Issue 184

Octave Records has released one of its most musically satisfying and emotionally powerful albums yet: Gabriella by Miguel Espinoza Fusion. It’s a dazzling blend of flamenco, Latin, Indian, fusion jazz, world music and much more. The album features Espinoza on nylon-string guitar, bandmates Dianne Betkowski on acoustic and electric cello and Randy Hoepker on bass, plus special guests including violinist David Balakrishnan of the Turtle Island Quartet, and harmonica player Howard Levy of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones and Trio Globo. Recorded in pure DSD 256 high-resolution audio, Gabriella conveys the musical virtuosity of the group with remarkable realism, combining impassioned performances with extraordinary sound quality.

“The inspiration for these songs comes from just living life,” noted Miguel, who composed all the songs for the album. “The good, the joyful, the sad, the tragic – we wanted to put all the human spectrum of emotions in this record.”

Gabriella was recorded in Pure DSD high-resolution audio at Octave Records’ state-of-the-art studio in Boulder, Colorado using microphones from Microtech Geffel, Neumann, Coles, AKG, Audix and others, to best capture every detail and nuance of each instrument. The album was recorded and mixed by Jay Elliott, and mastered by Gus Skinas. Along with David Balakrishnan and Howard Levy, the musical guests on the album include Andy Skellenger (tabla, cajon), Dave Hagedorn (vibraphone), Priya Hariharan (Carnatic violin, vocals), Victor Mestas Pérez (piano) and Christian Teele (percussion).

Gabriella features Octave’s premium gold disc formulation, and the disc is playable on any SACD, CD, DVD, or Blu-ray player. It also has a high-resolution DSD layer that is accessible by using any SACD player or a PS Audio SACD transport. In addition, the master DSD and PCM files are available for purchase and download, including DSD 256, DSD 128, DSD 64, and DSDDirect Mastered 352.8 kHz/24-bit, 176.2 kHz/24-bit, 88.2 kHz/24-bit, and 44.1 kHz/16-bit PCM. (SRP: $19 – $39, depending on format.)

Miguel Espinoza Fusion: Dianne Betkowski, Randy Hoepker, Miguel Espinoza.

The title track, “Gabriella,” kicks off the album with a driving combination of Latin, Indian and swing rhythms, with Dianne Betkowski and Dave Hagedorn playing the melody on cello and vibes. “Howard’s Tune” combines a fusion feel with an open, airy acoustic sound. “Rune” showcases Miguel’s guitar and Dianne’s cello playing, with the two weaving and complementing each other in a musical dialogue. “Buleria Estila Antiqua” (“Old Style Buleria”) is based on a fast flamenco buleria rhythm with the cello and Priya Hariharan’s vocals carrying the melody on top of the brisk tempo. Gabriella offers some quieter musical moments, like “Mermaid” and the meditative “La Lluvia” (“The Rain”), and concludes with the lively “Barrio Latino,” featuring propulsive percussion by Christian Teele, and piano playing by Victor Mestas Pérez.

“The number one goal for all of us in this group is to have an emotional impact and to remind people of their humanity,” said Espinoza. “Any time we play, that’s how we feel as well.”

I talked with Miguel Espinoza and Dianne Betkowski about the making of Gabriella…and we went off on a few tangents.

Frank Doris: How did this album come about? How’d you wind up recording with Octave and choosing this selection of songs and players?

Miguel Espinoza: The president of Octave Records [Paul McGowan] had heard us play and wanted us to do a recording with all of us. And we wanted to record with people such as David Balakrishnan and Howard Levy. But [this would] involve a lot of composing [music] on a deadline we weren’t used to. Other times we would record when we had compositions ready.

FD: How did you find the players on the album?

ME: We went to the Goodwill (laughs) No, I had worked with Howard [Levy] before. I used to have a group called Curandero in the mid-nineties. It was really popular, and we hit a lot of the world music charts. And I worked with Béla Fleck, and had composed an album called Aras in 2009. That started me kind of stepping away from doing traditional flamenco and collaborating with other musicians. I’m still doing it and still loving it.

And I’m a big turtle lover. A few years back I contacted David Balakrishnan from Turtle Island Quartet. And I’m like, “dude, I’m really into turtles. And here’s some of my music that I’ve done.” We kept in touch over the years, and then Dianne said we should ask him to record with us.

FD: The album is really an amazing mix of players and music. There are so many influences. Latin, fusion, classical guitar, Indian, pop…I even feel like I hear a little bit of a Mahavishnu Orchestra influence there.

ME: I’m very close to [Mahavishnu Orchestra leader] John McLaughlin. He was the one that helped me when I had Curandero In 1995 I needed a bass player [for a recording], and he said, “why don’t you use mine, Kai Eckhardt?”

How do you like the variety [of the songs] on the album?

FD: I love the variety. “Gabriella” is just like “bang” right out of the gate. “Joy” kind of flows and there are different rhythms against rhythms. “Barrio Latino” It ends on such an upbeat note. And then you have “La Lluvia.” It’s contemplative. The album goes through such a wide range of moods. I was floored, actually. Everybody is playing at such a high level of musicianship.

ME: Oh, thank you so much. Thank you, bro. Appreciate it.

FD: I think listeners are gonna flip out. I ask every Octave artist this: how does it feel to listen to your music in such good sound quality?

ME: It’s an honor. Jay Elliott recorded us. To have such a prestigious recording studio and all these really, really expensive microphones and everything was placed very meticulously, and you shut the door and your ears just kind of boom because [the room] is air tight. (laughs)

FD: Let’s talk about how the songs on Gabriella came about.

ME: First of all, I don’t write anything down. It’s all composed, but not written.

FD: No kidding. I was gonna ask you how much was written out. I just assumed much of it had to be.

ME: I come from a real strong Gypsy tradition. I went to Spain right out of high school and lived in the slums with the, the Gitanos in the old cities of Jerez, Cadiz, and Triana. If you learn flamenco nobody writes anything down, it’s an oral tradition. You have to have really good rhythm. Flamenco kind of chooses you, so you have to have the qualities. So I never learned to read music. And here I’m playing with Dianne, who’s played with symphonies from all over the world. So Dianne would write charts.

Dianne Betkowski: In the beginning, I didn’t know the extent of what we were gonna be doing. So for like four or five or six [of the] pieces, I wrote them out. And then I needed a music stand, and I needed a light, and I needed clips to keep the music from blowing away when we were outside. (laughs) Then we had a photo shoot, and everyone just broke out into one of our pieces. I’m like “I’m the only one that can’t play it ’cause I don’t have my music. So I bit the bullet and I memorized what I had already written. From then on I began to help develop pieces and learn them and put my two cents in without any music.

Miguel Espinoza and Dianne Betkowski.

ME: Right now, the music that we are composing, this is it, man. We are so seasoned and ready.

FD: Did you play it live in the studio in one take, or how did you actually put it together?

ME: Well, some of the pieces are so long. “Barrio Latino” is at least 12 minutes long. So we probably ran through it four or five times and picked the best take. Sometimes we would say, “oh, dang, that was a mushroom.” A shiitake.

DB: A lot of us were in the same room at the same time. We were not all isolated. Miguel was, and sometimes one or another musician, but mostly we ended up being in the same room, which is why I used an electric cello on “Barrio.” I had two other people in the room and we would’ve bled into each other. It would’ve been kind of miserable.

FD: I’ve been asking: how did COVID affect your writing or your ability to play or get together? But for the last couple of interviews, I haven’t asked people that – it’s almost like I’ve forgotten about it, which I shouldn’t, especially since I got it a few months ago, but yeah. When did you record the album?

DB: We recorded it in the summer and fall [of 2022]. But the previous recording, Living in a Daydream, was difficult because we didn’t get together and rehearse. Most of our compositions start with Miguel. He has these wonderful rhythmic and harmonic ideas. Then he brings them to me and I come up with melody. We would meet in the park; during COVID it would be in the park, six feet apart, all that stuff.

ME: [Before recording Gabriella] we were on tour. We had signed a contract with Octave Records and during most of July we were on tour back East. And when we came back we had an agreement to start [recording] on this certain date. So not only were we driving eight hours a day to get to the next town, we were under the gun with having to write music. Dianne and I were just plowing through, [writing] the whole tour long, every morning. We’d go do the concert and then get in, get up in the morning, drive for seven hours or whatever, and do the [next] concert. And then the mornings or late at night we’d be composing.

So these compositions have some of the magic of [places like] Maine. I’d never been to those places, and I was blown away by how the lush and beautiful the trees were in Pennsylvania. When I hear the pieces now, I see visions of these places.

FD: Well, I live on Long Island. Sorry I missed you. I could have driven for seven hours to see you.

ME: That accent, man! [referring to FD’s heavy Long Island accent]

FD: Oh, I know. I can’t shake it. (laughs) I don’t know if you ever saw The Sopranos, but I try to tell people, they’re not exaggerating. This is how people from around here actually sound.

DB: Being in Colorado and hearing someone like that is so cool. My father’s side of the family is all from New York City.

FD: You never know where life is going to take you.

ME: Isn’t it wild? I want to mention my roots. My mom is Chicana and Native American. My father was Scottish and Irish. And I’m (laughs) My family’s from the southern Colorado, northern New Mexico area. When the Jews were expelled out Spain some of them ended up here. So we have Sephardic Jews in us as well.

Did you grow up in a tough area? Like John Travolta?

FD: No; my father did in Brooklyn, but when I was young we moved into about as lame of a suburb as you can imagine.

FD: Manhattan was pretty funky in the 1970s and early 1980s. I played in a new wave band and we played CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City and all those places, and everybody sort of glorifies them now. But the bathrooms were uninhabitable and there was graffiti on the walls and the bands played in these cramped, sweaty spaces. I never took my eyes off my guitar and amp.

But before I forget, who were some of your musical influences?

DB: I used to listen to Pat Metheny and Average White Band (laughs) and the Fifth Dimension and Herb Alpert. When I was pretty young I had a turntable and used to try to transcribe what I heard on Average White Band records. But people say that my compositions sound a lot like Bartók and Shostakovich. [I like] French composers as well. [Betkowski is a composer whose works have been performed by the Rochester Philharmonic and the St. Louis, Houston, Honolulu and Colorado symphony orchestras, among others – Ed.]

ME: For me, what stabbed my heart was Wayne Newton’s greatest hits. (laughs)

Just kidding. I grew up accompanying flamenco dance classes. So rhythm is a big thing for me. It has to have some rhythm. I listened to Dion; I really loved the funk era, man. When Herbie Hancock’s Head Hunters album came out…yeah, boom. I fell in love with Brazilian jazz. I learned every song by ear of Sérgio Mendes and Brazil 66.

And then, India. I love raga and I think that’s one of the most spiritual and technically demanding art forms. I love world music.

Dave Rusan is the proprietor of Rusan Guitarworks of Bloomington, Minnesota. He built the iconic “Cloud” guitar for Prince, does a brisk business in guitar repairs, and has many stories to tell. He’s also an audiophile. His clients include the Rolling Stones, Sheryl Crow, Brian Setzer, Dire Straits, Genesis, Iron Maiden, and many others. I had some long talks with him – we’re both guitar fanatics – and our conversations begin with Part One of our interview.

Dave Rusan: I’m gonna turn my humidifier off so we can talk. I’m in Minnesota and I have to run them [in the winter]. It sounds like I’m on an airplane. Trying to make the place decent for the guitars.

Frank Doris: My humidity’s 35 percent now down in my basement.

DR: Ooh.

FD: Well, I have humidifiers in the acoustic guitar cases.

DR: Then you’re fine. As long as you remember to refill the humidifiers. (laughs)

Dave Rusan.

FD: So how did you get started in the music business and wind up building guitars?

DR: I started playing at 14 and had an experience not too long after that made me think I’d better try to fix my guitars. There weren’t a lot of good guitar repair people around, even in Minneapolis, which is not a small city. I had a used Gibson ES-330, and it didn’t have a strap button on the heel. I took it to this guy to put a strap button on, sat down and waited, and I noticed it seemed to be taking a long time. And then he come over and said, “well, we had an accident here, a chunk of wood came out when we were drilling the hole.”

DR: And I remember thinking, maybe I should try doing some of this myself. The same guy did a fret dressing with about 80 grit sandpaper. When I bent the strings they scraped on the rough frets – whoa!

