MartinLogan Renaissance ESL 15A
Anthem MRX SLM
Electrocompaniet - AW 800M
Electrocompaniet - AW 800M
Bryston BP-19
Hegel Music Systems
SVS
SVS

CD Music

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CD music

March 2016

Blue Note Records B002427702
Format: CD

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
***

Overall Enjoyment
****

Veteran jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd, who turns 78 on March 15, views himself as someone who stands at the crossroads of America’s folk musics: country, blues, R&B, and jazz. As quoted in California-based journalist Joe Woodard’s 2015 book, Charles Lloyd: A Wild, Blatant Truth, Lloyd believes that growing up in Memphis on the Mississippi River in the 1940s was “the right place, at the right time. There were great masters there.” Among those masters Lloyd played with were B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, Johnny Ace, and contemporaries Phineas Newborn and Booker Little.

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CD music

February 2016

ISO/Columbia 88875173862
Format: CD

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
*****

Any artist’s sudden and unexpected death alters our view of his or her final work -- whether it be Jimi Hendrix’s The Cry Of Love, Janis Joplin’s Pearl, or John Lennon’s Double Fantasy. No matter how hard we try, we can never truly divorce that final recording from thoughts of what went before or projections of what might have been yet to come.

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January 2016

ECM 2478
Format: CD

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
****

Reissues of early recordings from an established artist’s career are almost always instructive, and sometimes revelatory. While it is not unusual to gain a fresh perspective on the development of the artist’s music, it is much rarer to get insights into what factors influenced the musician’s personal growth.

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December 2015

Concord 37886
Format: CD

Musical Performance
**

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
**

Starting in the mid-1960s, blues-based guitarists began to supplant lead singers like Mick Jagger and Keith Relf as the dominant frontmen in rock music. Players like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page were suddenly thrust into the spotlight, and once Jimi Hendrix made the move from showy soul sideman to rock god there was no turning back. Even guitarists who could not sing -- Duane Allman comes to mind -- were promoted as solo artists.

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November 2015

Mindless Records/Virgin EMI 2361502
Format: CD

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
****

To hear Keith Richards tell the story -- as he does in a new Netflix documentary called Keith Richards: Under the Influence -- Crosseyed Heart came about because he said something outlandish to Steve Jordan, the longtime drummer for Richards’s side project, the X-Pensive Winos. What on earth could Richards -- who, for more than 50 years, has set the bar high for outlandish behavior -- have said to create such a reaction? According to Jordan, Richards -- having now documented his turbulent past in an autobiography and with the Rolling Stones spending more time off the road than on it -- mused about retirement.

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September 2015

Southeastern Records
Format: CD

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
****

Few things resonate in America as well as redemption tales. Alabama-born singer-songwriter Jason Isbell has a fine one to tell, bouncing back from an alcohol habit so bad it got him fired from the hard-living Drive-By Truckers in 2007, when he was just 28. Isbell's crash was particularly disappointing because he seemed to be living out the kind of disastrous self-destruction portrayed in some of the Truckers' darkest songs while proving himself to be the most promising young writer to come out of the South since Steve Earle.

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August 2015

Pax Americana/Blue Note B002263402
Format: CD

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
***

Overall Enjoyment
****

In an earlier, less-cluttered musical era, Ryan Adams would be a much bigger star. He has the charisma and the songwriting chops of Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty, but, at 40, he is a generation younger and remains a cult favorite -- far from a household name (except, perhaps, for those who confuse him with Bryan Adams). In some quarters, he is best known as the romantic partner of quirky women like indie-film diva Parker Posey and actress-singer Mandy Moore.

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CD music

July 2015

Nonesuch Records 2-548243
Format: CD

Musical Performance
***

Sound Quality
***

Overall Enjoyment
***

Close harmony lives at the heart of rural American music, a reflection of the fact that, in its early years, it was frequently created by family members or friends -- as much self-entertainment as anything meant to share with others.

