“Go immediately to the emergency room. I can’t help you here,” said the doctor in Urgent Care. It was my first day of vacation in Key West (about a week before going to Florida Audio Expo) and I felt ill.

If you believe in omens (I don’t), then you would have guessed something bad was going to happen. The flight from LaGuardia airport was diverted at the last moment to Miami. A cold front had hit the airport just before wheels down and the pilot had decided to head north for safer air. Sitting next to me was a retired dentist from Long Island. He suffered from lone star tick disease, which develops when a lone star tick bite transmits a sugar molecule into the body that causes an allergic reaction to meat. My seatmate told of his lower lip turning blue and curling up into the size of a soupspoon. This occurred every time he ate meat. He subsequently discovered that if he loaded himself up with antihistamines before eating, he could eat meat, but this played havoc with his gut and his belly swelled up. He was stuck with fish and chicken for the rest of his life. The things you learn on a plane.

Finally, two hours later we landed in Key West.

Fran, a friend of ours was participating in the annual polar dip so we visited her on Higgs Beach. Doing a polar dip in tropical Key West doesn’t quite have the icy punch of the one done on New Year’s Day in Coney Island in Brooklyn, but it was for charity so we cheered her on as she plunged into the frigid 70-degree water.

Afterwards, we lunched at a place called Louie’s on the Atlantic side of the island. Sitting at the bar and drinking far too many gin and tonics, I got talking to a burly gentleman who was a farmer from upstate New York, near the Finger Lakes. He grew high-grade barley on his farm and sold it to many of the micro-breweries in the area. The high elevation of his farm (2,000 feet above sea level) was ideal for growing this strain of barley. He also grew corn for animal feed and used Roundup weed killer to cultivate it. He had been farming all his days and he described a constant battle with weeds and bugs. Roundup solved all these problems. He swore it was safe to use and apply. He also had a hundred head of beef cattle, 99 heifers and one bull. He said the bull was very happy.

Walking around Duval Street, the main drag in Key West, I felt some tightness in my chest. It was Super Bowl Sunday and the bars were jammed with fans; most were drunk. This tightness persisted and because I had already suffered from heart disease, I went to Urgent Care. The minute I told the doctor my symptoms, he ushered me off to the emergency room in the Lower Keys Medical Center.

A tip: if you need to go to an emergency room, go on Super Bowl Sunday. The place was deserted and I was seen to immediately. I was whisked in, stripped, stuck with stickers and prodded with needles. Blood was taken and shot off to the lab and then a radiologist arrived and took X-rays. This all took moments and then the doctor arrived. He was a tall, lean man with a beard, and startlingly, was using a walker to support himself. After he had taken all my info, I asked him why he was using a walker. A kindred spirit, he asked if he could sit beside me on my gurney and told me this tale.

“I was hiking in Israel and Jordan,” he said. “One particular day we walked for most of the day and then had to line up and wait and wait to enter Petra in Jordan. By the end of the day I had been on my feet for over twelve hours. When I removed my boots, I found I had a scratch on my right heel. I cleaned it and applied antiseptic but upon returning to the US, I saw that it wasn’t healing so I went to the hospital and spent two weeks receiving intravenous antibiotics. It did not heal and the wound grew and grew.

Would you like to see photos?” he asked.

“Sure,” I replied.

He opened his phone and after some scrolling, showed me a photo of a scratch about half an inch long.

“Would you like to see it after two weeks?” he gleefully asked.

Equally delighted, I said “sure.”

He scrolled further and produced a photo of his heel with a wound the size of a baseball. The flesh had rotted away, the bone was exposed and yellow pus oozed from the center.

“Nasty, isn’t it?” he asked. I nodded in agreement.

“I am diabetic and it wouldn’t heal so there was nothing to do but take the foot off. Would you like to see my prosthesis?”

As if I had a choice. He pulled up his trouser leg and removed his artificial foot, which had been attached to his stump with a suction cup.

“I actually can balance without using the walker, but during physical therapy I discovered that my knees were shot so I had them replaced; as it turned out, I had to have my gall bladder removed too.”

I was admitted and spent a sleepless night in my room. Every hour someone came in, woke me up and took my blood, blood pressure and other vitals. They were checking for troponin, a protein which is released into the bloodstream when the heart muscle is damaged.

I had to wait until three of the same blood tests came back negative before they would consider letting me go. Even with the interruptions, the care I received there equaled the care given to me in New York. Fortunately, everything was fine and after arguing with the doctor, who wanted a cardiologist to visit me, I returned to my vacation in Key West.

Header image courtesy of Pixabay.com/Paul Brennan.

Introduction by Paul McGowan, PS Audio: Magnepan and its loudspeakers are legends in our industry. It was a pair of Maggies that Stan Warren and I used as a reference when, in the early 1970s, both of us started PS Audio. Over the years, Magneplanar loudspeakers have consistently been among my personal reference standards. They hold a spot near and dear to my heart and, I suspect, the hearts and souls of hundreds of thousands of music-loving audiophiles around the planet. Wendell Diller, Marketing Manager, Magnepan: I called Paul McGowan to ask a favor – "Would you let me write an article for Copper magazine?" (I promised to say nice things about PS Audio and Copper.) Ideally, I would like Magnepan to have a magazine like Copper. If I could produce a magazine like that, I would. (Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.) But, I don't have the talent or the time. Since we don't have a magazine like Copper, the next best thing is to be a guest writer. And there’s a subject I’ve been wanting to talk about for some time. You, Dear Reader, share a problem that PS Audio, Magnepan and everyone else in high-end audio is facing: where can a consumer go to listen to high-end audio products when US audio dealers are shrinking in number? How can listeners experience these products? It is coming up on 47 years that I have been marketing Magneplanar loudspeakers. In the 1970s and 1980s, it seemed like high-end audio would keep going on pretty much as it always had. We still eat and sleep as we ever did, and like eating and sleeping, music has always been another fundamental human experience. So, it seemed reasonable that there would always be a stereo store in town and a certain percentage of consumers would always want something better to make their music listening more enjoyable. I could not see the changes that were coming. In the 1970s and 1980s there were relatively few high-end brands, and an abundance of stereo stores. Now, we have the reverse – and the situation is getting worse. I am really bummed out that one of our best dealers, Audio Consultants in Chicago, closed their doors on December 31^st of last year. The trend seems to be going the wrong way. Although there are some notable exceptions: I was a young man when Listen Up in Denver, Definitive Audio in Seattle and Audio Advice in Raleigh were very small stereo stores. Now, they, and some others like them, are very successful. But, on balance, many markets do not have a good high-end audio store that is focused on 2-channel music listening. And, in the markets where there is a good specialty audio dealer, the dealer cannot begin to represent all the excellent high-end audio products on the market today because there are so many of them. So, Magnepan and many others must adapt to the changing market in order for you, the consumer, to experience our products. However, I don't see any single solution that will work, whether factory-direct sales, internet sales, going to audio shows to see and hear products, or some other strategy. We are still searching for what will work for Magnepan and I am not confident that we have answers. PS Audio has a vision of how they want to proceed and Copper is an excellent part of their strategy. I like the wide variety of topics in Copper. As a consumer, I am turned off by hard-sell marketing tactics. PS Audio realizes they must use a variety of marketing tools to win over consumers. (It helps to have a charismatic spokesperson like Paul.) Here again, Magnepan comes up short. I am not a salesman. Nor am I charismatic. Just compare the videos I’ve done with this one from Cynthia, aka The Audio Belle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yApFSbHc8Qk Some of my, ahem, "fans" in the audio chat rooms have suggested that I retire. Well, sorry, I am not going anywhere. My financial adviser says I can retire, but this is what I want to do in my retirement. So, Magnepan will have to find our own solutions to the plight of 2-channel audio distribution. Ok, Paul, I said some nice things about PS Audio. Now, can I come back again if I need to vent some more? Editor’s Note: We encourage manufacturers, dealers and consumers to weigh in on this issue. What are your concerns, questions and proposed solutions? We welcome you to share your thoughts in the Comments section below (you need to register for the site at www.psaudio.com) or contact the editor at frank@psaudio.com. Wendell Diller’s Bio: Marketing high-end audio causes accelerated aging!

Wendell then...

Wendell now.

Magnepan, located in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, is the manufacturer of Magneplanar loudspeakers. Planar speakers use ribbon and quasi-ribbon drivers rather than conventional dynamic (cone and dome) drivers. Ribbon and quasi-ribbon drivers have ultra-low mass, for sonic attributes such as fast transient response, a 360-degree dipole radiation pattern and high resolution.

When the AR XA turntable came out in 1961, it was an instant classic – almost immune to external shocks and vibrations, low in rumble, and priced at a shockingly affordable $58.00 ($489 today), less cartridge but complete with arm, dustcover, and even a stylus force gauge. (The price was soon raised to a more sustainable $78, or $658 today.) It was a runaway success. AR sold hundreds of thousands of them. The Museum of Modern Art acquired one for its industrial design collection. And fifty years after its arrival, The Absolute Sound listed it first in its article, “The Ten Most Significant Turntables of All Time.”

