Scully lathes were set up to cut lacquer blanks.

In the late 1950s, the twin-leadscrew era came to an end, so the later Scully lathes came with a single leadscrew. By that point, reversing the leadscrew had become a much simpler affair, so it was deemed preferable to manufacturing two of them! (Believe it or not, some inside-out-grooved records were still being cut at this point in time.)

Scully lathes were particularly large and heavy, with a distinctive industrial look to them. The vertical adjustment of the suspension unit height was accomplished by means of a ball-crank handle, typically found on industrial machine tools of the time. All Scully lathes, from the earliest all the way to the LS-76, were belt-driven. The 501 and 601 were powered by a synchronous AC motor, running much faster than the platter and employing a drive reduction system to deliver the desired record-cutting speed to the platter.

The motors were fitted inside a heavy casting that looked like an inverted bathtub, which was located on the floor under the lathe, and isolated from the lathe proper, with only the belt connecting the two assemblies together. On the lathe side, the belt was wrapped around the large flywheel, hidden under the bench.

Belt-driven platters were very rare in the disk recording world, especially if one compares to the popularity of belt-drive turntables for consumer use. Many disk recording lathes were idler-wheel-driven, some were gear-driven, very few were belt-driven, and even fewer used a direct-drive motor.

Considerably more torque is required when cutting a record compared to just playing it back, and the belt-drive implementations commonly encountered in playback turntables are not designed for the high-torque transfer needed for record cutting.

The Scully belt-drive system was by far the most heavy-duty setup out there as far as belt-driven platters go, but it was still seen by many to be a weakness, especially after the direct-driven Neumann lathes started gaining ground in the US from the mid-1960s onwards.

Many Scully lathes were eventually converted to direct-drive, some even using the same Lyrec SM-8 direct-drive motor found under Neumann lathes. Other Scully lathes also had platter upgrades. David Manley of Vacuum Tube Logic, and later Manley Laboratories, was perhaps the first person to fit a Neumann vacuum platter on a Scully lathe. Others were to follow, but as these vacuum platters were in short supply (they were only available together with a complete Neumann lathe, and not as separate items), it wasn’t until much later, when the CD happened and many decided to scrap their lathes, resulting in a greater availability of parts, that such conversions were possible on a larger scale.

The original Scully suspension unit was designed to carry the Westrex cutter heads and set the depth of cut by means of an advance ball unit (for a detailed explanation of what an advance ball is, what it does, and how it compares to other methods of depth setting in disk recording, please refer to my article in Issue 162). However, it was a simple matter to fit other cutter heads by means of a suitable adapter, or to even replace the suspension unit entirely with anything else one may have preferred to use, as there was plenty of space available with the generous dimensions of the Scully lathe. HAECO (Holzer Audio Engineering Company, founded by Howard Holzer) made their own suspension units that could take Westrex and HAECO cutter heads, and there were the A&M suspension units that were also designed to float the Westrex 3D cutter head. Even Neumann suspension units have been successfully fitted to Scully lathes, often used with Neumann or Ortofon stereophonic cutter heads.

A Scully 601 lathe, with a Westrex 3D cutter head with an advance ball, as originally supplied, and the Westrex cutting amplifier rack next to it. Note the absence of the mechanical shifter on the lathe bed and the presence of a control panel in front of the lathe. Other than that, the lathe bed and mechanical assembly was the same as the 501. Courtesy of Jaakko Viitalähde.

One of the benefits of the design and dimensions of the Scully lathe was that it could be infinitely modified and upgraded. Considering that even in stock form, Scully lathes were among the crème de la crème of disk recording lathes, this often resulted in hot-rodded performance machines, capable of extremely impressive results.

In the monophonic era and up until the 1960s, Scully lathes were the most popular machines used in disk mastering facilities around the US. From the introduction of the “bathtub” Scully up until 1976, approximately 300 to 350 machines were made over a span of over 50 years, which works out to around six machines per year, although sales were most probably not that consistent from year to year. Most Scully lathes were equipped with Westrex cutter heads and cutting amplifier electronics.

The usual Bell Laboratories/Western Electric (a Bell subsidiary) policy of leasing rather than selling equipment also applied to Westrex disk recording equipment. This was to continue up until 1962. Prior to that, it was not possible to actually own your Westrex cutter head and electronics! They could only be leased from Westrex, who retained ownership. In 1962 and after lengthy legal battles for Bell Labs, major changes occurred. One of the results was that the lease regime came to an end and the users of Western Electric equipment, including theater sound systems, motion picture equipment, telephony equipment and disk recording amplifier racks and cutter heads, were given the opportunity to purchase and own the equipment they had been using.

During the 1960s, Neumann came to dominate the US market, and there were more Neumann than Scully systems used for disk mastering from the 1970s onwards. Scully lathes remained popular in other disk recording applications, associated with the motion picture industry. However, due to Neumann’s policy of selling complete turnkey systems only, and the ease with which a Scully lathe could be extensively modified, Scully lathes remained in active service in disk mastering facilities that preferred to use custom and modified equipment.