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CD music

May 2015

Ribbon Music B00R8SN5U4
Format: CD

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
****

At 25, and after creating five albums, British singer-songwriter Laura Marling is no longer the startling young ingénue she was when she scored three Mercury Prize nominations, but she can still stun you with the freshness of her music and the depth of her emotion.

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  1. Ted Kooshian: "Clowns Will Be Arriving"
  2. Suzie LeBlanc: "La Veillée de Noël"
  3. The Villains: "A Little Something for the Pain"
  4. Henry Mancini: "Music for Peter Gunn"
  5. Barb Jungr: "Hard Rain: The Songs of Bob Dylan & Leonard Cohen"
  6. Jeremy Fox: "With Love"
  7. Will Kimbrough: "Sideshow Love"
  8. A.J. Croce: "Twelve Tales"
  9. The Iveys: "Jenna's Song"
  10. The Dave Miller Trio with Rebecca DuMaine: "Better Than Anything"
  11. Bob Dorough: "Eulalia"
  12. Charlotte de Rothschild and Danielle Perrett: "Christmas Lullabies"
  13. Tchaikovsky/Duke Ellington-Billy Strayhorn: "Nutcracker Suites"
  14. Tianna Hall and Chris Cortez: "Noel"
  15. Tim Warfield: "Tim Warfield’s Jazzy Christmas"
  16. Gina Kronstadt: "Come Over"
  17. The Swingle Singers: "Weather to Fly"
  18. Tierney Sutton: "After Blue"
  19. Cheryl Bentyne and Mark Winkler: "West Coast Cool"
  20. Lorraine Feather: "Attachments"
  21. Lyn Stanley: "Lost in Romance"
  22. Randi Tytingvåg: "Lights Out"
  23. Vincent Cross: "A Town Called Normal"
  24. Nancy Harms: "Dreams in Apartments"
  25. Abigail Riccards: "Every Little Star"
  26. George Shearing & Don Thompson: "George Shearing at Home"
  27. Matthew Morrison: "Where It All Began"
  28. Thisbe Vos: "Under Your Spell"
  29. Mustered Courage: "Powerlines"
  30. Denise King & Olivier Hutman: "Give Me The High Sign"
  31. Thomas Gansch and Georg Breinschmid: "Gansch & Breinschmid Live"
  32. Ben Sidran: "Don’t Cry for No Hipster"
  33. Raquel Bitton: "Rhythm of the Heart"
  34. Frank Vignola & Vinny Raniolo: "Melody Magic"
  35. Laila Salins: "Elevator into the Sky"
  36. Tim Mahoney Band: "Shine Through"
  37. The Summarily Dismissed: "To Each!"
  38. Will Scruggs Jazz Fellowship: "Song of Simeon: A Christmas Journey"
  39. Dallas Wind Symphony; Jerry Junkin, Conductor: "Horns for the Holidays"
  40. Jacqui Sutton: "Notes from the Frontier: A Musical Journey"
  41. Barluath: "Source"
  42. Letizia Gambi: "Introducing Letizia Gambi"
  43. Fiona Apple: "The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do"
  44. Susie Arioli: "All the Way"
  45. Georg Breinschmid: "Fire"
  46. Hiroe Sekine: "After the Rainfall"
  47. Jamie Ousley: "A Sea of Voices"
  48. Bill Toms: "Memphis"
  49. The SSJ All-Stars: "From California With Love"
  50. Dale Ann Bradley: "Somewhere South of Crazy"
  51. Duda Lucena Quartet: "Live"
  52. Stevie Nicks: "In Your Dreams"
  53. Megan Slankard: "A Token of the Wreckage"
  54. Take 6: "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year"
  55. "Christmas with The Washington Chorus"
  56. Esperanza Spalding: "Chamber Music Society"
  57. John Escreet: "Don't Fight the Inevitable"

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