Its key technologies were widely adopted by other companies, and are still in use. One of those key technologies was the AR’s mounting system. Instead of attaching the platter, motor, and tonearm to the turntable’s top plate, AR mounted its arm and platter to a subplatform, suspended below the top plate at three points by damped springs with a very low resonant frequency. This isolated the arm and record from footfall vibrations or acoustic feedback. In demonstrations, AR representatives would hit the top plate with a hammer (reportedly a padded one) without making the arm skip in the groove. To keep motor vibrations from reaching the record and stylus, the turntable used a belt drive, with the motor mounted to the top plate rather than the subplatform.

The other key technology was the use of a low-speed, low-power synchronous motor and a light platter instead of a heavy platter and large motor, (Early versions of the AR XA had a second motor, to ensure the main motor started in the right direction.) The lightweight motor generated less rumble than more massive ones, and its low speed lowered the rumble frequency to a subsonic 5 Hz. The lighter platter had less speed-stabilizing flywheel effect than the heavy platters then (and now) in common use, but the speed of synchronous motors is extremely accurate and stable to begin with. Reviewers at the time remarked on the AR XA’s low rumble and smooth, accurate speed, and other belt-drive turntables with subplatform suspensions, such as the Thorens TD-150 and Linn Sondek LP12 (No. 2 on the TAS “Significant Turntable” list), arrived soon after.

 

 

But neither the subplatform nor the light, slow motor originated with AR. The company – by its own admission – got these ideas from Stromberg-Carlson, an old-line supplier of telephone equipment that also sold audio equipment. Stromberg-Carlson was one of the few companies to make both phonograph consoles and audio components. They even had a product that bridged their console and component product lines, a wood console cabinet with slots to hold whatever mix of Stromberg-Carlson components you desired: a tuner, your choice of two amplifiers, and either a record changer or a single-play turntable. That table, the cheery red, variable-speed, “Perfectempo” PR-499, introduced both subplatform suspension and lightweight motors to a general audiophile audience. The PR-499 sold for $99.95 in 1958 ($884 today); its companion arm, with a unipivot suspension, was $24.95 ($221).

 

 

But subplatform suspension didn’t originate with Stromberg-Carlson, either. The first subplatform turntable was probably the H.H. Scott 710A of 1955. It used a more conventional motor, though, and shaft drive. The small-motor, lightweight-drive system didn’t originate with Stromberg-Carlson. It came, circa 1959 or 1960, from the fertile mind of Paul Weathers, better known for his FM phono cartridge. He rejected the heavy platters whose flywheel effect helped most turntables of the day maintain steady speed and smooth out the small speed variations audible as wow and flutter: heavy platters, and motors strong enough to turn them, had more rumble, and heavy-duty construction added cost. So Weathers’ turntable used an electric-clock motor for its extreme speed accuracy, low cost, and the fact that “eliminating the need for a large, inherently noisy motor gets rid of rumble at its source.” But that motor's low power could only handle a light load, so he used a platter stamped out of thin, non-resonant aluminum, riding on a single-needle bearing. That led to the ultimate in drive-system simplicity.

Many turntables, back then, used stiff rubber idler wheels to transmit power from the motor shaft to the rim of the platter. To drive a heavy platter, the idler had to be pressed hard against the motor and platter during play. But when the turntable was at rest, the idler had to be moved away from the motor and platter so the rubber wouldn't develop flat spots that would create periodic thumps and slight speed changes during record play. Weathers’ ultra-light platter could be driven by a soft rubber wheel that would not develop flat spots, so it didn’t require a mechanism to move it out of position when the platter was stopped.

 

That simplicity made the Weathers turntable ideal for kit construction. The kit version could be assembled with only pliers and a screwdriver, with no soldering required, and sold for only $49.95. That’s $427 in today’s money, but somehow $50 was easier to get back then than $400 is today – even as a college student on a scholarship, I managed to buy and build one. It was my first single-play turntable, and my first true high-fidelity component.

 

Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Jacques.

I can’t remember exactly when I first heard of Alice Coltrane, but it’s over 45 years ago. But I do remember the first album I got - her collaboration with Carlos Santana, called Illuminations. This is, possibly, the very best Santana playing put to tape/vinyl/digits. I recently played it for a musical partner who is convinced of this – it’s even better than Welcome, sez my friend. So you should hear it; it’s pretty great. And that’s sort of the topic for the day, but not really. Illuminations features Coltrane on harp, piano and Wurlitzer organ and Santana on electric guitar, backed by Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette and others. But the real topic for the day is an album called The Ecstatic Music Of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda (Luaka Bop LBOP0087). Here’s a link to the album: https://luakabop.com/catalog/world-spirituality-classics-1-the-ecstatic-music-of-alice-coltrane-turiyasangitananda/. (https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/may/03/the-ecstatic-music-of-alice-coltrane-turiyasangitanada-review-truly-numinous-energy). On Qobuz it’s listed as World Spirituality Classics: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane. I’m very hard-pressed to describe this music to you, but fortunately, if you have Qobuz, you can hear it right now – this is one of the great things about the moment we are in (while simultaneously being devastating to my bottom line). A cross between sort-of hypnotic rhythms, chanting, singing, droning, and big synthesizer sweeps – all captured on tape and delivered to the faithful on cassettes before Luaka Bop saw fit to give it an allegedly wider release. (A perusal of Qobuz will give you an overview of Coltrane’s oeuvre – titles such as “Journey in Stachidananda” and “Translinear Light.” (Those titles may suggest whether you’ll be interested or not.) Here's a link to some of the music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yh59k4SnHQ&list=PLZN-Qk4Q9ORCMis_jSU11YfGfr1GMyoyW So why did I choose to write about Coltrane, and this album in particular? Well, I’d love to turn you on. And again, it’s also hard to describe – but I have, for many, many years, been drawn to what we might call music of ecstasy. I realize that the description should really be suitable for literally all music, depending upon what makes one ecstatic. So let’s qualify it a little bit: By music of ecstasy, I mean, at least for this discussion, music in which the performer is in a state of ecstasy. The very best example I can think of is Mahalia Jackson, with Aretha Franklin drawing a close second place. When you hear Jackson sing “I’m Gonna Live the Life I Sing About in My Song,” there’s little doubt as to what’s going on inside the singer. There are all sorts of ecstatic vocal music – Indian is, I suppose, my number one choice of listening, along with gospel music (and I note with absolutely no trace of irony whatsoever that Leon Russell and Delaney Bramlett brought the feel of gospel into rock and roll, and made it way more appealing to me – although I didn’t know that until I saw Leon live, and luckily I saw him about six months after I took up bass). But it’s to be found literally everywhere, from villages to cathedrals; from “folk” music to Bach and Monteverdi and Beethoven; even them Fabs. And so… This album is ecstatic music, even the calmer pieces, and it draws me deeply in. I suppose one term for it might be meditative, although that’s a cliché that, again, can apply to almost any kind of music, even punk. Some of the vocals are semi-mass choir, some are Coltrane, some are a man (presumably John Paduranga Henderson). Are the vocals the point of the music? Sure – as is everything else. And I have no idea what’s being said. My Sanskrit, if that’s what this is, is virtually nil. Does it matter? Not to me – I think I’ve written before that I have what Brian Eno many years ago told me he had: “meaning myopia.” (I listen to a lot of music sung in Hindi, Urdu and Sanskrit.) I’ve tried to find out how The Ecstatic Music Of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda was recorded, but no luck. Most of the record sounds like it was recorded on a pair of incidental mics in live in the room in a service, but I don’t really know. Some of it was also obviously done in a home studio – it’s a mixture, and it doesn’t really matter. You also get quite a bit of Coltrane’s organ pedals. But what I can tell you is that if this has piqued your interest, hear it. Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Meylan France

Moderate size and cost" must have meant something different at the end of the 1950s. From Audio, December 1958.

Anyone remember these? Guess their moment has come and gone. From Audio, January 1969.

Looks like a good Fukuin tweeter. From Audio, January 1960.