Some people just drive a car and others want to get under the hood and see what the heck’s going on. That’s the kind of guy I was. I had a Mosrite Ventures model guitar and just had to get into it and start messing around with it. It’s just like what I was meant to do all along.  It just took a while to figure it out, you know?

A Cloud guitar ready to go.

FD: So you were adept at woodworking and working with your hands, and you were not a klutz.

DR: When I started there were no books on guitar repair books, or videos of any kind. There was a guy who mentored me when I was a little older and gave me some pointers, but it was mostly observe and see how things were done. I lived in St. Cloud, which is a medium-sized city, about an hour from Minneapolis. There was nobody there who was any good at fixing guitars. So, I kind of had it to myself. And it just kept growing. It was just kind of the desire to make it happen. This was in the early 1970s.

DR: In the mid-Seventies a guy named Don Teeter came out with a book. He was the real deal. John Carruthers also wrote for Guitar Player. And there was Dan Erlewine, who is still at it. I converse with him now and then. But I was mostly self-taught.

FD: How’d you get the tools? Specialty tool suppliers for guitars didn’t exist back then.

DR: I just had ordinary tools, like you’d use for home repair. At some point I got a fret file.

FD: Let’s fast forward to today. Uh, what kind of guitars do you offer?

DR: I make the reproductions of the Prince guitar. Other than that, I’ve been mostly a repair facility. I specialize in re-frets.

The headstock of a Cloud guitar.

FD: So, you have people sending you stuff from all over the country and the world?

DR: Yeah.

I’d never made a guitar before I made the “Cloud” guitar for Prince.

FD: Really?

DR: He had somebody else in town who was gonna make the one for the movie [Purple Rain], but they had a falling out just before it was supposed to be made. So it was overdue. Prince had been coming to the store where I worked, and I had a shop in the basement that I had founded after the, uh, Robin Trower incident.

FD: The Robin Trower incident?

DR: In the Seventies he was huge. He filled the biggest stadiums. And he came into the store before I was there, and one of the owners kind of thought he could do guitar repair. His idea of a fret level was that he’d take a bastard file and kind of move it up and down the frets till he thought he was done. He did some kind of repair for Robin that came out so badly that Robin just had a tantrum and ran out of the store mad as hell. (laughs) About a week later, I suggested they let me start a shop in the store. I told them, “you know, I actually have some idea what I’m doing.”

So that’s how it all started. As far as getting started doing the Prince thing – I’d just come back from London and was there for about a year in the early 1980s. And then I got my job back [in the store where I previously worked] and was doing repairs. One day, Prince walked in and talked to one of the owners, and after Prince left, Jeff Hill, the owner, came down, and said, “Prince is gonna make a movie.” I thought, “he’s gonna do what?” Usually, you were waited till you were bigger, like Elvis or Cliff Richard.

He said he needs a guitar made. And he said to me, you’re gonna do it. I had never built a guitar before, only repaired them. I could have refused. I remember thinking, what the hell am I gonna do about this? But it’s amazing what you can do sometimes if you’re put on the spot. If it goes to hell in a hand basket, they can’t kill me. So I said “sure, let’s go.”

Prince already had a bass that had a lot of the features I could adapt for the Cloud guitar. And I thought, I’m just gonna sit down and make a step-by step-program so I don’t get overwhelmed by the whole thing.

Here’s a YouTube video about the making of the Cloud guitars:

FD: Aside from the shape, is there anything else unique about the Cloud?

DR: The neck goes all the way through the body. It’s got a two-piece neck. The ones I make now are quarter sawn maple. I don’t remember if the original one was or not. The guitar is all hard rock maple, not the softer big leaf maple. So it’s not real light.

But it’s not a real big guitar. Any guitar you see on Prince, they all look kind of big. ’Cause he was five foot two, even a [Fender] Telecaster was huge on him. The Cloud guitars are about the weight of a Les Paul.

Affixing the body “wings” to the neck-through section.

Cloud guitars in progress.

FD: On the heavier side, but manageable.

DR: Prince had a list [of requirements]. I never talked to him directly but he had a list of demands. They were sketchy, a starting point. Make it white, uh, put spades [playing card symbols] on the fingerboard, use EMG pickups, have gold-plated parts, and that was it. Boy, there were many times I wish I could have talked to him. Normally you would talk about neck size and shape and frets and all that. But he was not available. It wasn’t like he didn’t give a damn, but the movie was in production. They were already starting to film it before I got the word to make the guitar, due to this falling out with the other guy. So I made it and hoped for the best.

FD: I guess it worked out. (laughs)

The playing card-inspired fretboard inlays.

DR: It was a real guitar, and I made it play nice, but also I thought of it as a kind of a movie prop. It was part of the storyline, you know? And then, the movie became a big deal, probably a bigger deal than anybody would’ve guessed. But then they said they’re gonna have a Purple Rain tour [in support of the movie], and they said they wanted two more [Cloud guitars]. And I remember thinking, jeez, I guess he actually liked it.

I made the three [Cloud guitars} and they were repainted many different colors over the years. He used mine until the Nineties, and then he kinda wore ’em out and had somebody else make some copies of them.

FD: Have you made or worked on guitars for anybody else we might know?

DR: When I was in London, I made Stratocaster-style guitars for Martin Barre of Jethro Tull. He had a green Porsche. He wanted me to get paint to match. We had to go to the Porsche dealer. And I made a Fender-style guitar for Alan Tarney. Do you know who Cliff Richard is?

FD: With the Shadows? Oh yeah, sure! [Richard is huge in the UK and “We Don’t Talk Anymore” was a smash hit in the US.]

DR: Alan wrote many of his hits. I also met Gary Moore, Randy Rhoads, and Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake & Palmer and worked on their instruments.

Occasionally I would make a reproduction of the Cloud, but after Prince died [in 2016], it really went crazy. Since he died I think I’ve made 35 of them. I’m still going and way behind.

Much hand work is involved in the making of a Cloud.

I had a trademark dispute with [Prince’s management company]. It was early 2018, and Prince and the estate had never trademarked the shape of that guitar. Neither did the guy who made the bass [the Cloud guitar was based on]. A friend of mine said, “why don’t you get the trademark? Not that you want to stop other people, but then you’ll be protected.” Because Prince and [his management] had a history of, you know, watching over stuff. So I thought, I guess I’ll do that. I got a nice gold frame from Amazon, and I put it out so I could see [the trademark certificate] every day. I thought, everything’s fine now. I’ve got a little security here. And after about six months, I found out that for the first five years, your trademark can be contested, which Prince’s estate did. They asked me to stop making the guitars. And then I spent four years and a great deal of money to contest it. I used five different lawyers.

It went on for four years. People said, Dave, just walk away. And I thought, I don’t think I’m gonna do that. I’m not hurting anybody. I never stopped anybody else from making them. The fans are so happy to get them. I’m honoring Prince’s memory. And if I stop, I have to live with being a loser, and I’d rather suffer. So I did. And oh, boy, I’ll tell you, all the documents you gotta look at and you get kinda angry…I was upset a lot of the time for about four years. It was tough. But I don’t regret it at all. I’m glad I did it.

FD: So you obviously won because you’re still making Cloud guitars.

DR: Oh, yeah. I got an agreement where I was allowed to continue. I can’t go into a lot of detail.

The graceful curve leading to the output jack.

FD: Let’s shift gears. You obviously know what to look for when it comes to a guitar. What makes a guitar talk to you?

DR: I could go into specifics, but generally, and this may sound kind of funny, I can get a pretty good feeling of whoever made the guitar, if they really gave a damn about it, if there’s some love put into it. I remember so vividly, I was in high school and I had a used Gibson ES-335 probably made in about 1964, and then I bought a new one when [the conglomerate] Norlin had bought [Gibson]. And even as a high school kid I remember thinking, boy, this is not the same. To be more specific, playability-wise, I like larger frets. I have small, skinny hands. I need to get under the strings when I bend them.

If I could only have one guitar, it would probably be a [Fender] Stratocaster, except maybe with a different bridge pickup. Because it kind of does everything. You’ve got five sounds [available], you’ve got probably the most comfortable body [shape] there ever was. All the tuners are on the top [for easy access]. You’ve got a whammy bar.

Having said that, different guitars bring out different things they make you want to play differently and stimulate your enthusiasm in different ways. I have some old guitars – a 1958 Strat, a 1955 [Fender] Esquire and a 1953 gold top [Les Paul]. I think P90s [Gibson-style single-coil pickups with a rich sound] are kind of underappreciated.

I have three Bludotone amps and one of them has a clean tone that’s so good. Brian Setzer said it’s the best clean tone he’s ever heard. P90s through that are so lovely.

FD: Speaking of sound, what do you like in audio gear? Do you have a high-end system at home? Are you an audiophile?

DR: Oh, yes, yes I am. Have you ever heard of PS Audio?

FD: (laughing out loud) I think I have!

(For real, I had no idea at this point that Dave was into high-end audio and owned PS Audio gear.)

To be continued…

Rusan Guitarworks
8301 Wyoming Ave. S.
Bloomington, MN 55438
daverusan@gmail.com

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All photos of the Cloud guitars courtesy of Bob Cole Photography.

Concert programs normally consist of the usual suspects like music written for large orchestras, small orchestras, string orchestras, or choruses. You won’t find any of them in today’s Melophile, or any of the other usual suspects like vocal recitals, instrumental trios, and string quartets that regularly appear on playbills.

The compositions you will find here were written for only one or two musicians playing in combinations you don’t find very often. These selections are more likely to be heard at festivals and composer retrospectives, in small venues, music conservatories, and college concert halls, or in other intimate settings. Most of the music recommended here is performed on the instruments the composer intended, although a few pieces have been transcribed so they can be played on different instruments (for example, a musician might think, “why should I be left out if I’ve always wanted to record “Un bel di” from Madama Butterfly on my tuba?”). Although some of the combinations included below are more commonly found than others, they still aren’t likely to be scheduled on a program of orchestral or chamber music that’s dominated by the usual suspects…and you might be missing out on some superb pieces.

As usual, recommended recordings are indicated at the start of each annotation. If the recommendation isn’t available on YouTube I’ve substituted an LP, CD, or video of equal interest to listen to for immediate satisfaction.

Béla Bartók/44 Violin Duos/Angela and Jennifer Chun, violins (HMU 907501 CD) Béla Bartók, the composer of such well-known orchestral pieces as Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta,   Concerto for Orchestra, and The Miraculous Mandarin also wrote small scale works for just one or two instruments.

According to music critic John Henken [1], in 1906 Bartók wrote to his sister, “Now I have a plan to collect the finest Hungarian folk songs and to raise them, adding the best possible piano accompaniments, to the level of art song.” Together with composer Zoltán Kodály, who was also an ethnomusicologist, “they began collecting folk songs, recording them with phonographs and wax cylinders. Bartók continued this work through the end of World War I…In the process, he gathered almost 10,000 melodies and, with Kodály, created the foundation of all subsequent research in that area.”

Bartók wasn’t very interested in teaching but did write a large number of pedagogical works in order to promote folk music. Probably the most famous of these works is the Mikrokosmos, 153 progressive piano pieces in six volumes composed between 1926 and 1939. During this same time period he composed the 44 Duos for 2 violins (1931) as a collection of progressively more difficult pieces for young students to play. The Duos are based on Hungarian, Slovakian, Wallachian, Ruthenian, Romanian, Serbian, Arabian, Transylvanian, and Ukrainian traditional songs and dances, some of which Bartók also arranged a few years later as a Petite Suite.

Join the audience for a performance of duos Nos. 16 (“Burlesque”), 22 (“Dance of the Fly”), 28 (“Sorrow”), 36 (“Bagpipes”), and 41 (“Arabian Dance”) played by Elmar Oliveira and Hagai Shaham. Angela and Jennifer Chun are also on YouTube performing duos from their HMU recording, but the choices made for their video are less representative of the music than Oliveira’s and Shaham’s selections.

Avi Avital/Art of the Mandolin (DG ASIN:B08FKP2ZYV CD) Avi Avital is an Israeli mandolinist best known for his adaptations of Baroque and folk music, most originally composed for other instruments. His first recording, a collection of compositions entitled Bach, was released in 2012 during one of the years I happened to be working in a classical music store. When the staff first saw the cover of Avital’s CD, we thought it was some kind of joke or parody, like Tiny Tim tip-toeing through the tulips and re-imagining songs that were already fine the way they were. After all, what was Avital doing playing Bach on an instrument that isn’t ordinarily considered an orchestral instrument?