As a result, even though Scully lathes were outnumbered by Neumann for most of the stereophonic era, in the audiophile sector, more of these specialized-market records were mastered using highly-modified Scully rather than Neumann lathes. There were of course a few renegades who dared to modify Neumann lathes despite the “das ist verboten” policy of the manufacturer.

In the present day, with all of these manufacturers long gone, pretty much all disk mastering lathes in active service are heavily modified, to keep them running and to help give them a competitive advantage to stand out in a very demanding market, which is currently experiencing impressive growth.

This installment concludes our overview of the mainstream disk mastering lathes, so in the following piece, we will be looking at some obscure machines, as well as present-day developments in this now-booming market.

Header image: an old Scully 501 lathe, with the mechanical shifter on the lathe bed, converted to electronically-variable pitch and depth control, with an A&M suspension unit, a floated Westrex 3D stereophonic cutter head, and an Agnew Analog vacuum platter, along with several other modifications. Courtesy of Eric Conn, Independent Mastering, Nashville, Tennessee.

The news occasionally carries a story about the World’s Worst Record Collection. The journalistic ball gets rolling when a blood clot of ancient LPs is offered to a record shop or a second-hand store and the alarmed proprietor runs to Twitter. These collections often include some combination of David Cassidy and the Partridge Family.

If my sister has read this far, she’s gone ballistic. “David’s records are the cornerstone of any serious music library,” she says, in a quote I just wrote for her. My sister was in grade school when The Partridge Family debuted on TV. That’s all the explanation you need.

Mr. Cassidy’s frequent appearances among World’s Worst Record Collection contenders makes me wonder what records were in his collection. He was born in 1950; based on his discography, I’d guess his musically formative years were dominated by crewcut guys in sweaters, beach boys with surfboards, the British Invasion (the Beatles and the Hollies, not the Rolling Stones and the Animals), and the show tunes his stepmother, Shirley Jones, had mastered. I think he admired the blues – from a safe distance. His solo albums hint at his exposure to some pretentious arena rock. All that isn’t so bad. But the result – the music he made – was something I couldn’t tolerate.

It’s easy for me to make fun of Cassidy (when my sister isn’t around), but even if you consider him one of the Four White Male Horsemen of the Apocalypse (along with Sting, Barry Manilow, and Kenny G), there are plenty of people who would tell you to Shut. Up. These men have tens of millions of fans, people who are impervious to the opinions of critics and snobs like me. Pick your poison. There’s always somebody who will drink it and call it chardonnay.

How then can we define the World’s Worst Record Collection (hereinafter referred to as the WWRC)? The answer lies in a garage sale I stumbled across one recent summer in Portland, Oregon. There I found dozens of LPs (a true WWRC is hefty) which I’ve documented in this unretouched photo:

What you can see: Arthur Ferrante and Louis Teicher, The Twin Piano Magic of Ferrante & Teicher (1964); Dominic Caruso, World’s Greatest Accordion Hits (1968); 101 Strings, Million Seller Hit Songs of the 50s (1964); and the Johny Louis Trio, The In Crowd (1965), at one point in its existence on sale for 77¢. (Was “Johny” a typo? Inquiring minds want to know.)

What you can’t see: Various artists, Percussion for Playboys (1959); Ann Corio, Sonny Lester & His Orchestra, How to Strip for Your Husband (1963); and at that point I stopped taking notes because I was afraid the earth was about to open beneath my feet.

This may have been the worst record collection in the history of records. Hoping for a scoop, I ventured from the driveway where the records were outgassing in the sun into the garage and the house. There was a room full of gleaming, vintage accordions. If I had also found a room full of banjos and another with bagpipes, I would’ve hit the trifecta. The part of the house that was open to the public was devoted to music, but though I saw many boom boxes and turntables, no one was playing any. I tried to find the owner, but I was told by the cheerful folks running the sale that he had “moved away.” Had he hired a company to do the clearing he couldn’t bring himself to do? Were his children ridding themselves of the objects they were afraid would end up at their houses or land them on Twitter?

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind. But the ranks of these rank records made me realize that you can’t judge a WWRC by the number of David Cassidy or Christopher Cross albums or by the presence or absence of “The Purple People Eater” or “Who Let the Dogs Out?” What you need for a true WWRC are uninspired interpreters of the original music as well as the themes that people pitch when they’re drunk, such as 101 violinists playing together like an army on maneuvers, or music to convince your wife to take off her clothes, which she was probably going to do anyway.

In short, what you need is a bunch of ill-conceived tribute albums. Welcome back to Lawrence Welk country.