At the heart of all phono cartridges we will find a transducer that translates mechanical motion – the movement of the stylus and cantilever as the stylus traces the record groove – into an electrical signal. The general principle of operation is electromagnetic induction. There is a magnetic circuit consisting of iron, one or more permanent magnets, and coils of wire. Relative motion between these elements generates a signal. This implies that any of the elements can become the moving element while the others can be the stationary elements. As such, moving magnet, moving iron and moving coil cartridges have all been widely available for several decades now. They all operate on similar principles but have fundamental differences, especially regarding the possibilities of practical implementation. Moving Magnet Cartridges In the moving magnet system, the moving element is a permanent magnet, attached to the cantilever. The magnetic circuit and coils remain stationary and convert the fluctuations in magnetic flux density caused by the moving magnet into an electrical signal. The signal level at the output depends primarily on the strength of the magnet and the number of turns in the coils. Magnet strength is generally proportional to magnet size and magnets in general tend to be heavy. To maintain a low moving mass, the magnet must therefore be kept small. This limits the magnet’s strength, and if it would be made too small and weak, it would become very difficult to obtain a decent output. So, moving magnet cartridges have to have a certain minimum of moving mass, which tends to limit their performance at high frequencies. Given that the magnets are not very strong, the number of turns in the coil tends to be high to provide a healthy output, typically 5 mVrms per channel for an rms lateral velocity of 5cm/s at 1 kHz. A large number of turns results in high inductance, which is necessary to provide the required output level. This results in a high impedance, requiring a high input impedance in the phono preamplifier, typically terminating the cartridge with a load resistor of 47 kOhm. A large number of turns will also result in distributed capacitance between layers and turns of wire. The tonearm wiring and interconnects to the phono preamp add to the total value of capacitance, and the preamp itself usually provides certain values of load capacitance in order to fine tune the high frequency response of the setup, which tends to exhibit a high frequency resonance due to the presence of the LCR resonant circuit (inductance, capacitance and resistance; “L” is the electrical symbol for inductance) created by the cartridge, interconnects and preamp. In the better designs, the high frequency resonance can be adequately damped so as not to cause a peak in the output, but then the high frequency response above the resonant frequency sharply drops. This resonant frequency is usually just above 20 kHz in good moving magnet cartridges, or even below that in the less-exciting specimens. In addition, as the number of turns in the cartridge coil increases, the length of wire increases, in turn increasing the resistance along with the inductance, which both have an adverse effect on the self-noise of the cartridge. Along with the total capacitance, the 47 kOhm termination resistance and the other parameters of a practical preamplifier implementation set the lower limit of noise that can be achieved. Lower inductance and resistance would result in lower output, which would make it difficult to realize improvements to the noise of the system, which, for a practical high-quality, low-noise moving magnet setup, would be almost equal to the noise contributed by a silent groove on a record. This would be acceptable for most domestic uses, but perhaps worth improving upon for professional or highest-fidelity audiophile applications to be truly medium-limited, (in other words, where the noise level of the disk medium itself is to be much higher than the noise of the entire reproducing chain) with a bit of a safety margin on top. Moving Iron Cartridges In moving iron (aka variable reluctance) cartridges, the magnet is stationary along with the coils and the biggest part of the magnetic circuit. A small part of the magnetic circuit, usually in the form of an iron ring, is attached to the cantilever and moves with it. At the rest position, the net magnetic moment of the iron ring is zero. As it moves and approaches a magnetic pole piece, the ring becomes progressively more magnetized, upsetting the system equilibrium (causing changes in reluctance) and generating a signal voltage in the coils. If the ring then moves in the opposite direction, it first becomes demagnetized as it passes the rest position and magnetized again in the opposite direction (reversal of the magnetic poles), reversing the polarity of the induced electromotive force (EMF). With the magnet and coils being stationary, it would be tempting to assume that they could be dimensioned (sized) as needed with no need to consider their effect on the moving mass. However, increasing the size of these components would result in an increase in the magnetic flux density of the magnetic circuit, which would require an increase in the size of the moving iron ring as well, to prevent it from becoming magnetically saturated, which would result in gross distortion. Looking at it another way: although the magnet itself is stationary, its strength still affects the moving mass of the system via the iron ring. To keep the moving mass of the iron ring-cantilever-stylus assembly reasonably low, the moving iron volume must be kept low, imposing strict limits on the magnetic flux density permissible prior to the onset of saturation. We are therefore back to a similar situation as in the moving magnet system. We need a larger number of turns in the coils to provide a reasonable output level, which is again typically 5 mVrms per channel for a 5 cm/s lateral velocity at 1 kHz. The same LCR resonant system considerations apply here as well. Due to the magnetic hysteresis curve of the soft magnetic material that the moving iron piece is made of, the magnetization and demagnetization that occurs in a moving iron design is not a linear process. This tends to produce higher distortion. Some manufacturers of moving iron cartridges have introduced high performance low output models. The output level is intentionally reduced, to improve linearity (at the expense of noise), to reduce the moving mass, or to make the LCR resonant circuit parameters more favorable, extending the high frequency response to some extent. Moving Coil Cartridges The moving coil configuration, as the name would imply, consists of a stationary magnet and magnetic circuit. The coil assembly is attached to the cantilever and moves with it. There are no restrictions placed on magnet size, weight and strength, as long as it can still fit in a package that can pass for a cartridge. Indeed, moving coil cartridges often use much more powerful magnets, making them incompatible with turntable platters made of ferromagnetic materials such as cast iron. The cartridge would be attracted towards the platter and it would be impossible to set the vertical tracking force (VTF). Moreover, any surface variations in the platter would likely be translated into sound! The powerful magnetic circuit permits coils of fewer turns to be used. Copper (the material the wires are frequently made of, not the magazine! OK, perhaps also the magazine…) is rather heavy, so in the interest of keeping the moving mass low, it is common to use very few turns in the coils, resulting in very low output, typically 0.5 Vrms per channel (for 5 cm/s rms lateral velocity at 1 kHz). This is a full 20 dB lower than a typical moving magnet cartridge! Additional amplification is required and it is not a trivial matter to achieve it, together with exemplary low noise. However, the significantly lower inductance and wire resistance does a lot to help in the practical implementation of a low noise system and moving coil cartridges have much lower self-noise than the other types. The impedances involved are much lower and we also no longer need the 47 kOhm termination. The lower number of turns means that the capacitance between turns is negligible. There is still the wiring capacitance on the way to the preamp, but the inductance is so low that the LCR effect is also insignificant within any conceivable notion of audio frequency range. As a result, I have personally measured moving coil cartridges demonstrating a frequency response that was reasonably flat to at least 50 kHz, this being the limit of the sweep on the test record used. There are also higher-output moving coil cartridges available, going as far as 2.5 mVrms per channel (5 cm/s lateral velocity/ 1 kHz ref). This is either achieved by using a stronger magnet, or more turns, or both. The higher output is easier to deal with from a circuit design standpoint, but may come at a penalty of higher inductance, self-capacitance, or moving mass. Having said that, one of the moving coil cartridges that could go up to 50 kHz was a high output model, so the good ones are worth looking into! A moving coil transducer is incredibly linear and detailed, but much trickier to make. Since the coils move, there are tiny wires going from the moving system to the output pins, which must not impede motion and must remain intact. Considering the importance of low mass, it can be understood that the wire used is extremely thin, so these cartridges tend to be fragile! My personal preference for phono cartridges is moving coil, but I do also use a couple of old faithful moving magnet cartridges to double check my test cuts and the resulting pressings. I remember when a vintage General Electric VR-II cartridge reached my lab some years ago. It called for a vertical tracking force of 4 grams (!) and with its rotating stylus selection system (to choose between standard groove and microgroove styli, did not exactly look convincing. I tried it on a modern full-range recording, expecting a laugh, but was instead blown away by the punch it packed and how gracefully the cartridge handled it! There are multiple paths to good sound and all three transducer types discussed have found application in professional audio facilities through the years, and used as references. Keep in mind, though, that it is not just the cartridge alone, it is the entire phono playback system that produces the end result.