Allan Kozinn pondered the question in The New York Times issue of March 26, 2012:

“Is the mandolin about to have its moment as a classical solo instrument? Its repertory back catalog is slim – a couple of Vivaldi concertos and some early Beethoven, most notably, as well as parts in Mahler’s Seventh Symphony and Das Lied von der Erde – but its contemporary repertory is colorful and growing.

The venerable Deutsche Grammophon label just signed its first mandolinist, Avi Avital. And now bluegrass, jazz and pop mandolinists are making incursions into classical precincts. Among them, Mike Marshall is touring with his own concerto, and Chris Thile – the instrument’s brightest star at the moment…was the main draw at the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra’s concert at Carnegie Hall on Saturday evening.”

Art of the Mandolin consists exclusively of original pieces composed by Avital for the mandolin. Although the mandolin has been used before to add a unique sound to the orchestra (e.g., in Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet) it takes center stage here with its own original repertoire.

Igor Stravinsky/The Rite of Spring/Two piano arrangement by Vyacheslov Gryaznov/Martha Argerich and Akane Sakai, pianos (Video) Piano duos are usually performed on two pianos, or more rarely on one piano with two players. With Argerich and Sakai at the pianos, all of the excitement from the orchestral version is still there: the conflicting rhythms, wild syncopations, melodic fragments, and dissonant harmonies. In fact, they’re even clearer in this stripped-down version where, for example, rhythms and instrumental clashes you haven’t noticed before suddenly make an impact. In other words, at times the pianos reveal more there, here. To paraphrase one listener in the comments section: “What this version loses in color it gains in rhythm, and The Rite –a piece built on rhythm – is here being played solely on two percussion instruments.” The music is as exciting as ever and you might find yourself moving to it in unexpected ways, giving be-bop an entirely new meaning.

Make it a double feature. Combine your love of music and movies, and perhaps enjoyment of nostalgia by re-visiting an old favorite: the section with dinosaurs from Disney’s 1940 Fantasia that uses The Rite as its score. It can be found (not in the best video quality) at www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Vw-fy-Gfl8.

Double Portrait/Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes, pianos (Blue Note SKU5099962756020 CD) What has four feet, several pedals, several legs, and lots of action but doesn’t quite know where it’s going? No, it isn’t Ferrante & Teicher, the piano duo who performed easy listening arrangements of music during the 1960s. It’s Bill Charlap and wife Renee Rosnes playing and improvising jazz on two pianos. They might not always know what will happen along the way but they get to the finish with inventiveness and creativity. “This recording is as pure as it can be: two phenomenal talents whose minds and hearts speak through the dizzying mathematical possibilities of 176 individual choices, producing one glorious sound in an atmosphere designed to caress its every nuance.” (Joel Moss, album producer)

The Beauty of Two/Paul Hindemith/“Sonata for Viola and Piano”/The Kennedy Center Chamber Players (Dorian DSL90705 CD) Physically, the viola is larger than a violin but not as big as a cello. Its repertoire as a solo instrument is small primarily because it has traditionally been used to fill in and add richness to the sound of the other strings in chamber and orchestral music. It usually plays the inner voices but does occasionally play a major role in orchestral music. For example, Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Schumann wrote pieces that featured the viola, and Max Bruch composed several pieces for the instrument including a romance for viola and orchestra that explores the emotional capabilities of the viola’s timbre. [2]

Hindemith’s “Sonata” is one of his most melodic pieces. Unfortunately, the performance I own isn’t on YouTube, which sent me hunting for an alternative recording to include here. Trying to find another fine performance is always difficult, and finding one for the “Sonata” was especially challenging. It’s the Goldilocks dilemma: trying to find something that’s just right. I started with a video of two famous musicians performing the piece and thought I wouldn’t have to look any further, but found their playing kind of dreary, routine, and anything but involving. Some performers missed the beauty of the melody. Other players were too slow, cold, or disengaged and didn’t hold my attention.

There are usually a number of different examples indicated on the right side of the YouTube screen that include performances by non-Western groups; show videos of student, teacher, and conservatory performances; and present local performances of varying quality and interest. I started playing one at random. The musicians caught my attention immediately with their energy and passion. A clear video, excellent sound, and good photography added to my enjoyment and I knew I had a winner. I’m familiar with pianist Jeremy Denk but not with violist Richard O’Neill, which made me wonder how many other great performances we’re missing because we aren’t familiar with the artists. This is an expressive and engaging reading, one of those performances I could go on and on about. But I’ll stop now and exercise some self control. Perhaps. After all, I do know more glowing adjectives…

Hands on Heart: Live at Wigmore Hall/Alexander Glazunov/“Chant du Menestrel”/Tim Hugh, cello with Olga Sitkovetsky, piano (Naim Classical NAIMCD118 CD) For a big finish with a small number of people, listen to Glazunov’s plaintive “Chant.” The “Chant,” with its nostalgic and expressive melody, was composed in 1900 and evokes a Russian troubadour’s song. Originally written as a cello/piano duo, and in a reversal of the usual “let’s take an orchestral composition and adapt it for chamber music” approach, the “Chant” was transcribed into an orchestral version with solo cello.

This is another selection I had trouble recommending because I couldn’t locate Tim Hugh’s performance on YouTube. [3] Once again, the Goldilocks dilemma came into play as I tried several selections I wasn’t familiar with. Ethan Cobb’s video came close to winning the recommendation, but with the exception of terrific playing and a few outstanding details I found his playing a bit too restrained. (Of course some listeners might prefer this approach.) Christy Choi, however, has all the talent and emotion you could ask for without actually shedding a tear: She has more body movement as she responds to the music, uses a wider range of dynamics, and shows a deeper involvement with the piece than Cobb. Both the cellist and her accompanist are absolutely terrific.

[1]  As quoted in his HMU recording liner notes.

[2] Many violinists have switched to performing on the viola because there are more professional opportunities for viola players than violinists.

[3] Early music enthusiasts will be happy to know Tim plays a cello built in 1708 by Petrus Roman of Venice.

Header image: Avi Avital, courtesy of aviavital.com.

In case you missed it, Cate Blanchett takes an Academy Award-nominated star turn in the movie Tár. She plays Lydia Tár, the first American and the first female conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Within the first 30 minutes, she delivers a tour-de-force lecture/takedown of an unhappy student at Juilliard. This performance alone is Oscar-worthy.

As far as the movie and her character’s monomaniacal, narcissistic and sexually abusive behavior is concerned, this movie has pretension written all over it.

Oh so high-minded, Tár is the classical music world’s version, in my mind, of the heavy metal spoof This Is Spinal Tap without the self-inflicted irony of the latter.

Sometimes a confluence of circumstances can make one scratch their head and wonder about the nature of coincidences.

Such was the case during my recent viewing of an invitation-only screening of the movie Tár at a custom-built Dolby theater in New York City at a SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) event only two weeks after my very first classical music concert experience at Carnegie Hall.

I watched (and most importantly listened) to the Berlin Philharmonic performing Mahler’s Symphony No. 7. As this was my first classical music experience, I likened it to having someone see the Rolling Stones at Madison Square Garden in 1969 as their first-ever rock concert.

You are starting at the top!

I walked out of Carnegie Hall in awe and had hundreds of questions swirling around in my head about every aspect of what I just saw. How exactly does a 125-piece orchestra work? How did Mahler compose for all the instruments? Are all the musicians flown in from Germany or do they use locals? Are the percussionists reading e-mails while they wait for the exact second that they stand up and hit a triangle? What happens if you mess that up? Why was there an acoustic guitar part?

How much better are the concertmaster musicians than all the others?

Tár is a fictional story (suspense/thriller) about the first female conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic as she is conducting (among many other plot lines) a recording session of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5.

The movie also peels back the curtain on the inner workings of the business of the classical music industry.

No, it is not a comedy like the fake rock doc movie This Is Spinal Tap, but they both share the audience’s voyeuristic desire to see the dark side of an industry, although in one case we watch an artist fall from grace and the other shows an artist climbing back from the very bottom.

I’m not exposing which is which, however.

There are huge exaggerations of the character flaws of the main characters in both movies that are equally outrageous, regardless of the directors’ intentions. As I noted, Cate Blanchett may win an Academy Award for the monologue in the beginning of the picture. Her depiction, however, of her conductor’s technique (in the movie she is obsessed by Leonard Bernstein) does not ring true to me.

I asked myself, “Is this because, as a woman, she looks like a man conducting?” Fair question, I think. Is it that, as a professional musician, when I watch an actor portray a musician, I’m always looking for the fake edited cutaway? Possibly.

I read stories about Blanchett’s training for the movie. Her character, Lydia Tár, is also a self-styled creation (her real name is Linda Tarr from Staten Island, and that alone should tell you about who and what she is) is obsessed with Leonard Bernstein and watches videos of his conducting constantly. She becomes a world-renowned conductor and winner of the rare EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) combination. Blanchett’s performance is fierce and it’s impossible to take your eyes off her as she manipulates and connives her way through the maze of political and sexual intrigue that lurks behind the curtain of the professional classical music scene.

Sophie Kauer as Olga Metkina and Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tár. Courtesy of Focus Features.

I recently watched a Zoom interview hosted by Bradley Cooper with Blanchett, her co-star, Nina Hoss, and the director of Tár, Todd Field. Blanchett tells the story of the actual shooting day with the Berlin Philharmonic. She said that the musicians came off, at first, like they had contempt for her as an actor trying to be a believable conductor. By the end of the day, as Blanchett demanded respect and actually conducted them, the entire film crew and orchestra had developed a huge mutual respect for each other’s talents.

That’s good to hear, I guess, but that didn’t stop me from feeling the way I did watching the movie.

The Tár character also suffers from intense ADHD, which creates hallucinations in her head that allows the director to take you down suspense-filled blind alleys.

It’s a long movie and at the point where I just about gave up as to where it was all going, the end came.

Of course, I will not tell you what happens, but I will say that the final scene has become one of confusion, conjecture and interpretation, should you wish to wade into that controversy.

It truly was amazing to see my first classical music concert just a few weeks before seeing Tár.  It gave me much more of an appreciation for the movie than I would have, had I not had that experience.

Like I said in the beginning, Cate Blanchett may win another Oscar.

So…is it Spinal Tap/Tár?

Watch them both together and maybe you will get my sense of humor.

Go forth, unafraid…

Header image: Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tár. Courtesy of Focus Features.

When I was in college during the late ’60s, many of my fellow students spent their summers traveling through Europe. As their parents paid for their education, anything they had left over could be applied to airfare. They generally backpacked and slept under bridges in the hippie style of the time. They’d return with all kinds of exciting stories to tell around the hookah. I didn’t have much to add to the conversation. I spent my summers working at a muffler shop or in a warehouse to enable me to spend another year at college. Even with that, I had to “borrow” my roomie’s toothpaste tube towards the end of the year.

In a way, I envied these students as I loved classical music, art, and architecture. But I wasn’t about to travel like a pauper in pungent clothes, sleeping under bridges, and carrying a giant canvas backpack with a peace symbol inked on the back.

So, after college, I got an industrial sales job, worked my ass off for three years, and managed to save a big pile of money.

“I don’t know, Jan,” my mother said, “you’ve got enough money to pay for half a brand-new house. Do you really want to squander it on a vacation?”

The rest of my family and all my friends expressed similar thoughts. The Depression was barely 30 years behind us and it still had a profound influence on families at the time.

“I understand what you’re saying Mom; you think I should invest this money in a house. But you guys worked hard your whole lives to be able to retire at the age of 50, buy a motorhome, and travel North America. Then dad died of a heart attack before 50, just like his father.

That’s not going to happen to me. I’m not putting my dream on hold for some future date that may or may not come. I intend to enjoy everything available to me as soon as possible, and traveling to Europe has been my most cherished dream since I was a child.” She nodded in disguised disagreement.

Fast forward 40 years to a family reunion when my siblings were in their 60s and my mother was in her 80s. The subject of my trip to Europe came up. They all expressed envy and wished they’d done the same thing in their mid-20s.

“Traveling as a senior citizen is exhausting,” my brother said; “it would have been so much easier if I’d done it when you did.”