They Don’t Make Life Like They Used To

We can always argue about the true nature of a WWRC, but one thing’s for sure: That era is over. Sure, in this century LPs have been resurrected, but given the increased costs of making them and purchasing them, no one is going to lay down on vinyl the contemporary equivalent of the debris I found at that yard sale. Crud like that will be downloads only. The WWRCs that will be unearthed in the coming decades will all be from the 20th century, when it seemed that anyone could throw a half-baked idea together and press it onto a petroleum by-product.

In “Only a Moment Ago,” David Cassidy asked, “Why has the music stopped? Where did all the happy people go?”

It’s not the music that’s stopped, David, it’s the vinyl avalanche of new bad records.

My sister would add, “Thank you for your service.”

Header image: from the editor’s collection.

This is the third list of preferred recordings that started with “A Few of My Favorite Things” (Issue 129) and “More of My Favorite Things” Issue 134). These eclectic collections consist of CDs and LPs I particularly like and listen to on a regular basis. The current mix includes an orchestral overture for a play that doesn’t have music, excerpts from a completed score for an unfinished movie within a movie, and an oldie but goodie song that makes the impossible possible.

Samuel Barber/Overture to “The School for Scandal”/St. Louis Symphony Orchestra/Leonard Slatkin, cond. (EMI CD) Samuel Barber wrote melodic pieces in a modern idiom that made him one of the foremost writers of 20th-century Romantic music. The appealing Overture to “The School for Scandal,” first performed in 1933, wasn’t intended by Barber to act as a prelude to Richard Brindley Sheridan’s comedy but to be “a musical reflection of the play’s spirit.”

Slatkin leads a more sharply focused performance than some other conductors represented on YouTube…conducting that heightens enjoyment by engaging me to a greater extent.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold/Violin Concerto/Hilary Hahn, violin/Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin/Kent Nagano, cond. (Video) Korngold’s Violin Concerto is similar in style to and usually paired with Barber’s Violin Concerto [1] on recordings. Both compositions are lyrical, melodic, and Romantic in a 20^th century kind of way.

Here’s a spectacular live performance of the concerto that isn’t as crisp-looking as more recent videos but comes with a very young, very talented Hilary Hahn as the soloist and an undoubtedly younger, very talented Kent Nagano conducting the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin.

The Elfin Knight: Ballads and Dances from Renaissance England/Joel Frederiksen, lute/Ensemble Phoenix Munich (Harmonia Mundi CD) The Elfin Knight is an album that includes many familiar oldies but goodies – really old, really good standards like “Greensleeves,” “Barbara Ellen,” and “Watkin’s Ale” arranged for voice and instruments.

Frederiksen explains that all of the songs and dances on The Elfin Knight are arrangements:

“The results heard here are based on my general experience in Early Music. Of course in consort music working together with the other musicians plays an important role. As leader of an ensemble one has to show the direction that one wants to go, but at the same moment be open for the imagination and other experiences of the players. When good suggestions come from the group that are convincing, I build them in. What is important is the result.”

The first two selections indicated below, “Scarborough Faire” and “Whittingham Faire,” are very similar: “Scarborough” is slower and more leisurely; “Whittingham” is faster and more lively. Along with a third variation, “The Lovers’ Tasks,” all three songs can be traced back to the same source: The Elfin Knight ballads. [2]

Frederiksen continues:

“The elfin knight gives three tasks to his beloved; if she doesn’t fulfill them she will have to submit to his will. ‘Make me a shirt, but with no seam, wash it in a well, but with no water, hang it on a rose bush, but without thorns.’ She counters, to protect herself, with three just as impossible demands. The mythic context has disappeared in our arrangement. What is left over is a pure love song with the statement that it is possible, through true love, to make the impossible possible.”

Herbie Mann/Caminho de Casa/Herbie Mann, flute/Jasil Brazz (Chesky CD) Jazz musician Herbie Mann started playing Brazilian music in 1961: “The first time I went to Brazil I realized that the lyricism of Brazilian music, and its melodic strength were unique in the third world…I heard this wonderful combination that every jazz musician looks for: incredible melodies and wonderful harmonies to lay on, combined with a bubbling rhythm.”

Almost all of the compositions on this recording are by contemporary Brazilians. The first cut, “Caminho de Casa” (“Pathway Home”), gets my attention immediately and I stop whatever I’m doing to listen. The other selections are worth hearing too, whether I’m sitting directly in line with the loudspeakers to appreciate the disc’s audiophile sound or being mindful working at my desk.

Antonín Dvořák /Symphony No. 7/Chicago Symphony Orchestra/James Levine, cond. (RCA CD) Dvorak’s music is almost always appealing. You don’t even have to look at a title: just pull any recording of his orchestral or chamber music off the shelf and you’re likely to take great pleasure in it (if well-performed, of course!).

ClassicsToday.com’s Executive Editor David Hurwitz describes Dvorak’s 7^th symphony as lively, textured, punchy, flowing, melodic…a gorgeous late-Romantic piece with strings that sing and is endlessly refreshing. He calls Levine’s interpretation one of the best recordings of this symphony:^: “a great performance that’s wonderful, taut, clean, sharp, exciting, and rhythmic.”