By accounts, in early 1967 Owsley “Bear” Stanley (click on the links for Part One and Part Two of this series) had stashed away $225,000 in a safe deposit box at Manufacturers Hanover Trust, $320,000 in various accounts around San Francisco, and an unspecified amount at a bank in London. Since 1965 he and Melissa Cargill had distributed an estimated 800,000 doses of high quality acid around Berkeley. Stanley claimed he had given away half of the doses in order to keep the price down and be able to sell easily. Still, even 400,000 doses at an average of $3 a dose would be a substantial amount of cash. Also, in early 1967 Stanley was approached by his friend “Mama Cass” Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas to make a special batch of acid for the now famous Monterey Pop Festival. He produced an estimated 100,000 tabs of Monterey Purple, then brought them to the festival and began handing them out. Pete Townsend of the Who recalls taking a 250 mg tab. He had previously experienced European acid, which came out of pharmaceutical company Sandoz and was pretty well regulated. “With Owsley, you had no clue at all. I took some of his at Monterey and I never touched a drug again for 18 years. It was extraordinarily powerful.” John Lennon wanted some for his own creative use. He decided to go directly to Stanley and get a lifetime supply. One wonders how you calculate that. Lennon hired a cameraman to film the festival but his main task was to smuggle Monterey Purple back to the Walrus. Stanley sent the cameraman home with a telephoto lens packed with tabs of acid. The Beatles spent three weeks tripping on the stuff before they filmed Magical Mystery Tour. Uh-huh. I have soared through a few acid trips and thoroughly enjoyed the experiences. But I’m talking two or three times. I cannot imagine tripping every day for three weeks. Interesting that it’s called “tripping.” Bob Weir spoke of taking acid every day for long periods and members of the Grateful Dead’s road crew, like Big Steve Parish, have talked of being high while loading in and out. Impossible. I remember figuring out God then being unable to tie my shoes. With the kind of notoriety Stanley was garnering he knew he was on a list somewhere. His methods of being careful went to another level. He set up a distributor network where he worked with one particular person for each area. As soon as one guy would feel some heat, he would start working with someone else. Meanwhile Stanley kept his product in a small footlocker which went by Greyhound bus alternately around San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco. He could keep it at a bus station for 30 days and so be able to take what he needed and then ship it to himself in another city. And no one but him knew of this. Alas, all good things find a way to blow up in your face. I think Mahatma Gandhi said that. Possibly Spiro Agnew. By December 1967, Stanley had set up a lab in a house in Orinda, CA, to avoid the authorities. Unfortunately, too many freaks were around (imagine dat) and one of them copped some of the acid and ended up selling to a narc who followed the bonehead back to Stanley’s house. On December 21 six narcotics agents busted down the door and arrested a group of people that included Stanley and Cargill. 67.5 grams of the purest LSD on the planet, enough to make about 700,000 doses, was confiscated. At $3 a tab that’s a lotta dough Joe. The national papers got involved and quiet-like-a-mouse Owsley Stanley became big news, complete with photographs. Everyone was released on $5,000 bonds but Owsley had to can his LSD operation. In comes the Grateful Dead. A month after the bust, the Dead’s regular sound man, Dan Healy, quit and went to work for the Quicksilver Messenger Service. Stanley and the Dead had some rough history, but he was still a part of the family and still hanging around the Dead. The band offered Stanley the sound man job and he quickly accepted. There are several stories that revolve around how the name “Bear” became attached to Stanley, including tales about the noises he would make during sex. I never want to know a friend that well. A likely reason is that, as the sound man, whenever a problem occurred the affected band member would shout out his name. Because he had to keep a low profile while on bail, Stanley insisted the band begin exclusively calling him Bear. The drugs were catching up to Stanley. There are stories of him being late for sound checks or not showing at all. At times the band would find him backstage kneeling and talking to the amplifiers. During this period Melissa Cargill deposited $100,000 in a safety deposit box at Manhattan Hanover and forgot the password she’d used. Bear had to hire a hypnotist to get it out of her. In December 1969, Bear was tapped to coordinate and set up the sound systems at Altamont Speedway for a massive free concert. Yeah, that one. Because the crew only had enough scaffolding to build a three-foot high stage, 300,000 kids kept pushing those in front into close proximity to the acts. The Dead had suggested the Hell’s Angels for security, and interestingly, backed out of performing. As history has shown, the security decision was weird and turned out to fuel a catastrophe. A Hell’s Angel was caught on film punching Marty Balin of the Jefferson Airplane in the head. A man named Meredith Hunter was near the front and started waving a pistol in the air. In front of a cameraman filming the documentary Gimme Shelter, an Angel stabbed Hunter to death. The party had gotten started. Bill Graham would call the event “the Pearl Harbor of Rock.” It’s hard to believe now but Altamont took place only four months after Woodstock. Everything we thought was good about our generation, and believed had started with Woodstock, was already frickin’ over. One Hell’s Angel named Terry the Tramp was a key figure of the LA counterculture. When the band Cream first came to California in 1966 Terry was one person Eric Clapton had to meet. There’s a great story related by­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Robert Greenfield in his wonderful Bear: The Life and Times of Augustus Owsley Stanley III of Ken Kesey seeing a Doors concert at the Fillmore. He discovered Terry loaded on acid in the lobby. “When Kesey asked him what he thought of the Doors, Terry the Tramp replied, ‘Gettin’ smaller all the time. Getting’ smaller all the time.’ And so they were, but in ways that no one back then could even begin to understand.” The Angels blamed Terry for getting them involved at Altamont and the media frenzy that followed them afterwards. On February 13, 1970, Terry the Tramp committed suicide at Bear’s house in Oakland Hills by taking an overdose of Seconal. Things were definitely getting weird. In October 1969, after the dreadful performance of the Dead at Woodstock, Bear and four others stood trial in San Francisco US District Court. All were sentenced to three years in jail and a $3,000 fine. They posted bail with travel restrictions. In January 1970 the Grateful Dead were playing at the Warehouse in New Orleans. After a show they were congregated at their hotel at 300 Bourbon Street. Despite warnings from the house dick to keep it clean or they would get busted, our boys were in a room at 2 am cleaning a pound of weed. These were the days when you got jail time for being caught with a joint. The New Orleans Police Department came through the door and arrested the Dead, some roadies and the tour manager, and unfortunately Owsley Stanley. The Grateful Dead got in touch with the district attorney, Jim Garrison of JFK assassination investigation fame, and in return for a $50,000 contribution to Garrison’s campaign fund and a promise to not return to New Orleans anytime soon, all charges were dropped. But Stanley’s bail was revoked and he was sent to jail. After somehow miraculously getting out again, Bear was busted once more in the house in Oakland Hills on July 15, 1970. This time the bail on the Orinda bust was completely revoked and Stanley was sent to jail in Oakland. After spending months there, during which both Melissa Cargill and Rhoney Gissen gave birth to Stanley’s kids, Bear was transferred to Terminal Island penitentiary to serve his three year sentence. He would eventually be transferred to a low-security correctional institute in Lompoc, CA. Owsley Stanley was released after serving two years of his three year sentence. He re-joined the Dead but was described by band members as a changed man. Mountain Girl related, “Prison was hard on him.” And then he built the Wall of Sound. The End. Ha ha, gotcha. I’ll tell that story in a Part Four or Epilogue or whatever in which we go into the details. Thanks for hanging. Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/William Rafti.

Back in the good old high-end audio days of around 1968 – 1971, things used to be a lot simpler. I would walk into one of my local haunts in Manhattan: Leonard Radio, Liberty Music, Rabson’s and Sam Goody’s to name a few, and look in wonderment at the latest Sony, Sherwood and Marantz receivers (these I could afford), drool over the McIntosh and Marantz separates and dream of owning them, then wander over to the reel to reel machines and finally the speakers. The AR XA turntable worked with everything and was so cheap, so I could afford it as part my first really good audio system. The same could be said for a Shure M91 cartridge because I couldn’t afford a V15. The unattainable Empire 598 turntable looked like it was removed from King Tut’s tomb, so big, so heavy, so…gold! The speaker choices, as far as my budget went, were either Acoustic Research AR-3s or KLH Model 6s. I couldn’t afford the KLH Model 5s, and the big Klipschorns may as well have been made for palaces, that’s how unobtainable they were along with the Marantz and Mac separates. No, this piece isn’t about how one can now spend more money on one power cable today then an entire system…well, on the other hand, maybe it is. It’s not about the insanity of the prices of some high-end gear either; rather; this article is about the examination of absolutely everything involved in the high-end experience and the cost of the minutiae (and importance) of all of it in our quest for great sound. I know that many of you entered into this world when I did. Back in those days, all we really had for knowledge was Stereo Review and if you were like me, we read every article trying to understand what Julian Hirsch was writing about. I am not an engineer but I am an informed consumer and I wanted to understand the difference between peak power versus RMS power and total harmonic distortion (THD) vs intermodulation distortion and everything else. I would read this stuff over and over, then go shop for gear. In those days looking for a stereo system was simple. All it was about was the quality level of the gear and how much you could afford for the basics:

• Receiver (or an amp and preamp by Dynaco if you could stretch your budget)
• Turntable
• Phono cartridge
• Speakers
• Tuner
• Maybe a reel to reel tape recorder by Sony (I couldn’t afford a Tandberg or Revox)

That was about it. If you had money or well-heeled friends whose fathers were usually doctors or lawyers, then you or they could afford Mac or Marantz separates. Life it seemed was that easy. Get the equipment home, plop it on a table and bookshelf, plug everything in, connect the cables that came with the stuff or the speaker cable that the salesman threw in, and you were set. And it sounded good! We didn’t know how much other things affected the sound. We didn’t know about the quality of interconnects, speaker cables, power cords, power strips, power outlet metallurgy, isolation pucks, speaker and equipment stands, grounding boxes, record weights, record cleaning machines, record mats, moving coil, moving magnet or moving iron cartridges, fixed or removable headshells, internal tonearm wire, vacuum record hold-down devices, stray electronic interference absorbers... Hell, most of us didn’t know that the output caps or different brands of tubes were so variable. We just didn’t know – and it didn’t matter because the components and speakers themselves were all we had. It was a simpler time in audio, and the equipment was simpler. I blame Bob Carver and his Phase Linear amps for the beginning of the high-end audio arms race, and the Tech HIfi chain for giving every college-dorm weed dealer in the early ‘70s the opportunity to have this new big stuff plugged into the then-new Ohm F loudspeakers so you could now bathe in the sonic landscape of Pink Floyd and Rotary Connection. Then came the tweaks. And consider where it’s all gone to. I started to ponder the evolution of the complexity and cost of high-end audio when I had my apartment recently renovated, and the contractor gave me options as to the AC power delivery, number of outlets and the sound absorption materials in my new listening room. This was the first time I could actually start at the very beginning in building a new audio system and room. In addition, by coincidence the building had just replaced all the electrical wiring going into each apartment, meaning that I could have all the power I ever needed with all new wiring and power delivery at my disposal. Wow, I thought. But, like many of you, over the years I have been sucked right along into the ever-evolving morass of the accessory-led refinements and tweaks of high-end audio. I, like so many others, have literally bought into it. All the way down to thinking about the quality of the wire in the wall and the available options in choosing among brands of AC outlets! Even the screw metallurgy used in the various outlets from different manufacturers can be considered…how freakin’ crazy has all of this gotten? Who knew back in the day that most, if not all of the above, could have the potential to get in the way of our enjoyment of this hobby. On the other hand the more transparent and refined the system, the more all this attention to detail does matter. However, not every device that has been marketed to us has really worked. Along the way there have been some real clunkers. Remember the controversy surrounding the Tice Clock? The Tice TPT Clock was a RadioShack clock that was claimed to have been subjected to a proprietary treatment. This treatment would supposedly improve the sound of an audio system. Everyone jumped on board and then, suddenly, jumped off, proving that not every audio accessory was necessarily the Holy Grail. doing something to the clock. I wrote an article about it where I said that the clock did make a sonic difference. I was roundly lambasted for this by a number of people. – Ed.> I blame Harry Pearson (aka HP), The Absolute Sound and Mike Kay at Lyric HiFi for creating the high-end neurosis cycle, but we were all complicit in fueling the development of more complex and costly audio gear and the advent and evolution of ever-more-esoteric audio accessories and system tweaks. There are, however, plenty of real advances that have come out of all of this. These days, for the money I spent in 1968, allowing for inflation, one can buy really good-sounding gear. And for those of us who have traveled down this road and have put together great-sounding systems, if you’ve found the gear and the devices that have worked their magical spell on your systems, please enjoy listening, as I do. Take a moment to reflect and remember the long and winding road that got you to where you are now (and made you happy) and appreciate the tech advances, however big or incremental, that have brought all of us closer to the music, even if there have been stumbling blocks along the way. (And by the way, I fell in love with rock and roll played through a $5 transistor radio in 1963.) But know this: the idea of reproducing “the sound of real instruments in real space,” a mantra that has become the unofficial description of the goal of high-end audio, is a fraud. The closest your system will ever get to what it “should” sound like is to reproduce what the mastering engineer sitting at a mixing/mastering desk in a recording studio hears, and it’s all subjective and manipulated with EQ (equalization) and compressor (volume-leveling) devices, with the audio mostly transmitted through cheap wiring. Sorry HP. Most of us have never experienced even that level of accuracy to the audio source – but the good news is that today’s best home audio technology can bring us just about there, and that is reason to celebrate. And something to strive for. Without the Tice Clock!