“I always thought I had lots of time to travel,” my sister complained, “but shortly after we raised our kids, my husband had a heart attack and could no longer travel.”

“Traveling in your 60s is not the same experience as traveling in your 20s,” my youngest brother added; “you just don’t have the opportunities to meet people and party.”

My family had vindicated my decision.

They asked a bunch of questions, which led to a whole barrage of tales which went something like this:

I got to Heidelberg at about 2 in the afternoon on the first day of my trip. It was hot and air conditioning was not yet common in European cars. I spotted a pub across the town square, or maybe it was one of many grassy town squares in Heidelberg featuring mature trees and a bandstand. The square was surrounded by parking spots on both sides of the street, so I parked my wagon, wandered into the bar, and ordered, “zwei Bier bitte?”

The barmaid gave me a puzzled look. “Zwei Bier?”

“Yes dear,” I answered in English, “please bring me a couple a beers?” Fortunately, most people in Northern Europe speak English. She answered slowly, “Owe kaye.” “What’s her problem?” I thought.

A few minutes later, she plopped two giant glass tankards on my table and left without saying a word. Turns out they were a liter each. That’s almost half a gallon of beer!

In Canada at the time, when you ordered two beers, you got two 10-ounce glasses. What am I going to do with a half-gallon?

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Everyone was sucking on a liter glass. I started sipping on the first tankard and the pilsener was tasty and easy to drink. What I didn’t know was that this beer was 8 percent alcohol, twice what I was used to. After finishing the first one, I was friends with everyone in the bar. After the second beer, it was dark. That’s all I remember.

I awoke to the sounds of horns honking. The sun had risen and I hadn’t closed the hatch. The local commuters got a great chuckle from seeing a tourist passed out in the back of his car in front of a bar.

“Another stupid tourist who’s not used to real beer,” I imagined them saying. But I didn’t mind. I was delighted to have a place to sleep within staggering distance of the bar stool.

The bar was already open at 7 a.m., or maybe it hadn’t closed. Many construction worker-types were wandering in, and back out a few minutes later. I entered for breakfast and noticed they were ordering Weissbier (wheat beer), guzzling it down in one shot, and heading off to work. I asked the waitress about it and she said that was their breakfast. I was glad they also served Kartoffelpuffer, pancakes made with finely grated potatoes, onion, egg, flour, and sea salt.

Kartoffelpuffer. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Silar.

I’d done a lot of research before taking this trip. In the American West, I’d have ridden my motorcycle, but a trip across northern Europe inevitably involves a lot of rain. Another difference is that hotel rooms were not as plentiful (at least, not in the mid-1970s) and it was not unusual to find yourself without accommodations if you hadn’t booked ahead. On a motorcycle, that would mean sleeping under bridges in the rain – not an option, so I bought a transportable bedroom– a station wagon.

Some readers might wonder why I didn’t buy a roomier Volkswagen van. My cousin had warned me that a van parked in a big city with foreign plates would be an enticement. “You might as well write on the side, ‘Rich tourist, break in and take my stuff!’” he said.  He added, “Every baker, grocer and fishmonger uses station wagons, so you can park them anywhere and no one will notice.”

He was right. I was parked next to a VW van in Florence, Italy and the family related a sad tale over the campfire of losing everything in Naples due to a break-in.

I was told to buy in Holland or Germany, and sell in Spain. Cars were a lot more expensive in Spain due to the high taxes, but if one sells “passport to passport,” no taxes apply. You can buy in Holland, drive for a year, sell in Spain, and make a profit, I was told. It was a no-brainer. As I had family in Holland, I landed in Amsterdam.

My uncle picked me up from the airport. He was the CEO of the largest non-ferrous metals company in Europe and, of course, had to show me his office. It was all glass and chrome with fabulous views over the Amstel River. The conference room was next door and featured a large glass table with a dozen chrome chairs. He opened what looked to be double doors to another room, but it was in fact, a well-stocked bar. We enjoyed a couple of Genevers together (Dutch gin-like whiskey drunk straight) and he introduced me to every employee who stopped by. Several joined us for a drink.  My uncle was well-liked and respected, which made for a delightful welcome to Holland.

I spent a few agreeable days at his fine house while searching for a used station wagon. It was an exasperating experience. Amsterdam is a congested city and most of the used cars available were high-mileage beaters.

Over breakfast on Saturday, I expressed my frustration. My uncle responded, “I’ve been perusing the classifieds. Let’s go to Venlo today and check out a 1964 Opel Rekord.” I’d never heard of an Opel Rekord, but I’d heard of the Opel Kadett – a horribly unreliable car imported to Canada by General Motors for a short time.

“Why should we drive clear across the country to look at an unreliable car five years older than what I can get in Amsterdam for the price? I asked.

“Because this model is known for its reliability, it’s got low mileage, and I’ve just got a good feeling about it,” he responded.

We drove three hours to a charming little farming town bisected by a river. I saw the beige-colored wagon sitting in the driveway as we parked. It was about the size of a mid-sixties Chevy II wagon or a Mercedes 240D – a big car for Europe. Both the interior and exterior looked to be virtually new. The owner invited us inside the house for coffee, and when I was done, I asked for the keys to check out the car while my uncle finished his coffee.

I drove it for a few blocks. It sounded fine and shifted perfectly. The rear seat folded down nice and flat. I laid on it and closed the hatch to make sure it would accommodate my 6-foot length. Under the hood, I pulled the plugs to check for oil fouling, and the air cleaner for carburetor gumming. That required the removal of some other parts.

When my uncle came out of the house, he was profoundly embarrassed to see the driveway littered in parts and apologized to the owner. Cultural differences I guess; we always inspected cars before buying them in Canada, but in Europe, it’s a sign of distrust. “Well of course we can’t trust him, uncle; we don’t know this guy from Cain,” I whispered. He didn’t get it.

After reassembling the car, I paid the farmer his price without haggling. He was pleased and my uncle was appeased. He said later that it was normal to haggle.

B. Jan Montana in Etten-Leur, Holland with his 1969 Opel Rekord in April 1977, just after he got the car ready to travel. Courtesy of B. Jan Montana.

He drove the Mercedes back to Amsterdam and I followed him in my new/old wagon. I was jazzed. It was exactly the right vehicle for my European tour. I outfitted the rear of the car with a wall-to-wall 3-inch slab of foam rubber and a couple of sleeping bags (an extra one in case it got cold), and my aunt kindly made snap on/snap off blackout curtains which covered all the windows behind the driver’s seat for nighttime use. In just a few days, I was ready to travel.

On the last night before I left, I asked my uncle what inspired him to drive all the way across the country to look for a used car.

“Like I said, I just had a feeling about it,” he responded. “At about your age, I learned to trust my instincts. Since then, good luck has been a regular companion.”

I never forgot that.

Header image: Heidelberg, Germany. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Miholz.

Many vinyl records are manufactured with an oversize spindle hole, and some turntables have undersized spindles. These conditions can result in pitch variation from not being able to center the record onto the spindle, which causes eccentric rather than concentric rotation of the record. To solve the problem, I created a custom record centering accessory, intended as a quick and simple way of centering vinyl records with oversize center holes.

This compact and lightweight accessory is simply placed on the center spindle of your turntable over the record and twisted into position, which locates the sharp edge of the device between the spindle and the record hole, taking up any excessive clearance.

The bore and conical outer surface of the centering accessory are concentric within 0.00002 of an inch (0.5 µm), ensuring that the center hole of the record is perfectly concentric with the spindle.

If a record is rotating eccentrically, the difference in linear velocity will cause a periodic change in speed, audible as a once-per-revolution wow.

A tight fit between the center spindle of the turntable and record hole is the usual means of ensuring a record is centered for playback.

However, due to manufacturing tolerances, some records have oversize holes and some turntables have undersize spindles, preventing the record from establishing a positive location, unless a tool like the one shown is used.

The record centering device in use.

The advantage of this method of centering is simplicity and speed. The limitation is that it will only center the record based on the center hole location. The groove structure on a record, however, is not always perfectly concentric with the center hole.

The master disks used in the vinyl record manufacturing process are cut on a lathe and subsequently electroplated to create the stampers that will be used to press the multiple copies of the vinyl records. During this process the original center of the lathe is lost. The stampers are manually centered prior to pressing, by an operator observing the locked groove at the end of the record under a microscope. Each record manufacturer has their own definition of what constitutes an acceptable centering tolerance for their product, and in addition, there is always the possibility of human error that would only be detected if there are strict quality control procedures in place, both at the pressing plant and at the receiving end (the record label ordering the records).

If, due to the aforementioned manufacturing and QC considerations, the groove structure of a record is not concentric with the center hole, then an accurate location of the center hole would still result in eccentricity and speed errors. The accessory presented here cannot solve this issue and there is no quick and simple way to compensate for such errors on domestic reproducing equipment. This accessory will only fix eccentricity caused by oversize record holes, again, provided that the groove structure is concentric with the center hole.

The centering device when not in use.

The centering accessory can be left in place during playback, or carefully removed, as preferred.

This project was commissioned by George Vardis, an EMT turntable enthusiast in Athens, Greece, who came up with the concept after becoming frustrated with the lack of repeatability when measuring wow and flutter with his Audio Precision system and Hewlett-Packard spectrum analyzer, due to the test record having an oversize hole. He turned to our company, Agnew Analog Reference Instruments, for the engineering and manufacturing of this accessory.

Please contact Agnew Analog Reference Instruments at info@agnewanalog.com for pricing and availability.

In the photos, the centering accessory can be seen on a Thorens turntable with an SME tonearm and van den Hul moving coil cartridge.

Note: This article was first published as a blog post on the Agnew Reference Analog Instruments website. It appears here in edited form by permission of the author.

Before J.S. Bach, Germany did not produce a lot of earthshaking composers. Among the few Bach predecessors who make the cut is Heinrich Schütz (1585 – 1672), primarily a composer for the Lutheran church. Schütz is important for his spectacularly beautiful polyphonic music and his innovation in adapting techniques developed for Latin texts in Catholicism to the sounds of the German language. Both of those skills make his music an essential stepping stone, without which there could have been no J.S. Bach.

Happily, there have been several new Schütz recordings lately. While each features his sacred vocal music, the various ensembles find a different focus and inspiration for choosing this repertoire. Geoffroy Jourdain, conducting the ensemble Les Cris de Paris on a Harmonia Mundi release, called his album David and Solomon. In his essay for the CD booklet, he explains how that title represents the two aspects of Schütz: “I see in him a link between German and Latin culture, but also between the Renaissance music of his mentor Giovanni Gabrieli and a musical era in the making (the ‘Baroque’).”

The works on David and Solomon – Schütz’s Psalms and his setting of the Song of Songs – were written 16 years apart. It was in Venice as a man in his 20s that Schütz studied with the Gabrieli, important for inventing “cori spezzati” (split choruses) technique, a new way for polyphonic choral music to be physically as well as musically distributed when performed in a church. Schütz also became familiar with the more conservative but no less masterful choral composition style of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. That’s when he wrote his Psalm settings. A decade and a half later, when he wrote the Song of Songs, his new influence was the cutting edge music of Claudio Monteverdi.

The two collections also differ in the language of the texts they set. The Psalms are in German, from Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible, whereas the Song of Songs (Canticum canticorum) uses Latin words from the Book of Solomon in the Vulgate Bible, the centuries-old standard for Catholics.

One of the glorious aspects of this recording is use of instruments. First, there’s the range of types of period instruments employed, from harpsichord and theorbo (extra-long lute with sympathetic strings) to cornetti (straight wooden predecessors to the trumpet) and the trombone-related brass serpent. Second, the balance of chorus and orchestra does not favor the voices, as many recordings do, allowing for a more realistic blend as one might hear live in a church performance.

The effective balance can be heard in the powerful “Danket dem Herren” (Thank the Lord), with text from Psalm 136. The brass writing will loosen the fillings in your teeth. Schütz’s teacher Gabrieli was renowned for his writing for brass, so it’s no surprise that the German student picked up that skill. The fervent tenor soloist is Constantin Goubet.

Another recent Schütz recording has such a different sound that it’s hard to believe they’re singing the same composer as Les Cris de Paris. In a way, they’re not. Ensemble Polyharmonique’s Geistliche Chor-Music 1648, on the Raumklang label, emphasizes the celestial resonance of the Schütz’s final works, a set of motets that he called Spiritual Choir Music. While Jourdain’s group presents the composer as a wunderkind who appreciated the radicals of his field, Polyharmonique believes these late motets “were conceived in terms of [Schütz’s] legacy.” In other words, they are conservative because he wanted them to be eternal.