The third movement in particular is always a treat to hear: it’s gorgeous, flowing, and melodic with those singing strings making make an especially memorable appearance.

Nino Rota/8 ½/soundtrack (various LPs and CDs) In Federico Fellini’s 1963 Academy Award-winning film 8 1/2, [3] Italian filmmaker Guido Anselmi (played by Marcello Mastroianni) struggles as he tries to get a new movie off the ground. Overwhelmed by his work and personal problems, the director retreats into his thoughts which often focus on his loves, both past and present, and frequently wanders between fantasy and reality as he tries to sort out his entanglements.

“8½ is both autobiographical and brilliant. Its surface flow of images dazzles us with sharp contrasts of black and white, startling eruptions from off screen, unexpected changes of scene, and a virtuoso display of all the possibilities and effects of camera movement. We find almost a catalog of humanity in its stream of faces; some of them are momentary visions, while others persist through the film and long after in our memory, such as Saraghina, that lumbering monster transformed into the embodiment of joyous life and movement. But Fellini’s brilliance reaches beyond the surface to include an intricate structure of highly original, highly imaginative scenes whose conjunction creates an unprecedented interweaving of memories, fantasies, and dreams with the daily life of his hero and alter ego, Guido Anselmi. This, more than anything probably, made 8½ the most influential film of the 1960s, liberating filmmakers everywhere from the conventions of time, place, and mode of experience that had prevailed in cinema for decades.” [4]

Nino Rota is widely known for his soundtrack to Francis Ford Coppola’s first two Godfather films, and the music for Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. The musical excerpts here reflect the spirit of 8 1/2 and are two of my favorite things, especially the 10-note motif that comes and goes throughout the film (“Carlotta’s Galop”).

Peter, Paul and Mary/Such is Love (Collector’s Edition/Warner LP) Okay – so it took me over 20 years to start appreciating a group that was formed in the early 1960s. Such is Love arrived at my door during the early 1980s. The local PBS station had just broadcast a PP&M performance, and this was the groovy bonus for having made a donation during pledge week. I’ve been listening to the LP ever since.

It’s a terrific collection of slightly lesser-known PP&M material (i.e., it doesn’t have any blowing, puffing, hammering, or songs about jet planes) in excellent sound that’s good enough to use for testing your audio equipment. The tracks include audience interaction and fine performances that make it an LP I reach for often.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart/Piano Sonata No. 12 in F major K332/Maria João Pires, piano (Video) I sometimes enjoy brief musical moments like the way this sonata’s first movement seems to speed up and slow down in places. Some performers play the piece in a formal, straightforward manner. Portuguese pianist Pires, who is considered to be one of the best interpreters of Mozart, demonstrates that the elegance and simplicity of music from the Classical period can be just as enjoyable as the grandiosity and complexity of compositions from the Baroque era.

Vivaldi/Concerto for Two Cellos in D minor RV 531/Apollo’s Fire/The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra (Video) Since Vivaldi was such a prolific composer, a common criticism is that all of his compositions sound the same. But there are moments that stand out in many of his pieces and invite regular listening. The Concerto for Two Cellos in D minor, like the Mozart sonata above, is another piece with one of those “magic moments.” [5] It has a slow second movement (the Largo – at 3’59”) with a beautiful, ornamented descending pattern that appears twice. When played properly as it is here – not so slowly that it becomes disconnected, not so quickly that it loses its poignancy – it’s a memorable instant I always look forward to hearing.

This concerto is performed by the excellent early music group Apollo’s Fire complete with period instruments, energy, feeling, and a well-deserved round of applause.

[1] See “Mister Mister and the Misses” in Issue 145.

[2] With apologies to Simon and Garfunkel for leaving out their modern version of this material (www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jj4s9I-53g).

[3] “By 1963, Federico Fellini had made, by his count, seven and a half films. Hence 8 ½ is like an opus number: this is film number eight and a half in the Fellini catalog. Self-referential enough, but only the beginning. 8½ is a film about making a film, and the film that is being made is 8½. Notice how everything Guido says about the film he is making turns out to be true of 8½, even the sailor doing a soft-shoe dance; how all the screen tests are for roles in the film we are seeing; how some camera movements create an ambiguity between Guido, the director in the film, and Fellini, the director of the film, thus taking self-reference one step beyond the work to its maker.” [Alexander Sesonske, “8 ½: A Film with Itself as Its Subject,” The Criterion Collection, 2010.]

[4] Ibid.

[5] With apologies to Perry Como for leaving out his popular hit “Magic Moments” (www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ_hWTuSYSk).

Header image: Antonio Vivaldi, public domain.

A&M Records had success with rock, pop and easy listening music – see my previous articles in this series in Issue 160, Issue 161 and Issue 162. There was another facet the successful independent label, founded in 1962, had success in – the urban contemporary market. A&M was not widely known for rhythm and blues, soul, funk or disco, but they did release many records in that genre, and some would find big success for the label.