We’re taking a break from Beethoven Plus One in order to address a more urgent concern: How’re ya fixed for Happy Dances? Do you even have one? Of course you do. They come unbidden, when you’ve been sitting in your listening chair for five minutes (or twenty) and you realize the music is just right and your system is working just right, and your heart is ready to move. So you levitate right out of your chair and spontaneously execute just what’s required—your Happy Dance. John Atkinson has one, if I recall correctly. When I googled “John Atkinson Happy Dance,” all I came up with was this: Heads were banged, walls were shook, feet were set a-dancing. That’s from JA’s review of the Chord DAVE, Stereophile June 2017; it’ll have to do. Hey, all of us were born to dance. Certain music brings it out. Context helps too. For the past few years, I’ve felt the urge most often when I’m 30,000 feet off the ground, heading away from Atlanta. One of my favorite Happy Dances is still Tightrope, now ten years old but more helpful to my spiritual health today than ever: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwnefUaKCbc More recently I’ve feasted upon Van Morrison’s The Prophet Speaks, especially tracks like this one, which reminds us that Joey DeFrancesco is a national treasure. Even more recently, I found myself dancing to Gimme Shelter, a properly apocalyptic tune that nevertheless compels your feet to Make Like Mick. (Not really possible when strapped into an airline seat, but wait until you're sitting alone in your audio sanctuary.) All of which brings us to the new Joshua Redman album Sun on Sand (Nonesuch). It’s basically non-stop Happy Dancing, a high-energy celebration that takes off and almost never lets up. Redman is definitely the star, but in this team effort he’s more than ably assisted by bassist Scott Colley, percussionist Satoshi Takeishi, and hip string quartet Brooklyn Rider. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU9e7qbW2LI&list=PLWfB7VeEXCukAs7bIz1LRrozSXsU3L9JD Sun on Sand consists of eight tracks composed and arranged by Patrick Zimmerli, sequenced as in the YouTube collection above. (Although you might have fun trying out other sequences.) Track 1, Flash, features wild polyphony—Redman and the strings churn out a riot of aggressively independent lines. There are concerto-like breaks for the saxophone, underpinned by Colley, punctuated by Takeishi. Track 2, Between Dog and Wolf, features a ton of ostinato (repeating) figures, including the bass lines. There’s a fiddle break in there too, so the stars of Brooklyn Rider get an early chance to show off. Sun on Sand, a slow cooker, opens with Colley and Takeishi; Redman’s lazy, graceful lines dominate the sustained string accompaniment. Dark White makes the strongest case for the album’s North African vibe. Served on a bed of Reichian rhythmic figures, it builds to a stunning climax. There’s more, but you need to discover it yourself. I’ll just say this: Starbursts and Haloes provides the single biggest change of pace, offering Redman some stretch-out time with lyrical, meditative sax lines. Joshua Redman has made a habit of doing the unexpected throughout his career, and here he surprises us again. His playing is so fluent—so fluid—that you can’t easily tell when he’s improvising and when he’s just reading down the charts. It all sounds easy, but that doesn’t make it simple. More like natural: Einstein tossing off a few logarithms. Redman and company premiered this set at London’s Wigmore Hall in 2014. (That’s the sort of innovation-with-intelligence thing that Wigmore does.) He and Zimmerli had collaborated before, on 2013’s Walking Shadows. Takeishi had also worked with the composer. Here they’re well-matched with Brooklyn Rider, a string quartet that far outshines any other such group now working. By “such group” I mean classically trained players who put no boundaries on what they play. Haydn, Steve Reich, Charlie Parker, Gilberto Gil are all in safe hands with them. (Check out their Tiny Desk set with Mexican singer Magos Herrera.) Patrick Zimmerli was a new name to me, but it shouldn’t have been. This guy—like Bryce Dessner, whom we highlighted in TMT #104—is everywhere, doing everything. He spends a lot of time in Paris but popped up in NYC last November to oversee a performance of his oratorio Instrument of Destiny, based on the World War I poetry of Alan Seeger. With Sun on Sand, it was Takeishi who first won me over. He is an absolute master at introducing new colors and infectious rhythmic variations in virtually every track on the album. It doesn’t hurt that his contributions are engineered to maximum advantage (by Tom Lazarus, at Sear Sound and Avatar, with mastering by Bob Ludwig). But the engineers don’t stint on anyone: Brooklyn Rider’s vivid string sound and Colley’s huge, juicy bass tones get their considerable due as well. And now for our digestif: coming home from Montréal last week, high in the sky with Delta once again, I discovered Macha Gharibian, a French jazz pianist and vocalist who handles all sorts of musics—bar-band rock, Armenian traditional tunes, Paul Simon covers—with aplomb. Her new album Joy Ascension (Meredith/Rue Bleue/PIAS) further confuses and enriches her identity. There’s something here for everyone. The thing is, she is the “everyone” who’s making this lovely music; like Whitman, she contains multitudes. If you’d rather hear another predictable, bland female like so many who swarm the audiophile hills, her versatility may put you off. The rest of us will happily dig in. Let’s start with a trailer for Joy Ascension that features Sari Saroun Yar, an Armenian song with doudouk that I can’t get out of my head. (Because a couple of my clients perform it, I’ve been working with a lot of Armenian traditional music lately; you won’t find anything more haunting or soulful.) httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9Mnw9oqJpo If you click on the lower-right-hand box that appears toward the end of the above video, you’ll get a 45-second taste of Georgian Mood, another of my favorites. But maybe you’ll need more than 45 seconds to appreciate the way she unfolds this exquisite little groove. So here’s more: See what I mean? Worlds within worlds. I hereby offer one more taste, namely her take on 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover: Hope that makes you a fan too. See you next time! Beethoven, most likely, but with some surprises as well. Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Tore Sætre.