As if to honor the composer’s wishes, the singers use pure, intense sound, without vibrato and without giving overt emotion to each word. Palestrina, hired by the Church of Rome in the 1560s to “purify” the music of worship, would have approved. The sound is angelic and breathtaking, untouchable by mere mortals. An essential factor is the decision to use far fewer instruments – a wooden organ and a few bowed strings – plus a smaller group of singers.

The Spiritual Choir Music can also be heard on a recent recording on the Tacet label, featuring the Sächsisches Vocalensemble (Vocal Ensemble of Saxony) under the direction of Matthias Jung. Here the late work is interspersed with movements from the much earlier Psalms of David, in a comparative approach similar to that of Les Cris de Paris. Like Polyharmonique, the Sächsisches Vocalensemble chose to limit its instrumentation to organ and cello. This has the advantage of letting Schütz’s exquisitely constructed polyphony shine on its own.

The 23-voice choir has a beautifully sculpted sound, and exceptional intonation. Jung does an admirable job of blending the basso continuo and voices so they seem to be an extension of each other. Nowhere is the group’s skill more evident than in the tricky writing of Psalmen Davids, No. 8, “Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen” (How lovely are they dwellings), in which the composer demands the kind of virtuosic runs from the singers that one is more likely to associate with later composers like Vivaldi or Handel.

For the recent Schütz recording with the most imaginative approach, the prize goes to Choralwerk Ruhr, conducted by Florian Helgath. On this release from Coviello Classics, rather than alternating the works of young Schütz and old Schütz, they offer movements from his Musikalische Exequien (Musical Funeral Rites) interrupted twice by selections from the 2016 work Earth Diver by living German composer Nikolaus Brass.

The concept is a fascinating one and would have been even more effective if the choral performance had been more engaged for the Schütz motets. The singing is accurate at all times, down to every detail, but it seems to lack commitment compared to the other recordings mentioned here. They create a pretty wall of sound rather than an intriguing interplay of individual voices. It’s a nice sound, but not thrilling.

Interestingly, the performance of the new works is far more convincing. Earth Driver sounds like a 21^st-century work informed by the entire history of choir writing. Nikolaus Brass seems to draw as much from 14th-century vocal polyphony (Guillaume de Machaut in particular) as he does from the late Renaissance and early Baroque, but “Voices I” and “Voices II” are captivating landscapes of choral texture on their own and a wonderful reminder of Schütz’s still-vibrant legacy.

It’s not insignificant that Brass’ work is wordless, just using vocables. Consider it the extreme but logical outcome of Schütz’s own efforts. If Schütz deserves credit for one historical milestone, it’s the creative way he adapted Italian polyphonic techniques intended for the Latin language, making them sound completely natural in German. As Oliver Geisler puts it in his essay for the Ensemble Polyharmonique recording: “In Heinrich Schütz’ vocal works, language and music entered into an intimate amalgamation such as had never been achieved before, and has since perhaps been reached but never surpassed.” Just ask J.S. Bach.

Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Christoph Spätner/public domain.

Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis (1922 – 1986) was often just called “Jaws,” a sign of respect for his mastery of the tenor saxophone as well as a description of the way he clamped down on his mouthpiece.

While the biographies of most royalty from jazz’s Golden Age have a chapter in which they make their first fateful journey to New York City, Davis’ story starts there. He was born in Harlem and spent most of his life calling New York his home.

He taught himself to play saxophone as a child, catching on quickly and wasting no time in finding places to show off his skills. In the 1930s, Harlem teemed with jazz clubs, so all Davis had to do was walk in the door and blow his horn. By his teen years he was already a star in the renowned jam sessions at Minton’s Playhouse, one of Harlem’s most coveted seats for any ambitious jazz musician.

Starting in the 1940s with his band Eddie Davis and His Beboppers, over the decades Davis worked in many groups. He collaborated with the likes of fellow saxophonists Johnny Griffin and Sonny Stitt and branched out into Latin jazz for an album with percussionist Ray Barretto. Among Davis’ most lasting contributions is his work with Hammond organist Shirley Jackson. The combination of their respective instruments – reed and synthesized-reed, so different yet so compatible – produced a new and distinct timbral blend. It’s one of those sounds that seems primordial once it’s out in the world, but it took a meeting of the right two minds to come up with it.

His fame grew in the 1950s when he landed another sought-after post as a member of the Count Basie Orchestra. This was a dream come true for a lifelong fan of saxophonist Ben Webster, a Basie mainstay. The energy and passion of Davis’ playing matched perfectly with that high-octane ensemble. Although his roots were in swing, Davis possessed remarkable stylistic flexibility, being equally comfortable in a wide range of jazz subgenres, from Latin to bebop.

With a sound that could be either tough-guy or sweet, wild or gentle, Davis fit in everywhere. No wonder many of the best players in jazz were eager to work with him in the studio and onstage throughout his long career.

Enjoy these eight great tracks by Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis.

1. Track: “Jaws”
2. Album: The Battle of Birdland
   Label: Roost
   Year: 1954

The Battle of Birdland is live recording of Davis performing with Sonny Stitt at Birdland in New York City. Billed as a “tenor battle” by promoters, everyone is a winner as these two great tenor saxophone players trade licks.

The album opens with the best of the improvisatory jousts, a 10-minute version of “Jaws,” co-written by Davis and Stitt. The two musical frenemies start in perfect unison before the “battle” gets rolling. Davis goes first, ornamenting with increasing intensity until he winds up in his upper register before Stitt takes over. The organ of Doc Bagby provides a through line.

2. Track: “Skillet”
   Album: The Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis Cookbook, Vol. 2
   Label: Prestige
   Year: 1958

The three-volume series of Cookbook albums find Davis playing with organist Shirley Scott and flutist/baritone saxophonist Jerome Richardson. George Duvivier is on bass and Arthur Edgehill the drummer. Besides their work in the studio, this quintet also toured for a few years until Scott turned to other pursuits.

Because “Skillet” is co-written by Davis and Scott, it is an ideal vehicle for demonstrating the special sound they developed by combining their styles. As was pointed out by jazz critics at the time, an important factor is Scott’s light touch at the Hammond B3, preventing Davis from having to overblow. It’s also a patient collaboration: In this track, Davis doesn’t come in until the 3:34 mark.

3. Track: “Very Saxy”
   Album: Very Saxy
   Label: Prestige
   Year: 1959

The Prestige label assembled quite a lineup for this album. Davis is joined by three other great tenor saxophone players: Buddy Tate, Coleman Hawkins, and Arnett Cobb. Very saxy, indeed! The proceedings are held together by Davis’ usual Scott/Duvivier/Edgehill rhythm section.

The title tune, a co-composition of Davis and Duvivier, is a jump blues using the chord progression of “Sweet Georgia Brown.” Its energy is reminiscent of the Count Basie sound, appropriately enough given that both Davis and Tate played in the Basie orchestra. The order of the solos: Tate, Cobb, Hawkins, Davis.

4. Track: “Tin Tin Deo”
   Album: Afro-Jaws
   Label: Riverside
   Year: 1961

Percussionist Ray Barretto’s music provided an important bridge between Latin traditions like son montuno and son Cubano and the world of the jazz standard. His influence went beyond what is conventionally thought of as “Latin jazz.” On Afro-Jaws, Davis takes advantage of Barretto’s intricate rhythmic ear, embracing the Afro-Cuban sound in rich, blues-inspired interpretations of Latin jazz tunes.

Although most of the tracks on this album were composed by salsa pianist Gil Lopez, “Tin Tin Deo” is by Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo, known for the tunes he wrote for Dizzy Gillespie’s band. Trumpeter Clark Terry is as much a part of the percussion as Barretto’s impossibly complicated conga patterns; Davis, on the other hand, keeps it cool. The polyrhythms he calmly swims against starting at 3:59 are mind-bending.

5. Track: “Straight, No Chaser”
   Album: The Tenor Scene
   Label: Prestige
   Year: 1961

The Tenor Scene is one of many albums Davis made with saxophonist Johnny Griffin and pianist Junior Mance. As is true for a large swath of Davis’ catalog, he chose to collaborate with another tenor sax player rather than with soprano, alto, or baritone. He must have liked the blend of more than one tenor, not to mention the challenge of trading solos with someone on the same instrument.

Here they are wrapping themselves around Thelonious Monk’s 1951 classic, “Straight, No Chaser.” The sly arrangement has the two horns landing hard on the dissonance in each subphrase.

6. Track: “A Gal in Calico”
   Album: Jawbreakers
   Label: Riverside
   Year: 1962

Davis did several collaborative albums with trumpeter Harry “Sweets” Edison, whom Davis would have first become familiar with for his work in Basie’s orchestra. However, the two never worked in that group together. Basie temporarily disbanded in 1950, at which point Edison ended his run there. Davis was in the next wave, when the orchestra started up again.

“A Gal in Calico” is an Arthur Schwartz standard from the 1940s. Edison and Davis have a simpatico swing style; you can practically hear the lyrics through their horns. The commanding bass part is by Ike Isaac.

7. Track: “If I Ruled the World”
   Album: Love Calls
   Label: RCA Victor
   Year: 1968

Love Calls is yet another duo recording with a fellow tenor saxophone player. In the hot seat this time is Paul Gonzalves, credited with bringing a surge of vitality (and record sales) to Duke Ellington’s big band during the 1950s, when things were looking bleak for that group. Before that, he’d been with Basie and Gillespie.

As one might guess from the album title, these are sexy arrangements of romantic songs. This version of “If I Ruled the World,” by Leslie Bricusse, is arranged in an unusual way: Rather than setting out the melody straight and then trading improvisations, Gonzalves plays the tune in a smooth, sultry tone while at the same time Davis improvises around him with a brighter, almost shimmering sound.

8. Track: “Wave”
   Album: Swingin’ Till the Girls Come Home
   Label: SteepleChase
   Year: 1976

Like many jazz musicians in the 1960s and ʼ70s, Davis turned to studios and festivals in Northern Europe to keep his career afloat when rock music started sucking up all the industry dollars in the US. He recorded Swingin’ Till the Girls Come Home in Denmark with an all-Danish quartet: pianist Thomas Clausen, bassist Bo Stief, and drummer Axel Riel.

Although the album consists mostly of American popular standards, Davis included a dash of Brazilian flavor with “Wave,” by Antõnio Carlos Jobim. With the way Davis’ melody dances from phrase to phrase, one might think he’d been born in Rio instead of Harlem.

Header image: Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, The Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis Cookbook, Vol. 2, album cover.

Lynyrd Skynyrd began in 1960s Jacksonville, Florida. For those unfamiliar with Florida, Jacksonville is about 20 miles from the Georgia border, a few hours’ drive from Alabama, and a quick flight from Mississippi and Louisiana. Jacksonville is The South, and it’s where Gary Robert Rossington was born on December 4, 1951. Rossington was the last original and longest-serving member of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Although he had been in poor health and decreased his live performances since suffering a heart attack in 2015, his death on March 5, 2023 closed a long and important chapter in American music history.

Rossington attended Robert E. Lee High School (now Riverside High School) with Ronnie Van Zant and original drummer Bob Burns, who is credited with naming the band Lynyrd Skynyrd after the coach of the Generals basketball team, Leonard Skinner. Coach Skinner, an enforcer of the short-hair rule, would kick long-haired boys out of school until they got haircuts. Rossington was thrown out for the last time in 10^th grade and never returned. Rock and roll won over conformity. By 1970 Lynyrd Skynyrd was born, and a solid work ethic of writing, rehearsing, and performing made them a finished product for Al Kooper’s MCA Records-affiliated label, Sounds of the South. Kooper produced Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd (1973), Second Helping (1974), and Nuthin’ Fancy (1975). Tom Dowd would produce Gimme Back My Bullets (1976), and Street Survivors (1977).