One of the earlier albums they released was the ill-fated Ike & Tina Turner album River Deep – Mountain High. The album itself was an awkward combination of overly bombastic Phil Spector songs and production, along with more sensible soul tracks arranged by Ike Turner. The album was originally scheduled to be released on Philles Records (Spector’s label) but despite having some discs pressed, no jackets were printed and the album was never released in the US. In 1969, A&M licensed the masters and put the album out in the US. The title song had been a hit in the UK in 1966, but failed to make an impression stateside. The failure of the song and album (also issued in the UK in 1966) reportedly led to Spector’s retirement.

Here is that troublesome title track:

Fort Wayne, Indiana was home to The Checkmates, Ltd., whose lead singer Sonny Charles would later record a few of his own albums as a solo artist, and work as a vocalist for the Steve Miller Band. The group’s only major hit was the Phil Spector-produced “Black Pearl.”

While Billy Preston’s early career encompassed working with artists and groups including Little Richard, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, The Beatles, George Harrison and others, his signing with A&M when Apple Records folded gave him the freedom to produce his own records. Preston would record eight albums for A&M and produce Number 1 hits with the singles “Will It Go Round in Circles” and “Nothing from Nothing.” His first album, I Wrote a Simple Song, would produce a hit right out of the gate. A&M insisted on the title track being released as the first single (which reached only Number 77 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart), but DJs flipped the single to play the clavinet-driven instrumental B-side, “Outa-Space,” which climbed all the way to Number 2. The single that prevented him from reaching the top spot was stiff competition indeed – Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me.”

L.T.D. (Love, Togetherness, and Devotion) was known for its popular R&B hits “(Every Time I Turn Around) Back In Love Again,” “Holding On (When Love is Gone)” and “Love Ballad.” The group also launched the career of drummer and vocalist Jeffrey Osborne, who joined L.T.D. in 1970 and had a string of solo hits (also on A&M) in the early ’80s including “On the Wings of Love,” “Don’t You Get So Mad,” and “You Should Be Mine (The Woo Woo Song).”

Many disco singles back in the day had a lot of the Philadelphia influence (the O’Jays, McFadden & Whitehead, MFSB, and others). The duo of Leroy Bell (nephew of Thom Bell, one of the creators of the 1970s Philadelphia soul sound) and Casey James were a songwriting team for Philadelphia International Records, penning tunes for The O’Jays, MFSB, Gladys Knight & The Pips and Elton John before A&M floated a contract their way and signed them as a recording act. Their first single was the million-selling dance hit “Livin’ It Up (Friday Night).” Jump in the ride; it’s Friday night!

That young trumpet player tutored by Dave Lewis’s father (see our first installment) also had a little success himself. (I may be understating this just slightly.) Having gigged in and led big bands through the 1960s, Quincy Jones signed to A&M as an artist and also produced albums for other label mates. One of the most popular of his productions was the group Brothers Johnson. The brothers George (guitar) and Louis (bass) played on many other albums Jones produced and were in-demand session musicians, but also had success with a handful of A&M albums and singles under their own name. It’s hard to choose any one favorite, but “Strawberry Letter 23” is one that sticks with you, both for the unusual lyrics as well as Jones’s smooth production.

Quincy Jones also released a handful of albums on A&M, first starting with some jazz albums (Walking In Space, Gula Matari), followed by soul jazz albums that eventually drifted over to pop, culminating in the pop LP masterpiece The Dude (with the hit “Ai No Corrida,” as well as “Just Once” and “One Hundred Ways” featuring James Ingram).  One of his transitional soul jazz albums was You’ve Got It Bad, Girl, which had one foot planted in jazz and the other in soul. There are many great tracks on this low-key album, but this one particular song, “The Streetbeater,” is something instantly recognizable by anyone who watched American television in the 1970s.

While starting her A&M career with an album seemingly built around the idea of being “Michael’s baby sister,” Janet Jackson would finally discover the right formula with her third album, Control. Teaming up with the hot Minneapolis production duo Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (formerly of The Time), songs from this album would dominate the airwaves on urban contemporary radio and cross over to the Hot 100. The spare production by Jam and Lewis was just what she needed – with razor-sharp rhythms and a funky attitude, songs like “What Have You Done For Me Lately?” and “Nasty Boys” would make big waves. Her album Rhythm Nation: 1812 would provide more of the same, even crossing over with a rock-oriented song, “Black Cat” (with Nuno Bettencourt providing the guitar solo for the video mix of the song). Janet Jackson would also appear on the label boss’s album, Keep Your Eye On Me, with a guest vocal on the Jam and Lewis-produced Herb Alpert hit, “Diamonds.”