The higher the resolution of an audio system, the more that attention to detail matters. Nowhere was this more evident than in the main audio system at The Absolute Sound. (I worked there as technical director around 1986 – 1994.) Part of my job at TAS was The Care and Feeding of The System. Harry Pearson, the editor-in-chief, wanted the system to be in top performing shape at all times. I soon found out that the slightest adjustments or changes to it could affect the sound – sometimes significantly. Things that might cause subtle to moderate differences in another audio rig, like swapping interconnects or cables, changing tubes or moving speakers a fraction of an inch, would be intensely magnified in HP’s setup. Small wonder, considering that it was comprised of ultrahigh-end components like the Infinity IRS V loudspeakers, Goldmund Reference turntable and a parade of premium gear like the Audio Research SP-11 and Convergent Audio Technology SL1 preamplifiers, VTL 500 amplifiers and all manner of cables, tweaks and accessories. For example, changes in VTA (vertical tracking angle, the angle of the tonearm/stylus to the record surface) could be dramatic on HP’s system. We could readily hear differences in VTA when playing records of different thicknesses. Because we would test different cartridges, I had to regularly change the VTA on whatever tonearm we had in place, which was usually the Goldmund T3F straight-line tracking arm. This was a complex beast which used an electronic servo mechanism to control the motion of the arm across the record. The arm was mounted on a large beam, and in order to adjust VTA, four Allen screws at each corner of the beam had to be loosened, then the entire beam had to be raised or lowered, the screws tightened, and the adjustment validated by listening and then repeating the cumbersome procedure if the sound/adjustment wasn’t right. The height of each corner of the beam had to be the same, to within 0.001 (one-thousandth) of an inch. On a good day this could take a half-hour. But there were bad days. More than once I slipped and dropped the beam, hearing a nerve-wracking clunk – while forgetting to note the starting measurement. This meant that I had no idea what the original height was, and had to re-set up the arm height from square one. This could take hours. In order not to accidentally trash the cartridge I had to hold the bottom of the beam with one hand while making adjustments with the other hand, an awkward balancing act at best. And the right side of the very heavy and very immovable turntable was almost against the right listening room wall, leaving little room to access the right side of the arm and work on it. I had to kneel down and twist into unnatural positions to get to it. After hours of such Houdini-like contortions my neck and back would be killing me. After a few years at The Absolute Sound I started seeing a chiropractor. If only getting phono cartridges optimized in HP's system was that simple. Harry’s setup was so sensitive that changes in temperature and humidity could affect the sound. In fact, Harry noted these things in his listening notes and insisted TAS reviewers do the same. The first time I worked with the Big System, I noticed that a Tensor lamp was sitting next to the turntable. For those who don't remember, a Tensor lamp was small but had a high-intensity bulb. I asked Harry about it. He said, “it shines on the cartridge in order to keep the cartridge at a constant temperature. That way its performance is more consistent.” “Jeez, this system really is sensitive,” I thought. And didn’t think much else about it. One fine night some time later, after Harry and I had gone out to dinner, we sat down to listen. It was just the two of us, unwinding. We put on a record, then another. Then Harry looked at me with that “something’s not right” expression, something I had become all-too-familiar with after a few months on the job. “The lamp isn’t on! Turn on the lamp!” It had been a long and exhausting day, I had had a couple of drinks and we weren’t doing the usual show-off-the-system schtick for visitors, so I hadn’t done my usual careful pre-listening system check and had forgotten to turn on the Tensor lamp. I got up out of my chair, reached for the switch on the lamp and flicked it on. BANG! The sound of a gunshot. “YAAAHHH!” Both of us recoiled. I instinctively jumped back. Harry, however, was still sitting in his chair, so he flew back in the chair, which loudly slammed into the back wall. The chair hit the wall with such force that it put a large hole into the sheetrock. He was sitting with the chair leaning at something like a 20 or 30-degree angle, utterly panicked. Having no idea what had just happened and in a state of sheer terror, I gingerly looked around to see where the gunman was. There was no one in the house but us. I have to admit, after I recovered from the initial shock, I had to force myself not to laugh out loud at the sight of Harry, ready to fall back and over out of his chair were it not for the fact that it was wedged into the wall and keeping Harry from falling over onto his keister. You should have seen the expression on his face. It was both scary and hysterical. I grabbed the back of the chair and shoved him back into a normal seating position. “WHAT HAPPENED?” I may not be quoting those words exactly verbatim. “I don’t know. I don’t know!” There may have been some off-color words in my response as well. I stood there, completely bewildered. Something must have happened! And if it wasn’t a gunshot, it must have been something else. I looked around the room, and it gradually dawned on me that the sound must have come from the speakers. But what could have caused such a bang? I looked and looked and looked at all the equipment in the room... The lamp. The bang had occurred when I flicked the switch to the lamp. I told Harry that must have been it. But why? We both figured out at the same time. It must have been because the cartridge in the system, a Spectral, was a low-output moving coil. As such, it needed a phono stage with a lot of gain. When I turned on the Tensor lamp it must have emitted a burst of noise or interference of some kind that was picked up by the extremely sensitive cartridge/interconnects/phono preamp. And amplified by an insane amount of gain. Through a mighty Levinson 23 amp if I recall correctly, and a speaker system that could produce the requisite hellacious volume. Enough to cause a bang loud enough to sound like a gunshot. I don’t remember if we did any listening the rest of the night or turned the system off and hightailed it out of that room. For the rest of the time I was at The Absolute Sound and all the times I visited afterwards, the hole in the wall was never fixed. Who knows, it may still be there today, the new owners of the house destined to never know how it got there. Header photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Joost Dicker Hupkes