The first album, namely the song “Free Bird,” set the foundation for their legendary status. This classic rock staple is undeniably one of the great American records, with relatable lyrics and the hard-driving sound of three guitar players. The “three guitar army” consisted of Gary Rossington, Allen Collins, and Ed King, formerly of Strawberry Alarm Clock, a psychedelic California group best known for “Incense and Peppermints” (1967). Fame grew after Al Kooper booked the band on the Who’s Quadrophenia tour. At first glance, it might seem like a mismatched pair, but according to Cameron Crowe, Townshend admitted, “They’re really quite good, aren’t they?” If you read enough Townshend interviews, you know this is high praise, and the music was fixing to get even better when Steve Gaines replaced Ed King on Street Survivors.

Gaines can be heard singing loud and clear on “Ain’t No Good Life” and co-singing with Van Zant on you “You Got That Right.” Gaines’ contributions and influence seemed to invigorate the band and add a fresh sound to the repertoire. The album also features “What’s Your Name” and “That Smell,” a tune inspired by Rossington’s car crash into an oak tree after consuming drugs and alcohol. Gaines was also featured on the live album One More From the Road, which achieved triple-platinum certification.

Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1973. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/MCA Records publicity photo/public domain.

This early version of Lynyrd Skynyrd ended not because of internal struggles, poor record sales, or substance abuse but because of a poorly-maintained airplane that went down over Mississippi on October 20, 1977. Among the six fatalities were Steve Gaines and Ronnie Van Zant. The survivors were guitarists Allen Collins and Gary Rossington, bassist Leon Wilkeson, pianist Billy Powell, and drummer Artimus Pyle – who is alive and well in South Carolina.

I discovered Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1977 at the age of 11. Before moving to the suburbs from the outskirts of Spanish Harlem in New York City, I was steeped in the sound of disco and funk, blaring from boom boxes playing the O’Jays, Ohio Players, and Commodores interrupted only by salsa rhythms from passing cars. My new suburban school had none of this music. We moved just 40 minutes north of the Empire State Building, and there was a large contingent of kids who dressed in nothing but denim, boots, and T-shirts emblazoned with band logos by 38 Special, The Marshall Tucker Band, Molly Hatchet, the Charlie Daniels Band, and Black Oak Arkansas, but Skynyrd still ruled. Surprisingly, the rich kids on the other side of town loved Skynyrd just as much. One of my friends played One More From the Road unceasingly in her room in a 15-room mansion. Rest assured, this girl knew nothing about swamps, poverty, or the plight of the working man, but the beauty of Skynyrd was their authenticity, connection to country and blues, and a sense of Americana. I credit her for my lifelong appreciation of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Southern rock.

After 1980, I rarely thought about Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Rossington Collins Band, or when the remainder of Lynyrd Skynyrd reunited for a 1987 tribute tour with Ronnie Van Zant’s younger brother on vocals. The band underwent a lineup change in 1997, and one-time member Rickey Medlocke returned as a guitarist. Medlocke started as a second drummer with Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1971 and 1972 before joining Blackfoot, He can be heard on Skynyrd’s First: The Complete Muscle Shoals Album (1978).

The band has never stopped working, and they should be in the same league as mainstream long-haulers The Allman Brothers Band and ZZ Top. But there’s an elephant in the room: the Confederate flag, a symbol they have clung to and displayed nearly the entirety of their career.

As a traveler to the South in the 1970s, the Confederate flag was ubiquitous and unquestioned. Many people never gave it a second thought until we realized and acknowledged what the flag symbolized to so many others. According to the 2018 documentary, If I Leave Here Tomorrow, the band offers various explanations for using the rebel flag, one being that MCA Records imposed the flag as a gimmick, and it differentiated them from other American bands touring abroad. Whatever the reason, Gary Rossington claimed he didn’t share the values of the hatemongers who hijacked the flag, and I tend to believe him. As a mere gimmick and stage prop in the 1970s, the flag served them well. However, I also believe that post-1987-Lynyrd Skynyrd relied on it to coalesce a fanbase that had dwindled in a changing music scene of heavy metal, rap, alternative, and grunge.

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s record titles The Last Rebel (1993), Endangered Species (1994), and the greatest hits Southern Knights (1996) might be dog whistles to varying degrees, but 2009’s God & Guns is sheer pandering. Even with its WWE wrestling tie-in, the album made barely a blip in sales. “This Ain’t My America” bemoaned high gas prices, smoking bans, and a loss of respect for Uncle Sam, and school prayer. The title track, “God & Guns” is a predictable and stereotypical portrayal of rural folk. Were it not for the selective amnesia of his boozing, drugging, dressing-room wrecking bandmate, I wonder how Rossington reconciled those lyrics with Ronnie Van Zant’s on the anti-gun “Saturday Night Special.” As I listened to the album, I was impressed by the musicianship, even if I wasn’t the target audience.

Lynyrd Skynyrd tried retiring the Confederate flag in 2012, but within a few weeks they reversed position. They cited States’ rights and tradition, but the more likely reason could be explained by a Houston Chronicle headline, “Fans’ Outrage Prompts Lynyrd Skynyrd to Keep Confederate Flag.” Nevertheless, the band seemed to double-down as they attended political events and adorned the stage with flags, eagles, whiskey barrels, and walk-ons by guys in Uncle Sam costumes, which reduced a once monumental band to parody. That said, Lynyrd Skynyrd seems to have stopped displaying the flag over the last few years and have erased it from their merch.

How do we reconcile the present day with the attitudes and beliefs some of us once held? I’ve lived through the burning of disco records in the 1970s and the steamrolling of albums deemed satanic during the 1980s. There are many bands I no longer support out of good conscience, but I would never deny someone else’s right to listen to them. It is important to remember that artists and fans are ever-evolving and should be extended the same opportunity to change and grow as we allow ourselves.

In the meantime, I treasure my copy of Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd. It’s not the first pressing but a numbered Mobile Fidelity Original Master Recording that is out of print. I wanted the best version of that landmark album with all my beloved songs and that simple cover photo of a raw Southern hippie band. My favorite is the slow-dance tune “Tuesday’s Gone,” then “Simple Man” with Rossington on lead guitar, followed by the first half of “Free Bird,” during which Gary Rossington plays slide guitar with the sticky sweetness of a roadside pecan log and the attack of white lightning pouring through his fingers onto the strings of his trademark Gibson guitars.

Rossington was laid to rest in a family plot back in Jacksonville in the same cemetery as his band brothers Ronnie Van Zant (1948 – 1977), Allen Collins (1952 – 1990), Leon Wilkeson (1952 – 2001), and Billy Powell (1952 – 2009). Coach Leonard Skinner (1933 – 2010) is there too. In his later years, Skinner was happy to be associated with his namesake and probably didn’t mind their long hair.

Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Jon Callas.

During the Florida Audio Expo (FLAX), I basically live-posted capsules on Facebook from notable rooms I visited each day. Little did I know when I posted about Focal/Naim’s room that I was opening a tempest in a teapot! At the time of my visit, nothing other than a handout with a QR code identified the complement of loudspeakers and components in the Focal/Naim setup. So I used the information I had from my Focal contact, Wendy Knowles, which identified the loudspeakers as the Focal Maestro Utopia EVO. Within minutes, multiple posters were on Facebook arguing whether the loudspeakers in my pictures of the room were actually the Maestro Utopia EVO, or the Sopra No. 3. I mean, it almost got ugly!

This lively discussion carried on for a couple of days; I spent a considerable amount of time checking out emails from Wendy, the information in the QR code, and anything else that might be available online. The QR code took you to a site that listed a multitude of equipment that wasn’t present in the room I visited – including both the Maestro Utopia EVO and Sopra No. 3 loudspeakers. But I’m fairly certain from my photos that the loudspeaker in question was in fact the Maestro Utopia EVO. At least, they sure look like them as pictured on Focal’s website!

The QR code thing is another reminder of how we as a society are moving headstrong toward a paperless flow of information, and hey, I’m basically okay with that. But my show experience proved to me that the QR codes on display in so many rooms in lieu of literature with equipment lists were a great idea, but definitely still a work in progress!

Mobile Fidelity featuring Andrew Jones

A couple of weeks prior to FLAX, I got an email press release from Mobile Fidelity alerting me that speaker designer extraordinaire Andrew Jones would be present in Tampa, giving talks about his new MoFi SourcePoint 10 loudspeaker. “Great!” I thought, “I’ll definitely need to check that out!” Yeah, me and everyone else – after multiple attempts at entering a room where the tightly-packed crowd pushed out into the hallway, I finally got up my nerve and literally shoved my way past the adoring throngs to get a closer look.

MoFi’s new SourcePoint 10 loudspeakers are Andrew Jones’ latest design.

The SourcePoint 10 was paired in a minimalist system with a HiFi Rose RS520 Hybrid amplifier/streamer/DAC; the equipment rack was supplied by Solidsteel, and power conditioning was provided by Isotek. AudioQuest provided the Thunderbird cables that were used in the setup. The MoFi/HiFi Rose combination was surprisingly potent and superbly musical – I’ve been working with Class D amps from a variety of manufacturers over the last few years, and I’m definitely a believer! The HiFi Rose is a really cool unit (it definitely gets big points on appearance alone!), and seemed perfectly matched to the SourcePoint 10. The sound was powerfully moving, emotionally engaging, and simply remarkable. Especially considering that the total cost of the system was somewhere shy of $10K.

The SourcePoint 10 is a very large stand-mount loudspeaker, but has a really cool aesthetic.

Andrew Jones gave a brief but really interesting summary of his career as a loudspeaker designer and how that prepared him for his current gig with MoFi. He also outlined MoFi’s design goal for the SourcePoint 10, which was basically to employ a minimalist speaker complement, housed in a really cool-looking cabinet MoFi gave him a reasonable price-point budget, which allowed him to easily accomplish his personal goals for the SP 10 and supply an excellent product. I’d say that the SourcePoint 10s are a technological and musical triumph on every level, and I’m really glad that I brutishly forced my way in to have a listen!

Volti Audio with Border Patrol and Triode Wire Labs

Volti Audio’s room is always a “can’t miss” for me. Greg Roberts of Volti and “Triode Pete” Grzybowski are two of the nicest, most accommodating guys in high-end audio, and spending time in this room is like visiting with old friends. They’re always quick to offer a beverage, never refuse a music request, and generally will accommodate any volume level for any particular selection. That keeps the show attendees happy, and also gives them an excellent opportunity to check out the synergy of the particular system on display in the room. Volti featured two loudspeakers, the New Rival and the Razz (which I reviewed for Stereophile a couple of years ago). The New Rival has a slightly more compact cabinet structure compared to the original Rival, but still features the same internal componentry found in Volti’s flagship Vittora loudspeaker. The Razz offers a generous helping of the sonic signature of its larger siblings in the Volti line, which, considering its quite reasonable price point, is pretty amazing. Amplification and DAC were, as always, all-tube from Border Patrol, and the excellent cables were supplied by Triode Wire Labs. Streaming was courtesy of an Innuos Zen/Phoenix stack.

The New Rival loudspeaker is a superb update on the original!

I missed the Razz demo, which is usually much later in the afternoon, but made it in time to get an extended listen to the New Rivals, which were cranking out some Led Zep as I slipped into the crowded room. The sound was robust, but still very fluid, especially in the midrange and top end, no doubt due to Greg’s constant attention to the crossover elements he employs in his designs – and the tubed Border Patrol amp and DAC contribute mightily to the great sound. This is one of those rooms you just can’t get enough of! 

ampsandsound, featuring Acora Acoustics, VPI Industries, and Cardas

Justin Weber of ampsandsound and I go back a few years, when I reviewed his Leeloo Mono tube amps here on Positive Feedback. That experience was a complete eye-opener for me with regard to what a two-and-a-half-watt tube amplifier can do with a high-efficiency loudspeaker! When I got his e-mail that he’d be exhibiting at FLAX, I reached out to let him know that I’d looove to check out his room to see and hear some of his current amp designs. Justin’s a really interesting guy; when he’s not building world-class tube amplifiers, he works as a licensed clinical social worker in both psychiatric and medical health situations, often in emergency rooms. Justin’s definitely talented at engineering great tube designs, but he’s also a real stand-up guy.

Justin’s Casablanca amps were the stars, and they meshed perfectly with the Acora SRB stand-mount loudspeakers.

The ampsandsound room featured a pair of Casablanca mono amplifiers, along with their stereo preamplifier, which sports a built-in moving-magnet phono stage. ampsandsound paired with Acora Acoustics, who supplied their SRB stand-mount loudspeakers (including the granite stands). The analog source was a VPI Classic Signature table mounted with an Ortofon 2M Bronze cartridge; the digital streaming stack was supplied by AURALiC. All cables in the system were from Cardas.