Ce Ce Peniston’s career came about almost accidentally. She was singing backup on another A&M album (Female Preacher, by rapper Overweight Pooch, which was a flop). Her vocals stood out enough to catch the attention of DJ and A&M art director Manny Lehman, who commissioned Felipe Delgado (Female Preacher’s producer) to produce a single for Peniston. She had written a poem, added a melody to it, and “Finally” not only became a top dance club hit, it was also her highest charting single on the Billboard Hot 100 at Number 5, and became the title track of her first album. She would record only three albums for A&M, but still managed to rack up a total of five Number One hits on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs list. Peniston continues to release singles today.

Barry White’s early background in the music industry included work as an A&R man, session musician, arranger, and songwriter. He had a hit with the girl-group Love Unlimited for the Uni label, then moved to 20^th Century Records. White formed the Love Unlimited Orchestra to back up his girl group, but the orchestra’s first single, the instrumental “Love’s Theme,” became a Number One hit on the Hot 100. White wanted to work with a male singer, but after a label executive heard his demos, he convinced White to re-record his demos and release the music himself. A fortuitous decision, White racked up several Top 10 hits under his name.

White changed labels again as his career waned, and his style of music went out of fashion for a while. His career rebirth happened on A&M. After participating on the Quincy Jones album Back on the Block, interest in his music picked up and he released his first A&M album, The Man is Back, in 1989. He subsequently released the highly-acclaimed The Icon is Love in 1994, which propelled him back to the upper reaches of the album charts. The single “Practice What You Preach” reached Number 1 on Billboard’s R&B Singles chart.

A&M Records had an impressive run in R&B, soul and dance music, but would have even more success with genres that would dominate the airwaves and record stores in the 1980s. We will cover this in the next installment of our A&M Records’ 60^th anniversary celebration.

When Roebuck “Pops” Staples was growing up on a plantation in Mississippi, he wanted to be a blues guitarist. He learned his technique by listening to musicians like Barbecue Bob, Big Bill Broonzy, and Blind Lemon Jefferson. Chester Burnett, eventually known as Howlin’ Wolf, used to play at the plantation owner’s general store. But when 18-year-old Roebuck found religion and got married, he poured everything he knew about blues into his new focus on gospel music and family. That amalgam of styles paved the way for the Staple Singers, a group that would shape soul music for decades.

In 1936, after their first two children were born, Roebuck and his wife Oceola headed for Chicago. Pops worked in the stockyards and played gospel on the weekends. Soon he was performing with his kids Cleotha, Pervis, Yvonne, and Mavis. Although she was the youngest, little Mavis sang the bass part with her already earthy voice. She was soon promoted to lead vocals.

The Staples signed with Chicago-based United Records in 1954 and then switched to Vee Jay Records two years later. The 10-inch shellac singles they cut for Vee Jay were collected in 1959 on the LP An Uncloudy Day.

“Let Me Ride,” credited to Pops, is a good example of their unique melding of gospel singing and blues guitar.

In the 1960s the Staples recorded briefly for Riverside Records, a folk label, before stepping up to the higher-profile Epic, owned by Columbia Records. As Rob Bowman put it in the Staples’ official essay for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame archives (they were inducted in 1999), during this period they “single-handedly invented the genre known as soul-folk.” Or, to borrow a deft line from the Memphis Music Hall of Fame website, the Staple Singers “put the cross in ‘cross-over’.”

While latching onto the folk revival movement, the family also aligned themselves with the sociopolitical wave that powered it. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Staples fan; his favorite was Pops singing “Why (Am I Treated So Bad)?” The admiration was mutual, and the Staples proudly marched with King and gave voice to his fight for civil rights. In 1965 they wrote “Freedom Highway” as an anthem for the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in defense of voting rights. The song came to symbolize the whole civil rights movement.

But before they had found their footing as social-justice warriors, the Staple Singers worked to combine folk and gospel, as on the 1962 album Hammer and Nails. It’s worth noting the contribution of two session musicians here, both of whom had established their careers by playing with top-echelon jazz artists: drummer Gus Johnson and bassist Leonard Gaskin.

On “Do You Know Him?” you’ll hear more of a folk or country influence on the rhythm, a move away from the predominantly blues core of their 1950s recordings. For lack of a better term, this rhythm is a bit more square.

Despite their new endeavors, the Staples did not abandon their gospel roots. On “The Old Landmark,” a track from Swing Low Sweet Chariot (1966), a significant difference from “Do You Know Him” is the lack of drums. Just using Pops’ guitar as accompaniment has the effect of freeing up the singers’ phrasing.

What the Staples really needed at this point was a label that would not only allow them to use their various styles but would actively encourage further musical exploration and development. They found that label – a home, really – in Memphis’ Stax Records, which they joined in 1968. If you associate the flowering of soul music with the early 1970s, the Staple Singers signing with Stax Records is a big reason why.

The label trumpeted the group’s new genre on the cover of their first release: Soul Folk in Action came out in 1968. On “The Ghetto,” the fingerpicking style comes from folk; the organ comes from gospel and jazz; the chord progression comes from blues. The orchestration with strings and hi-hat and snare brings it into the accessible pop vein, an important aspect of the birth of soul music.