There are many more American progressive rock bands than you might think – and a surprising number are from the Midwest. The biggest, in terms of commercial success and recognition, is Kansas. If you only know their hits, “Dust in the Wind,” or “Carry On Wayward Son,” you really haven’t heard their progressive side. Of course, the name Kansas isn’t exactly your typical prog band appellation. KANSAS: I was working in a record store in San Francisco when their self-titled first album was released. A co-worker put it on the store system, and by the end of the first side, I was a fan. Two lead guitarists (Kerry Livgren and Rich Williams), a keyboard player/vocalist (Steve Walsh), a violinist (Robbie Steinhart), and a great rhythm section (Dave Hope on bass and Phil Ehart on drums) – what’s not to like? The two opening tracks were up-tempo rockers followed by a ballad, “Lonely Wind,” that didn’t really hint at what was to come. Neither did “Belexes,” but when they closed out the side with “Journey From Mariabronn,” a nearly eight-minute epic, they were clearly on their way. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLECH2T2b5k The title track from their second album, Song for America, was further evidence of the progressive direction the band would take. “Lamplight Symphony” and “Incomudro – Hymn to the Atman” are the other prog epics on that album. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q-9P0Y0e2s Masque was their third LP, and it contains one of their best compositions, “Icarus – (Born on Wings of Steel),” along with “The Pinnacle.” httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kesio4k-dMU Speaking of pinnacles, the fourth Kansas album, Leftoverture, was a high point, chock-full of progressive epics. It is ranked #32 on Rolling Stone’s list of “50 Greatest Prog Rock Albums of All Time” (not that I put much stock in their opinion when it comes to progressive rock). Listen to the passage in “Miracles Out of Nowhere” from 2:22-2:50 and that same point (!) in “Opus Insert” – they must have been listening to Gentle Giant. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D13zs5z3wnQ&list=PL6ogdCG3tAWgm_E93hTUSS3cUOsBBCd4K&index=4 httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfos2mrBJj8&list=PL6ogdCG3tAWgm_E93hTUSS3cUOsBBCd4K&index=5 The success of “Carry On…” set them on a more commercial path. Point of Know Return, their follow-up album, yielded another huge hit in “Dust in the Wind.” A number of personnel changes followed, including the addition of Dixie Dregs guitarist Steve Morse (who later became a member of Deep Purple). BABYLON: This band came from St. Petersburg, Florida, and released their only studio album in 1978. A couple of lo-fi live albums were released a decade later. They were clearly influenced by the likes of Genesis, Gentle Giant, and Happy the Man (see below), and had the classic five-piece prog lineup of keyboards, guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIS8wYJz1Bc DIXIE DREGS (later shortened to The Dregs): What an unlikely name for a band with prog tendencies! Guitar, keyboards, strings, bass, and drums come together in a fusion of rock, bluegrass, and jazz that is quite unique. Check out “Odyssey” from their second LP, What If: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EHgZUSCLDk After The Dregs had disbanded, I saw former members Steve Morse and Rod Morgenstein (with a bass player) as the Steve Morse Band and was blown away. The guitar and drums were in sync on a level I hadn’t seen before or since. DJAM KARET: As much an instrumental jam band with wildly diverse influences as they are progressive, California’s Djam Karet began in 1984 as a more guitar-oriented quartet. They became a quintet in the early 2000s, incorporating more keyboards. They are still working, and have produced 19 albums. Here’s a track from their 2005 release, Recollection Harvest: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjP3UkFSBms ENCHANT: Re-discovering this band made me glad I decided to write this piece. I knew some of the band members when I was working at a record store in the East Bay, but hadn’t listened to them in many years. They were originally called Mae Dae, with a different vocalist. Strong vocals from Ted Leonard (who later joined Spock’s Beard), searing guitar work from Doug Ott, and killer drumming by Paul Craddick make 1995’s debut, A Blueprint of the World, a first-class prog album. The leadoff track, “The Thirst,” has it all: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFGaCVKOJ4k ETHOS: Another Midwestern band, one of my favorites, this time from Indiana. Their first album, Ethos (ardour), showed a strong King Crimson influence at times. With two keyboard players, there’s lots of mellotron (and chamberlin – a mellotron sound-alike). “Atlanteans” shows their range, including a jazzy guitar-and-scat-singing passage. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QIBWcpXq8w Main composer and vocalist Wil Sharpe played a double-neck guitar. Listen to his beautiful solo at the end of “Longdancer.” httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMOUx8VjBMY On their second LP, Open Up, they were down to a four-piece (the aptly named keyboardist L. Duncan Hammond left), and the resulting music wasn’t as strong. Even the cover art seemed to indicate a move away from prog. Relics is a compilation of previously unreleased material. It features a different vocalist, and is quite rare. FIREBALLET: With a lineup similar to Ethos, Jersey boys Jim Como (vocals, drums, percussion), Bryan Howe (keyboards), Ryche Chlanda (guitars), Frank Petto (keyboards), and Martyn Biglin (bass, bass pedals) released their first album, Night on Bald Mountain, in 1975. Ian McDonald (King Crimson, Foreigner) produced the album and contributed some flute and saxophone as well. The 19-minute title track draws on Debussy as well as Moussorgsky and includes original passages. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgnCrdTbsIg “Atmospheres” evokes the sound and feel of very early Genesis. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTLYMglk6gc&list=OLAK5uy_loAlomNE1V3AKLrOYvDqAazx0WqEieYzw Their King Crimson connection includes this rare live performance from 1974 of two early Crimson tracks. The recording quality is sub-par, but the playing is impressive. I have to assume that’s McDonald on woodwinds. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e7pgbdB7kE&list=TLPQMzAwMTIwMjAAws7HcUCPUQ&index=11 Also like Ethos, their second album was a disappointing attempt at more commercial songs. The cover art for Two, Too…was especially embarrassing, featuring the band members in tutus cavorting like ballerinas. HAPPY THE MAN: Named for an obscure early Genesis song, with roots in Virginia and Indiana, they were primarily an instrumental band. They were signed to Arista Records in the mid-seventies and put out two albums produced by Ken Scott (who had worked with Supertramp and David Bowie). The second LP, Crafty Hands, is an especially well-engineered blend of prog and jazz-fusion. Take a listen to “Ibby It Is.” httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBBeFZboWvA The moody “Wind Up Doll Day” features the album’s lone vocal, sung by guitarist Stanley Whitaker. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IigVcy9DeN4 Main keyboard player Kit Watkins would go on to join Camel after the breakup of Happy The Man. He also released several solo albums. A compilation of previously unreleased tracks was issued as Happy The Man 3rd – “Better late…”. A reformation occurred (without Watkins) in the early 2000s, resulting in a new album, The Muse Awakens. Whitaker and founding keyboard/woodwind player Frank Wyatt formed Oblivion Sun in the last decade. THE LOAD: Ohio’s answer to Emerson, Lake & Palmer released their first album, Praise The Load, on their Owl Records label in 1976. Brothers Sterling and Tom Smith (keyboards and drums, respectively) are joined by bassist/guitarist Dave Hessler in a fiery display of instrumental virtuosity and classical influence. A second album, Load Have Mercy, was not released for twenty years. Starting with “Fandango,” you can check out both albums with this link: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCBVjjMYSkU NETHERWORLD: In the mid-seventies, San Jose-area band Atlantis found out there was already a group in Europe using that name, so they became Netherworld. Strongly influenced by the classic British prog artists, they recorded just one album, In the Following Half-Light. Guitarist Scott Stacy provides some excellent solos, and they even incorporated cello into their sound, as evidenced on the standout track, “Isle of Man.” httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UPTf1ogEew SPOCK'S BEARD: One of the best-known and most prolific of the American prog bands, Spock’s Beard has released 13 studio albums since 1995. Brothers Neal and Alan Morse formed the band in 1992, with Neal doing the lion’s share of the writing as well as playing keyboards and singing lead. Nick D’Virgilio and Dave Meros joined on drums and bass, respectively. Keyboardist Ryo Okumoto was originally a live performance fill-in who became a full-fledged member shortly after the release of their first album, The Light. Neal Morse left the band after the release of their sixth album, Snow, setting the stage for D’Virgilio to take over as front man (shades of Genesis…). Their compositions became more of a group effort, with the additional input of non-band members John Boegehold and Stan Ausmus. Neal Morse has since been involved in a number of collaborative efforts involving major players on the prog scene (Transatlantic, Flying Colors) as well as releasing albums on his own. Nick D’Virgilio ultimately left the band and went on to work with many other prog artists, including Genesis (on their album Calling All Stations). Ted Leonard (Enchant) became the lead vocalist after having subbed for D’Virgilio at some live gigs in 2011. D’Virgilio rejoined in a limited capacity a few years ago. Unlike many prog bands, their sound is not obviously reminiscent of, though influenced by, any of the pioneering outfits such as Genesis, Yes, or Gentle Giant. “At the End of the Day,” from their fifth studio album, V, will give you a good idea of their range. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pidj1rhZdXg STARCASTLE: Can you say Yes? – yes, you can. This Illinois band came along at a time in the mid-1970s when the group Yes seemed to be taking a break. Starcastle would be considered a tribute band if they were playing complete Yes songs instead of crafting their own compositions out of snippets, riffs, and passages already found on Yes albums. Former REO Speedwagon lead singer Terry Luttrell is clearly emulating Jon Anderson. If you can forgive the blatant plagiarism (including a little from ELP, as well), their first album is quite good. Here’s the leadoff track from their eponymous debut: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OgrMMQZf1c Roy Thomas Baker (of Queen fame) produced their second and third albums, Fountains of Light and Citadel. Both continued their Yes-like sound and fantasy-art album covers. Starcastle’s last album for Epic records was Real to Reel, marking a radical change in both cover art and musical style that was not well received. Styx: Hailing from Chicago, Styx was a fairly mainstream rock band until the arrival of second guitarist Tommy Shaw. Sure, they had lots of hits, but The Grand Illusion, with its faux-Magritte cover art, was a prog album squarely in the Kansas mold. One of the album’s best tracks, “Man in the Wilderness,” would be right at home on the second or third Kansas album – in fact, the opening riff and vocals are practically pure rip-offs. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBRoQ91W1rk Subsequent albums marked a gradual return to more commercial rock and even greater sales. This is by no means a comprehensive look at American prog. I tried to pick a cross-section of artists, both well-known and obscure. I would appreciate feedback in the comments section about bands that you feel should (or could) have been included. Header photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons/Danielle Cannova

Chris Crepps backing up country singer Dale Watson.