The Casablanca monos output 60 watts per channel with KT88 tubes, and are a high-current design that Justin claims are capable of driving any medium-efficiency loudspeaker to satisfying levels. The Acora SRB are rated at 8 ohms and 86 dB/watt, which is a textbook definition of a medium-efficiency loudspeaker. Justin played a diverse selection of demanding tracks that would challenge any amplifier, but the Casablanca never ran out of gas, powering the diminutive SRB’s perfectly. The Acora projected a soundstage that was deep and wide, casting a tantalizing illusion of realism. This was a seriously great-sounding room!

Orchard Audio featuring Soundfield Audio and Triode Wire Labs

I was familiar with Orchard Audio from my exposure to their PecanPi streamer, but I had no idea prior to FLAX that designer Leo Ayzenshtat also would be exhibiting two Gallium Nitride Class D amplifiers. The Orchard room featured the Starkrimson Ultra Stereo 500 WPC amp, as well as a pair of Starkrimson mono 150-watt amps. The system also featured the aforementioned PecanPi streamer/network audio player/DAC. Soundfield Audio supplied two different stand-mount loudspeaker models, the M1C and a second I haven’t been able to identify yet. All cables were provided by Triode Wire Labs, with the exception of the proprietary power supply cables utilized by the pair of mono amps.

The Starkrimson Ultra stereo amplifier is a beast!

The Starkrimson Monos are a cool and compact design that Leo prefers to position close to the loudspeakers. The Triode Wire Labs cables are everywhere in this room.

I had the luxury to chat with Leo for what seemed like forever about GaNFET technology, and about his design goals for both the stereo and mono amp configurations. Because the amps were each connected to separate pairs of Soundfield Audio loudspeakers, it was very easy for Leo to switch between them and demo the differences (and similarities) between the two amp designs. When I walked into the room, the Starkrimson Ultra stereo amp was playing through the Soundfield M1C loudspeakers; the track was the DSD file of “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” from an SACD by Harry Connick, Jr. The track displayed absolute realism of sound, a perfectly rendered soundstage, and when Branford Marsalis’ sax solo appeared, the complete liquidity of the presentation totally grabbed my attention.

Upstream Audio featuring Focal, Aesthetix Audio, Clearaudio, and Sonore

I talked to Garth Leerer of Musical Surroundings several weeks before FLAX to check whether they’d be present this year, so we could perhaps catch up. Garth didn’t make it, but Musical Surroundings partnered with West Coast dealer Upstream Audio. The loudspeakers in the room were a pair of Focal Kanta No. 2s; they were powered by an Aesthetix Audio Dione hybrid amplifier along with an Aesthetix Pallene preamplifier. The analog sources were tables from Clearaudio, a Reference Jubilee fitted with a Hana Unami Red cartridge, a Concept AiR Wood that was fitted with a Concept MC cartridge, and an Ovation turntable with a DS Audio optical cartridge. Digital sources included an Aesthetix Romulus Signature CD player/DAC, along with streaming supplied by a Sonore Optical Rendu. All cables in the system were from Iconoclast and Sonore, and power conditioning was supplied by IsoTek.

This chamber music re-imagining of the music of Jethro Tull shocked me with its goodness!

During my visit, the Ovation turntable was playing an LP of a string quartet that sounded…eerily familiar; but not in a classical way, and I just couldn’t put my finger on it. When I inquired about the music, a show attendee reached into his bag and pulled out, of all things, a Jethro Tull album he’d brought with him, where Tull selections were performed by a string quartet with Ian Anderson contributing flute and vocals. The sound quality was almost lifelike over the Focal Kantas; that was probably due in no small part to the excellent table and that DS Audio optical cartridge. Not surprisingly, I was amazed that I’d somehow missed this record from several years ago. Hey, FLAX is always a great place to discover new music.

Joseph Audio featuring Doshi Audio and Cardas

I always try and make a point of checking out Jeff Joseph’s room; mainly because Jeff is such an incredibly nice guy, who I feel like I could totally just hang out with in some other alternate version of my life. But the Joseph Audio room is always among the most musical you’ll hear at any show, and the usual complement of Doshi Audio electronics that are typically always feeding Jeff’s loudspeakers don’t hurt things either. As always, all cables throughout the system ware from Cardas, and the digital source was an Aurender A20 Reference network player.

The Joseph Audio loudspeakers sounded great, even playing online videos from NPR!

Jeff was showing his superb Pulsar 2 Graphene loudspeakers, which are an incredible value at just shy of $10K. Doshi Evolution Series tubed amplification and preamp were driving the Pulsars, and the sound was as great as ever – but this year, there was a twist. Right in between the loudspeakers, there was what appeared to be a 55-inch flatscreen TV, and a concert recording from Montreux featuring Miles Davis in a big band setting conducted by Quincy Jones was playing. And to my utter shock, the sound was astonishingly good, I mean ridiculously good. Miles was in top form, it was great to see Quincy Jones at work, and the sound was beyond reproach.

Jeff then announced that he would next play a few tracks from an LA band, Moonchild, from an NPR Tiny Desk Concert video. Again, I wasn’t sure what to expect; I mean, videos in Jeff Joseph’s room? But as the video commenced, I was completely struck by not only the impressively good sound, but also the superb quality of the video image. And Moonchild is an incredibly talented group of musicians. The trio are each multi-instrumentalists, and they were augmented by a drummer and a group of backup singers. Their style is kind of a jazz fusion of sorts, with almost seductive vocals from singer Amber Navran, and the combination of horns, woodwinds, and keyboards/synths from the group members was almost irresistible! Playback apparently was from this video that Jeff was streaming from NPR’s website. It made no sense to me, but I totally enjoyed the experience.

Aretai featuring Convergent Audio Technology and ViaBlue

Aretai is a loudspeaker manufacturer from Riga, Latvia; the loudspeakers they displayed at FLAX were from their Contra Collection. The model that was highlighted in the room was the Contra 100S, which is a smallish sealed box stand-mount that can be used for either in-room or desktop setups. The Contra 100S features a distinctive ring radiator high-frequency driver assembly that’s dominated by a large cylindrical waveguide assembly. That assembly encircles and encases the high-frequency driver and protrudes from the cabinet’s face – it very much resembles a horn (but these are not horn-driven speakers). Janis Irbe, Aretai’s founder and chief designer told me that the waveguide is actually movable, and can be pulled forward to suit the listener’s preference. And the waveguide/high-frequency assembly can be easily removed; it can be ordered in a variety of colors, and apparently customers like the range of available choices. The Contra 100S also features dual 6-inch midbass/woofers, and is specified to reach down to 34 Hz, although Janis assured me that the dual woofers will allow in-room measurements at least an octave lower than specified.

The Contra 100S is a really cool-looking loudspeaker that also offers incredible performance.

Aretai’s room featured tubed electronics from Convergent Audio Technology; the amplifier in the system was a JL-5 Black Path Extreme Special Edition, and the preamp was an SL-1 Legend Black Path Extreme. The digital source was a network player from Aurender. The impressive and robust looking cables, spikes, absorbers, and room enhancement products in the system were supplied by German manufacturer ViaBlue.

The ViaBlue cables are impressively well made.

Playback started with “Flight of the Cosmic Hippo” by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, which was a really good acoustic/electric introduction to the Contra 100s’ imaging capabilities. That was followed by jazz singer Jane Monheit’s “Honeysuckle Rose,” which features a superb walking bass intro that showed the diminutive loudspeaker’s in-room bass response to really good effect, and Monheit’s voice was exceptionally lyrical and solidly centered in the soundstage. Janis then played “Bubbles” from Yosi Horikawa, an electronica piece that bounced around the room behind and beyond the soundstage. The final track he played was “2049” from composer Hans Zimmer from the Blade Runner 2049 soundtrack; the bass content was impressively deep, such that I’d have sworn a sub or two were tucked away in the room somewhere. Overall, the Aretai/Convergent/ViaBlue combo made quite the impression, and were supremely musical – I’ll definitely keep my eyes on these guys! 

Next Level HiFi featuring Aavik Acoustics, Ansuz Acoustics, and Borresen Acoustics

AGD – Audio Group of Denmark – showed again this year in cooperation with their Chicago-area dealer Next Level HiFi. Next Level had three rooms at FLAX, where they showcased AGD’s three brands, Aavik Acoustics, Ansuz Acoustics, and Borresen Acoustics. Amplifiers, preamplifiers, digital sources, and all electronics fall under Aavik’s umbrella; the Ansuz brand features AGD’s cables, power distribution, and resonance control products; while the Borresen brand spotlights AGD’s loudspeaker production. All products displayed in all three rooms are manufactured by AGD, and they’re built of exotic materials to nearly unbelievable tolerances – an AGD system is any audiophile’s dream, albeit a very expensive one!

The new Axxess Forte is a tremendous performer at a surprisingly low price point.

The Borresen X3 offers performance on par with its much more expensive siblings.

But the real reason to check out the AGD offerings at FLAX this year was the introduction of their new entry-level brand, Axxess. The room exhibited the company’s debut product, the Forte, which is an all-in-one device that is basically an integrated amplifier with built-in DAC and streamer modules. The show also featured the debut of a new entry-level Borresen loudspeaker line, the X Series, with the new X3 on display. Everything in the entry-level system shows a generous helping of serious trickle down from the megabuck technology employed in the full-line AGD brands. And the Forte and X3 combined clock in at under $20K. Let the rejoicing begin!

Focal/Naim with Vicoustic

Focal/Naim’s room featured loudspeakers and headphones from Focal, Naim Statement electronics, as well as digital equipment from Naim. No cables were listed in the online, in-room, or QR code information. Acoustic panels in the room were supplied by Vicoustic. The room was crammed with listeners, and it took a few minutes for me to maneuver myself into anything resembling a good position to evaluate the sound coming from the system.

The loudspeakers on display were the gargantuan Focal Maestro Utopia EVO, and the room featured a massive pair of Naim Statement mono amplifiers, as well as a matching Naim Statement preamplifier. The digital source also came from Naim, an NDX 2 Network Audio Player/DAC. The sound was absolutely superb, as should be expected from the monster complement of Naim electronics driving the big Focals. A guy beside me asked, “what are the big black boxes in the middle of the room – do they serve some purpose?” One of the reps in the room explained that they were the amps and preamp; this guy was pretty flabbergasted by the scale of the Naim equipment powering the huge Focals. Trust me, he wasn’t alone – this monster system produced a monster sound.

MoFi Distribution featuring Falcon, BAT, Mobile Fidelity, and Solidsteel

Mobile Fidelity-distributed equipment was also on display at the show. This room highlighted two pairs of Falcon loudspeakers: the limited-edition LS3/5a Gold Badge stand-mount speakers, and the M10 speakers. Balanced Audio Technology provided the system power with a VK3500 integrated amplifier. MoFi also furnished the system’s source, a Precision Deck turntable, as well as a MoFi StudioPhono phono preamplifier. The turntable was fitted with a MoFi Master Tracker cartridge. All stands and racks were provided by Solidsteel. I only got to hear the less-expensive M10 loudspeakers during my visit. While the LS3/5a Gold Badge is undoubtedly a “gold standard” among small loudspeakers, the M10 produced a sound that was musically refined, if not quite on the same level as its more expensive sibling. Still, the M10 was a very compelling performer.

The MoFi Precision Deck turntable was an excellent performer and had that retro cool finish.

The other really outstanding item in the Mobile Fidelity Distribution room was their own MoFi Precision Deck turntable, which provided the analog source for the demo. The Precision Deck has a retro cool, limited-edition Fender swamp ash sunburst-finish plinth, and from what I heard in the room, it’s also an excellent performer. A lot of guys in the room were taken by the turntable’s exceptionally good looks!

Just Audio.com

Somehow or another, I ended up getting an Instagram follow request from Just Audio.com, which is a Baltimore-area high-end dealer that sells tons of equipment online and in a brick-and-mortar store. But their Instagram feed also features a steady flow of vintage gear they’ve acquired and rehabbed for resale that I enjoy lusting over online – staring at those vintage gear posts really takes me back. Anyway, I really wanted to check out their two rooms, which, more than anything else, exuded this kind of “Crazy Eddie” energy from those Seventies commercials. It’s an interesting vibe, to say the least.