A crucial change happened in the early 1970s, when the Staples’ albums started to be produced in Alabama’s famed Muscle Shoals studios, taking advantage of their fantastic in-house session musicians, particularly the brass players. Al Bell was their producer during this period, and he is largely responsible for making the Staple Singers into superstars. Bell even brought in a touch of reggae, which helped turn “I’ll Take You There” into a chart-topper.

Mavis Staples called their Stax music “message songs,” a kind of soul with a pop vibe, and lyrics with an ethical core gleaned from both gospel and their civil rights days. The result was, apparently, just what the world was looking for. Songs like “Respect Yourself” were huge hits; Mack Rice and Luther Ingram wrote that one, but it was the Staples who delivered it to the masses.

Besides its hits, the 1972 album Be Altitude: Respect Yourself also included the lesser-known song “This Old Town (People in This Town).” It churns out a rhythmic rumble while imagining the peace and happiness of a town with no racial or other social problems.

While the Staples were at Stax, their other hits included “Oh La De Da,” “If You’re Ready (Come Go with Me),” and “Touch a Hand, Make a Friend.” But the ride couldn’t last forever. Stax was forced into bankruptcy in 1975. Although it would be reconstituted as part of Fantasy Records within a couple of years, the Staples were left without a label.

They ended up on Curtis Mayfield’s label, Curtom Records. They had already worked with Mayfield on the soundtrack he composed for the 1975 movie Let’s Do It Again, starring Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby. About half the tracks are instrumental only; “I Want to Thank You” features the Staples (which they soon took as their official name, dropping “Singers”):

For Unlock Your Mind in 1978 they moved to Warner Brothers. But the Staples continued to be stylistic chameleons, retaining the freewheeling style and funky bass they adopted from their time with Mayfield, combined with the horn section and the organ from the Stax years, and a new style of orchestration (notice the flutes especially) that reflects popular taste in the late 1970s.

You can hear all these elements on the title track.

In their long tenure as soul’s biggest innovators, the Staples never stopped trying new and surprising things. In 1984, near the end of their time together, they had a hit with their cover of a Talking Heads song, “Slippery People.”

By that time, Mavis Staples had a long-established solo career, which she’d started at Stax in the early 1970s, where she focused on secular music separate from her family’s gospel repertoire. In the 1990’s she signed with Prince’s label, Paisley Park, and continued making her own albums.

Mavis is now the only one left. Pops Staples died in 2000 at the age of 85; Cleotha died in 2013, Yvonne in 2018, and Pervis in 2021.

Happily, there are still some Staples treasures in the vault. In May of 2022, Anti-Epitaph released Carry Me Home, a live recording with Mavis Staples, Levon Helm, and a host of fine support players, recorded in 2011 at one of Helm’s so-called Midnight Rambles at his farm in Woodstock. Yvonne was in attendance, singing backup for her little sister. The brilliantly-produced album is a joy from start to finish. So, let’s end this Staples celebration with a joyful noise:

Header image of the Staple Singers from the Omnivore Recordings website.

He had the coolest name to go with his cool sound. Zoot Sims was a saxophonist’s saxophonist, a musician everybody wanted to work with because he made everything he played sound better.

A native of California, John Haley Sims was born into vaudeville in 1925. He liked to show off the tap steps his hoofer dad had taught him. When he was a kid, everybody in the house played an instrument – his older brother, Ray Sims, had a solid career as a big band trombonist – so Zoot took up the only one that no one else was using, the curved clarinet, which was so similar to a saxophone that it was sometimes called a saxonette. Listening to Ray’s records got him hooked on jazz.

His biggest inspirations were Ben Webster and Lester Young (I wrote about Young in Issue 161), and he absorbed them like a musical sponge. By the time he was 15, he knew jazz would be his life, so he dropped out of school and started touring, first with Bobby Sherwood’s big band, and then with Ken Baker’s. Playing mostly tenor but sometimes alto, he caught the attention of Benny Goodman, who invited him to join his ensemble in 1943. A few years later, he was snatched up by Woody Herman, and that’s when his career really took off.

Herman’s band already had three terrific sax players: Stan Getz, Herbie Steward, and Serge Chaloff. When Sims showed up, they became a quartet to be reckoned with, calling themselves the Four Brothers. As an ensemble within the larger band, their intense polyphonic sound really helped set the Herman group apart. The foursome also made albums on their own.

The next obvious move for an up-and-coming jazz musician was to try his luck in New York, which Sims did in the early 1950s. He soon joined the Stan Kenton band but squirmed under Kenton’s dictatorial leadership and his unforgivingly tight swing band arrangements. So back Sims went to California, where Gerry Mulligan found him painting houses to make ends meet and offered him a more suitable job in his own ensemble. They worked together for a decade. Meanwhile, Sims made another important connection, fellow tenor sax player Al Cohn. The recordings they made together are legendary.