For many people, the soundtrack for the Coen Brothers movie O Brother, Where Art Thou in 2000 served as an introduction to the multitalented Alison Krauss. Her singing of “Down to the Valley to Pray” turned the film’s most visually striking scenes into an utterly breathtaking experience. Yet Krauss already had many years of experience under her belt before giving that angelic performance. Born in 1971, the Illinois native started violin lessons when she was five and quickly fell in love with bluegrass. She won her first fiddling contest at age 13, and in the subsequent decades she’s continued to build on that promise. As of this writing, Krauss has won 27 Grammy Awards, the third highest total ever (after Georg Solti and Quincy Jones). Her recording debut came thanks to her brother Viktor Krauss, two years her elder, a bass player who cut his first album in 1985, calling it Different Strokes. The siblings are joined by Bruce Weiss on guitar and Jim Hoiles, also on fiddle. The lineup of tracks consists of traditional bluegrass and Irish instrumental tunes. A reel called “Grey Eagle” gets a downright wild treatment from little sister Alison, who uses it as a starting point for improvisations from one end of the fingerboard to the other, featuring some perilous high-speed string-crossings. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmLhfw48xm8 Krauss made her own solo debut two years later with Too Late to Cry (1987). Another bass player, John Pennell, is an overriding presence on that album, writing most of the songs. Pennell was soon to become the bassist in Krauss’ band, Union Station. One of the Pennell songs on Too Late to Cry is an upbeat number called “In Your Eyes” (no connection to the Peter Gabriel hit). Krauss moves seamlessly from fiddle to voice, singing in a clear and facile tone that doesn’t yet have the breathiness and depth that would come to define it. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hEdFNqtNTY By 1989, the band Union Station was up and running and ready to make its first album, Two Highways. Besides Krauss and Pennell, the group included Jeff White on guitar and Mike Harman on banjo (both of whom also sang), with an assist by Jerry Douglas on dobro. Douglas eventually joined permanently. From its inception, the goal of Union Station seems to have been to apply bluegrass techniques and sensibilities to new music. They started out with a strong leap toward that goal. Krauss displays her intention to be an ensemble player rather than the star in this Todd Rakestraw song, “Lord Don’t Forsake Me,” with Jeff White on lead vocals. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PwAZ8vERxQ By the time Union Station released its second album, Every Time You Say Goodbye, in 1992, the band was gaining a solid foothold in the country charts, hitting a respectable No. 75. (The album title does not refer to Cole Porter standard “Every Time We Say Goodbye,” but to a new song by Pennell.) This success coincided with across-the-board personnel changes, excepting Krauss herself. The new banjo player, Ron Block, wrote the song “Who Can Blame You.” It doesn’t have the same level of originality as Pennell’s work, but it’s a nice retro-style country song that defied the 1990s tendency toward tingeing country songs with elements of rock and pop. (Soon those “tinges” would grow to the point where there was little country left in country.) httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEF76NYll7c While Union Station has always been interested in stretching the borders of bluegrass, Krauss returned to a more traditional environment for1994’s I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. This gospel-soaked album is a collaboration with The Cox Family bluegrass band, giving Krauss a chance to remind listeners of her bona fides, both in fiddle and singing style. She fits seamlessly into the Cox traditional country sound as she sings the gospel number “Will There Be Any Stars in My Crown?” Keep an ear out for the nice mandolin solo by Adam Steffey. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qOkoE-723g In case Krauss and the members of Union Station had any doubt they were heading in the right direction, their 1997 album So Long So Wrong won three Grammys and was credited by critics as no less than a reinvention of bluegrass. To hear what all the fuss is about, you need listen no further than the title track, which opens the album, a song written by Patrick Brayer and Walden Dahl. Despite the song’s contemporary structure and harmony, the bluegrass-style rhythm acoustic guitars, mandolin, and banjo plus overlaid fiddle line feel integral to it. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO2dEPjqxaY In large part thanks to the success of O Brother, Where Art Thou? the year before, Krauss and Union Station found themselves with a mega-hit in New Favorite (2001), their ninth record together. It won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album. Its biggest single, which also won a Grammy, was “The Lucky One.” One of the album’s gems is the jazz-flavored “I’m Gone,” a dark and unusual melody by Eric Kaz and Wendy Waldman. The haunting dobro and acoustic guitar solos are the ideal reply to Krauss’ sorrowful singing. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evblwm7GA04 Another Grammy for Album of the Year was garnered by Raising Sand, Krauss’ 2007 collaboration with Robert Plant. T-Bone Burnett, who also produced the O Brother CD, helmed the project and helped choose the songs. The duo found they had a perfect vocal chemistry, and their cover of the Everly Brothers’ “Gone, Gone, Gone” won a Grammy for vocal collaboration. There are a lot of great tracks, but my favorite is Townes Van Zandt’s “Nothin’,” which opens with Burnett playing distorted guitar chords, matched by Krauss’ crunching fiddle bow as Plant gives the vocal line a light, contrasting touch. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpBK_A-IF_k Krauss’ most recent recording is Windy City (2017), a collection of covers of classic songs, chosen with producer Buddy Cannon. They include country standards like “Gentle on My Mind,” made famous by Glen Campbell, and Roger Miller’s “River in the Rain.” The list of 40 or so musicians in the credits is a clue for what to expect: big, lush arrangements. No bare-bones traditional sounds here. But because these songs are country music’s version of the American Songbook, the standards-style orchestration works. That, and the fact that Krauss keeps a purity in her voice that pushes the velvet orchestral drapery into the background. Nowhere is this more evident than in her recording of “All Alone Am I,” which was a hit for Brenda Lee in 1962. Krauss’ version is a little slower than Lee’s, a few pitches higher, and delivered with a kind of stunned sadness that turns a pop torch song into a Shakespearean tragic soliloquy. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuva3I6Wo58 While there’s been no new album since Windy City, that’s hardly out of character for the careful and steadfast Krauss. Popping out a record every year is not her thing. If you want to hear her live, though, you’re in luck. Catch her April through June on her 2020 tour. Details here: https://alisonkrauss.com/pages/events Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Not every great musician gets to reinvent his instrument the way Gene Krupa did. Under his sticks, a drum set became both more powerful and more integral to the music than ever before. Krupa, born in 1909 to Polish immigrants in Chicago, was already gigging in his hometown and Milwaukee by the time he was in his teens. He was 18 when he got a steady job with an established big band, Thelma Terry and Her Playboys, which got him valuable experience with regular nightclub shows and tours. He also made half a dozen recordings with Terry in the late 1920s. But it was his next move that made him a star: Krupa joined Benny Goodman’s big band in 1934. If you only know one Krupa track, it’s almost certainly Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing,” one of the earliest recordings to feature an extended drum solo. The waning of the 1940s also brought about an end to the big band era. Small groups became the rage, resulting in arguably the best jazz ever recorded. Krupa was no exception to this trend, making fantastic albums with trios and quartets throughout the ’50s and ’60s. He died in 1973. Enjoy these eight great tracks by Gene Krupa.

1. Track: “The Drum Battle” Album: The Drum Battle (with Buddy Rich) Label: Verve Year: 1952

One of the marketing oddities in Krupa’s career was an ongoing series of appearances pitting his skills against those of fellow drummer Buddy Rich. This started at a Jazz at the Philharmonic show at Carnegie Hall, featured on this Verve album, and the battle was reconstructed a number of times in the following years. The very idea that two drummers without a band could have enough star status to merit not just audience but industry enthusiasm would have been unthinkable without the technical developments by drumming masters like Krupa and Rich. (It’s worth noting that, by the time these two played their battle on the Sammy Davis, Jr. Show in 1966, it was thought necessary to back them up with a band. In the jazz glory days of 1952, those JATP audiences were made of sterner stuff!) httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSYqShn5BiI

2. Track: “Coronation Hop” Album: The Exciting Gene Krupa Label: Verve Year: 1953

There are nine great musicians on this album, although only six play on this track. Besides Krupa, there’s Steve Jordan (guitar), Teddy Wilson (piano), Willie Smith (alto sax), Charlie Shavers (trumpet), and Israel Crosby (bass). “Coronation Hop,” the first song on the album, has Krupa drumming constantly, both backing up his colleagues and answering them with solos as short as four beats and as long as 16 bars. You can listen to whole album here: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbZ39Ws2yLE

3. Track: “Meddle My Minor” Album: The Driving Gene Krupa Label: Verve Year: 1954

In one way, “Meddle My Minor” is a reminiscence on “Sing, Sing, Sing,” which Krupa had first recorded with Benny Goodman in 1937. On the other hand, this newer tune quickly spins off into a bebop exploration, quite different from anything the Swing King Goodman ever did. It’s Charlie Shavers again on trumpet, pairing up with the tenor sax of Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis for some thrilling licks. All the while, Krupa does his famous snare sound, basically inventing the rim shot. Jazz critic John McDonough has described it as striking the rim (of the snare drum) and head with the stick so the sound travels to the head, amplifying it. “Then – and this is the key – he would get the stick away from the head immediately so that it didn’t kill the vibration.” httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA6hL2_wh3A

4. Track: “Drummin’ Man” Album: Gene Krupa – Drummer Man Label: Verve Year: 1956

Just because he played bop doesn’t mean Krupa had turned his back on swing. Drummer Man is proof of that. This spectacular album boasts lively arrangements by a 23-year-old Quincy Jones. It’s also a fairly rare example of Krupa playing for vocal music. Anita O’Day is the singer, and Roy Eldridge plays trumpet. Although some sources list the ensemble as “Gene Krupa Big Band,” that moniker does not appear on the jacket or label. It’s a collection of over a dozen musicians, featuring “Gene Krupa – In Highest Fi.” The song “Drummin’ Man” was composed by Krupa and the pianist and bandleader Tiny Parham. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKGRyT8LzQs

5. Track: “Gone With the Wind” Album: Gene Krupa Rocks Label: Verve Year: 1957

The title of this album is telling: By 1957, rock and roll was becoming a viable commodity and starting to obliterate the jazz market. This is a jazz record, of course, and the title seems a bit pleading in retrospect. “See? We can rock too!” In any case, this is Krupa’s quartet of the day, including Gail Curtis (sometimes billed as Gale Curtis) on sax, Teddy Napoleon on piano, and Mort Herbert on bass. “Gone With the Wind” is a 1937 tune by Hollywood songwriter Allie Wrubel. It originally had words by Herb Magidson, but this is an instrumental version. Krupa focuses his brushes on the cymbals for an unusually atmospheric touch. The song starts at 4:14. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmGwOyNXs3I

6. Track: “Disc Jockey Jump” Album: Gene Krupa Plays Gerry Mulligan Arrangements Label: Verve Year: 1959

Although the track list on this album is mainly pre-existing tunes in new arrangements, “Disc Jockey Jump” is an exception: Krupa and Mulligan wrote it together. “Disc Jockey Jump” starts out swinging, but with each set of 16 bars it gets more and more bop. That’s the beauty of the “jump” in jazz (see the work of Count Basie for some classic examples): These are tunes with a kind of angular energy that is easily opened out beyond swing. Mulligan plays here, of course, along with Phil Woods and Hank Jones. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ie9HlEB57M

7. Track: “Sabre Dance” Album: Percussion King Label: Verve Year: 1961

There is simply no arrangement of “Sabre Dance” that isn’t fun, and this is a particularly clever one. The music was originally written by Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian as part of a ballet in 1942, but since then it has captured the imagination of musicians and audiences as its own separate piece. Percussion King is a collection of 20^th century classical pieces remolded for the Krupa sound. Besides the usual array of horns, piano, and bass, Krupa is joined by several other percussionists: Doug Allen, Joe Venuto, and Mousey Alexander. The arrangement is by George Williams, best known for his work on the Jackie Gleason Show. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rV2HbV4xfo

8. Track: “Accent on Flamboyance” Album: The Mighty Two (with Louis Bellson) Label: Roulette Year: 1963

The Mighty Two is a good name for this collaboration by Krupa and drummer Louis Bellson. One of the fun things here is the separate audio channels used for each drummer. It makes it easier to tell them apart (Krupa is in your left ear). They’re joined by a band that includes Joe Wilder on trumpet, Phil Woods on alto sax, and Milt Hinton on bass, among others. Although much of this album has a bossa nova feel, “Accent on Flamboyance” is more of a low-key bop. Both drummers maintain a light touch – this one isn’t a battle – using a distinctive three-against-two rhythm throughout the short tune. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3osfML-7k4U Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/William P. Gottlieb (public domain)