One of the rooms featured a vintage rack of Pioneer gear from the seventies, with amp, preamp, equalizer, open-reel deck, and a receiver; the rack was flanked by a pair of JBL studio monitors that were encased in clear acrylic cabinets. A neon Just Audio sign cast an eerily effective, nearly psychedelic electric blue light through the JBLs, and everyone in the room was absolutely digging it!

Moon Audio

I’ve always recognized Moon Audio for their cables; back in the early days of USB computer audio, they were one of the first cable manufacturers to offer a high-end alternative to off-the-shelf USB cables, like their Dragon and Silver Dragon lines. At the very least these gave the impression (if by nothing else other than their well-made appearance) that someone out there was actually concerned with USB quality.

Headphones from many manufacturers were available to try out in Moon Audio’s room.

Well, apparently they’re also very big into servicing headphone playback, because almost the entire room seemed focused on headphones, amps, and DACs from just about every manufacturer imaginable. I mean, there was headphone gear from Astell & Kern, Audeze, Aurender, Focal, Dan Clark Audio, Fostex, HiFiMan, iFi, Sony – heck, there were even electronics from DCS in the room – seriously? I don’t generally engage in a ton of headphone listening in my normal routine, but I’m obviously way behind the curve on this one. If you’re really into cans, you should definitely check Moon Audio out.

All photos courtesy of the author.

At the turn of the century New York City was bristling with droves of young bands looking to make their mark. Much of the era was defined by music that harkened back to late-1960s garage rock, laced with the perhaps more overt tones of 1980s indie rock.

If you’re into rock music, you’ve undoubtedly heard of The Strokes, Interpol, and the like, but one band’s frenetic blend of indie-rock goodness stood out to me amongst the chaos: Stellastarr. I don’t know…maybe it was the way their singer, Shawn Christensen, summoned ghosts akin to a modern-day Jim Morrison, or perhaps it was the tidy rhythm section consisting of Amanda Tanne (bass, vocals), and Arthur Kremer (drums, keyboards), but if I’m being truthful, it was the (mostly) Fender-inspired licks of guitarist Michael Jurin that wholly drew me in.

Jurin was unafraid to jangle and chime like the Smiths’ Johnny Marr, or deliver neck-stomping power chords ala Johnny Ramone, sometimes all in the same breath. Plus, “My Coco” was included in the soundtrack of MVP Baseball 2004 – a game I spent countless hours playing as a young teen, but I digress.

For me, Stellastarr represents a specific moment in time, and hey, it’s pretty damn cool that they’re from New York, too, ain’t it? These days, Jurin is no longer with the band, mostly because Stellastarr called it a day back in 2009. But that hasn’t stopped him from making inventive, hyper-listenable music under the name of Piano Belly and with others, and composed soundtracks for independent movies.

I recently logged on with Michael Jurin to recount his guitar-playing origins, the formation of Stellastarr, the creation of some of the band’s most memorable tracks, and what he’s up to as he looks ahead.

Andrew Daly: What first inspired you to pick up the guitar?

Michael Jurin: I was one of those kids that tried to draw anything I found interesting. Things like dinosaurs, mythical creatures, then characters from movies. But it wasn’t enough to recreate album covers when I got into music. I wanted to be able to recreate the music too. I started asking my parents for a guitar when I was like 12.

AD: Can you recall your first guitar, how you obtained it, and if you still have it?

MJ: There it was, Christmas morning – a Harmony acoustic guitar sitting amongst the presents under the tree. It was hard to play, practically a toy, and had a neck like a baseball bat, but I played the hell out of it. I played that Harmony until the bridge popped off.

AD: What were the first riffs and solos you learned?

MJ: The first riff was probably “Louie Louie” by The Kingsmen or “Satisfaction” by the Stones. Later, the first solo I memorized by heart was “Mother” by Pink Floyd. I got a book of Pink Floyd tablature; luckily, that solo is basically broken up into different neck positions and shapes, so it seemed easy to remember each little phrase by position. Actually, I still use a version of this method in my own writing, where I play something that is often the key to remembering movements and phrases.

AD: Who most influenced your sound, and how is that best illustrated in your style?

MJ: David Gilmour of Pink Floyd was a big idol for me. I love that his solos were permanent melodic parts of a song. So, when I write, I generally flesh out a solo and then keep it. Gilmour taught me to love reverb and delays, and above all, [how] to “gallop” with a delay [as a rhythmic device]. Stellastarr songs like “My Coco” and “In the Walls” couldn’t exist without “Run Like Hell” and “Another Brick In The Wall.”

Robert Smith of The Cure was a big one, too. He’d walk up and down the same string instead of working in standard scale shapes, or use an open drone string while playing. That’s a trick I use a lot.

And I love William Reid of The Jesus and Mary Chain. He taught me that noise can blend hand in hand with melody and that a pretty lick can disintegrate or explode or be played through a fuzz that spits and sizzles. I like walking the line between super-melodic and noise; it can make it feel like the song might jump the rails at any moment. Tons of Stellastarr songs incorporate this, like “No Weather,” “Jenny,” “Tokyo Sky,” “Pulp Song,” and “Stay Entertained.” Tons.

Michael Jurin.

AD: Can you tell us about the inception of Stellastarr?

MJ: In 2000, I got invited to the first rehearsal of this group of art school friends wanting to play music. I showed up not knowing a soul with my Gibson 345, a 2 x 12 amp [with two 12-inch speakers], and a pedalboard. They, however, all had cheap guitars, small practice amps, and a crappy microphone. But then we got playing, and it sounded something like Built to Spill meets Pixies.

Shawn [Christensen], the singer, had a few basic ideas, but everyone was very open to jamming and seeing where it all went. In only a few months, we’d written a bunch of these fun songs with a million parts in them. Actually, a bunch of the songs on our debut album [Stellastarr] were performed at our very first show!

AD: What gear and guitars did you use to record “My Coco” and “Stay Entertained?”

MJ: In Stellastarr, I played a lot of Fender Jaguar. I practically used it as my mission statement. Shawn played a [Gibson] Les Paul or a {Fender} Telecaster, so the Jag lived in a brighter sonic range with fewer low mids. There were definitely exceptions, but both “My Coco” and “Stay Entertained” used the Jag.

We kinda knew “My Coco” could be a single, so we debated speeding it up and shortening it, particularly in the solo. I argued for keeping it full-length for the album and releasing a radio edit. For better or worse, we went with that. We actually recorded a take of it sped up a little. But it just didn’t seem to groove as much, so we put it back at the normal pace.

For “My Coco,” I originally wrote my parts through an old Boss multi-effects box and a Peavey 2 x 12 solid-state amp. Over time, I switched to a tube amp and newer pedals. The newer rig did sound a little different though, so out of purity, I decided to record “My Coco” using the original equipment. I lugged that stuff to the studio for just one song. (laughs)

My “Stay Entertained” rig was the Jaguar into a Boss MT-2 Metal Zone, then Boss RV-3 delay, into a Fender DeVille [amplifier]. The Metal Zone gets a bad rap. I can get good sounds out of it. Back in 2002 – 2003, the guitar pedal market was not what it is today. So, through experimenting, I discovered that a Metal Zone with the gain set low could make a fun non-metal distortion. I remember Shawn’s pre-chorus guitar squeal was given particular attention while recording that song as well.

AD: How do you measure the importance of those songs and the band in its generation?

MJ: I have no idea. That is for others to decide.

AD: Tell me about any original music you’re working on.

MJ: I have an ongoing solo project called Piano Belly that will release some music this year. Some recordings have been around for a few years, and some are very new. Also, my band Candy and the Kids is writing a lot lately.

AD: How has your songwriting approach continued to evolve?

MJ: My approach has evolved particularly through playing in different projects. I have written and demoed my own songs since I was a teenager. Mostly I’d play every part on the demos, so writing with other musicians, like in Stellastarr, was actually a very different approach, and I loved it.

I also lean on different parts of my [musical] tastes for each project I am in. It’s not always about how I play but how I play within a particular band. I’ll even choose different main guitars or pedals to match each project. It keeps things fresh. I also practice [while] reviewing older demos with an open mind toward reworking them. Sometimes you write a song one way but later realize that it actually would be stronger [with] another [approach].

AD: What songs and recordings that you’ve done so far mean the most to you?

MJ: Hmm, good question because there are various lenses to look through. For Stellastarr songs, “My Coco” was not just a big song for us, but it is also really fun to play and very much represents my style. “Sweet Troubled Soul” is kind of my anthem. “In The Walls” and “Moongirl” are both dear to me as well.

Stellastarr: Arthur Kremer, Shawn Christensen, Amanda Tannen and Michael Jurin.

Lately, though, I am most excited about sharing unreleased Piano Belly songs I’ve been amassing. “Thunder Claps,” “There’s No Love,” and “Blind But Lucid” are songs I am really proud of.

AD: What lessons have you taken from them?

MJ: A lesson I learned over the years is to listen for the potential of a simple lick or melody. They often start as some little thing. You might forget them in a matter of minutes. You have to listen for their potential and imagine the song around it.

AD: How do you balance the desire to craft quality songs with the need to shred?

MJ: It can be a challenge. There are definitely recordings where I think I overplayed. I guess my best advice is to listen to a demo recording fairly quietly and try to pick the featured point or lead line of each section of the song. Then listen to [hear] if everything is supporting it or distracting from it. If something is distracting, then edit, play fewer notes, change registers, or remove it completely.

AD: What guitars, amps, and gear are you using these days?

MJ: I have three main electric guitars: my Gibson 345 for humbucker [pickup-sounding] things, my early ’90s Made In Japan Fender Jaguar for jangle and post-punk personality, and my early 2000s Fender Telecaster for everything in between.

I tend to use my Fender ’65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue [amplifier] to gig. It sounds incredible and big without weighing a ton, has plenty of headroom, and takes pedals great.

I have a ton of pedals now. The Earthquaker Devices Hoof Fuzz is a workhorse that I can get to be distortion-like, [sound] kinda spitty and [like a] buzzing fly, or [like a] huge fuzz. My old Boss RV-3 is a staple delay for me. Also, the Electro-Harmonix Canyon delay is often set to the Tape setting with the deterioration cranked. [This setting emulates the sonic character of vintage delay units that used actual magnetic tape – Ed] The Nobels ODR-1 overdrive is amazing for subtle edge-of-breakup tones. And another great fuzz is the Wren And Cuff Your Face. It’s basically a tweakable Fuzz Face with a bias control to push or sag the voltage and a high-pass filter to clean up some of that woofy mud an FF can get.

AD: Do you prefer vintage guitars or new ones?

MJ: I covet vintage guitars, but I also buy new. Vintage ones can have more pre-installed mojo, and they’ve settled into themselves. But every instrument has a personality, and it’s really a question of, “Does that personality make you want to create?”

AD: What’s next for you?

MJ: Being a musician is a constant hustle, so I have a few irons in the fire. I am in an art-punk band called Candy and the Kids, and we are writing a lot lately. Piano Belly will also be releasing a bunch of recordings this year. I am hoping to do some live gigs with that too. Then I also do freelance session work and live gigging whenever something fun pops up.

All images courtesy of Michael Jurin.

Greg Belman of Brooklyn, New York’s Bache Audio recently dropped off a pair of his rear-ported Sonata EX2 speakers ($2,780 per pair). Rated at 91 dB sensitivity, this speaker features a 3-inch bamboo cone driver with no crossover, 5.25-inch composite cone woofer, 1-inch super tweeter, and 1-inch air motion transformer (AMT) tweeter. Each speaker weighs 27 pounds. Two removable magnetically-attached grilles are included, and a number of standard or custom finishes are available.

The EX2 exhibited a punchy and cohesive sound and made gorgeous-sounding music. Yes, there might be more linear speakers out there, but most of those I’ve heard don’t have the EX2’s heavenly midrange.

I enjoyed listening to and photographing them.

The Sonata EX offers a unique driver complement.

The EX2’s rear panel is as understated as its front.

The Sonata EX2 is a crossoverless design.

Proudly made in Brooklyn, New York.

Howard Kneller’s audiophile adventures are documented on his YouTube channel (The Listening Chair with Howard Kneller) and on Instagram (@howardkneller). His art and photography can also be found on Instagram (@howardkneller.photog). Finally, he posts a bit of everything on Facebook (@howardkneller).