Sims died in 1985 at the age of 59, leaving behind a legacy of swing-influenced improvisation that kept swing not only alive but relevant and cutting-edge long after the jazz mainstream had decided it was obsolete.

Enjoy these eight great tracks by Zoot Sims.

1. Track: “Howdy Podner”
   Album: Zoot Sims in Hollywood
   Label: New Jazz
   Year: 1954

This quintet comprised Sims plus Ralph Penna on bass, Jimmy Pratt on drums, Kenny Drew on piano, and Stu Williamson on trumpet and valve trombone.

Two of the album’s four tracks, including “Howdy Podner,” were by tenor saxophonist Bill Holman. It’s a jumping swing track with a taut beat and a bebop edge. Sims’ solo, relaxing the feel after Williamson’s turn beforehand, starts at 1:34. It’s a good example of how Sims updated swing, making it a natural bridge into modern jazz.

2. Track: “Morning Fun”
   Album: Whooeeee
   Label: Storyville
   Year: 1956

This group called itself the Zoot Sims-Bob Brookmeyer Quintet. Sims and valve trombonist Brookmeyer were joined by Hank Jones on piano, Bill Crow on bass, and Jo Jones on drums – truly an ensemble of masters.

Sims didn’t do a lot of composing, especially in this early period, which makes “Morning Fun” an interesting rarity. He played this tune a lot over the years. The opening illustrates how Sims seemed to relate his sound to that of the valve trombone, which has a similar pitch range to a tenor sax but a darker, more rounded timbre, making it an ideal companion for unison playing.

3. Track: “Ten Years Later”
   Album: The Four Brothers…Together Again!
   Label: RCA Victor
   Year: 1957

The Jimmy Guiffre tune “The Four Brothers,” which the saxophone section of Woody Herman’s band was named after, turned 10 years old when this album was made. Sims, Getz, Steward, and Chaloff had all moved on to other ensembles, so it’s a treat that they managed to reconvene for this record, supported by a gifted rhythm section.

Al Cohn wrote “Ten Years Later,” which recaptures the tight harmonies and musical camaraderie from the early days of these saxophonists’ careers. Producer Bob Rolontz deserves a nod for his fine work clarifying and distinguishing all these close-knit reeds.

4. Track: “Doggin’ Around”
   Album: Down Home
   Label: Bethlehem Records
   Year: 1960

It’s hard to decide whether the playing of Sims or of pianist Dave McKenna is the true star of this record. The two of them are on fire.

Even as he conquered bebop and cool jazz, Sims never lost his knack for the jump-blues energy that had been so popular when he started in the 1940s. Composed by Edgar Battle, “Doggin’ Around” lets Sims recapture that spirit, as does this whole album of swing-era standards.

5. Track: “Over the Rainbow”
   Album: Waiting Game
   Label: Impulse!
   Year: 1966

The influence of Stan Getz and Gerry Mulligan comes to bear in this album’s arrangements, leaning toward to the pop side of Latin jazz with a sometimes-alarming helping of strings. But more importantly, their influence is felt in Sims’ playing.

Harold Arlen’s “Over the Rainbow” might seem like a surprising choice. Don’t let the sentimentality of the first chorus drive you away. Sims turns this into a bossa nova, and it’s well worth sticking around for the wistful improvisation starting on the second chorus at 2:30.

6. Track: “Mama Flossie”
   Album: Body and Soul
   Label: Muse
   Year: 1973

Body and Soul is a duet album with Al Cohn. By 1973 they had been friends and collaborators for about 20 years and could slip their minds and instruments into a single groove as if they had melded into one musician.

Cohn, a prolific composer, wrote “Mama Flossie.” The exactness of their unison playing on the refrain is breathtaking. When they exchange solos, listen for Cohn’s more daring syncopation and Sims’ rich tone and conversational phrasing. Mel Lewis is the drummer turning what could have been straightforward triple time into an intricate polyrhythm.

7. Track: “Main Stem”
   Album: Hawthorne Nights
   Label: Fantasy
   Year: 1976

Bill Holman wrote the arrangements and conducted the 10-piece band on Hawthorne Nights. Sims is one of four saxophonists, giving this group a sound reminiscent of his Woody Herman days.

“Main Stem” is one of two Ellington tunes on the collection. In this lively version, just this side of frantic, the saxophones team up against trumpeters Oscar Brashear and Snooky Young.

8. Track: “The Fish Horn”
   Album: I Wish I Were Twins
   Label: Decca/Fantasy
   Year: 1981

I Wish I Were Twins is a duet album with pianist Jimmy Rowles, another of Sims’ longtime and frequent collaborators. Rowles earned his reputation as a top-notch accompanist because of his willingness to truly listen to his collaborators and bend with their creative choices.

During the last decade or so of his career, Sims was not only composing more, but also spending more time playing soprano sax. He wrote “The Fish Horn” as a vehicle for that instrument. Akira Tana plays drums and Frank Tate is on bass.