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Details: Blu-ray movies

January 2019

Barbara Stanwyck as The Woman in Charge

Criterion Collection 954
Format: Blu-ray

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Forty Guns (1957) opens in silence. There’s an overhead long shot of the arid prairie, a small wagon crossing it like an ant. In a medium shot, the wagon is revealed as carrying three men whom we later learn are the Bonell brothers: Griff (Barry Sullivan), Wes (Gene Barry), and Chico (Robert Dix). The sound of hooves is heard, getting louder and louder. Suddenly, from around a bend in the road, Jessica Drummond (Barbara Stanwyck) appears all in black, on a galloping white horse, leading 40 horsemen in two ranks. They split up to surround the wagon, and the point of view nervously shifts between high and low shots, emphasizing the tenseness of the situation. Drummond won’t appear again onscreen for another 20 minutes, but . . . what an entrance! Stanwyck was given one of the most memorable introductions ever caught on film.

Details: Curator

January 2019

When the Los Angeles-based rock quintet Love entered Sunset Sound Recorders in Hollywood in June 1967 to record their third album, circumstances did not point toward a successful outcome. The band had recorded two very good records (actually, one and a half, but more on that later), and scored a top 40 hit in July 1966 with “Seven & Seven Is.” But even with the success of that single, Love had been unable to build momentum because of singer-songwriter Arthur Lee’s reluctance to tour. In addition, Lee’s relationship with guitarist Bryan MacLean, who also wrote songs for the band, was starting to fray.

Details: CD music

January 2019

Resonance 2035
Format: CD

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As a late-night FM announcer on a campus radio station, you get to learn a lot about people’s musical obsessions. During my eight-year tenure at CKCU-FM in Ottawa, there was one listener who was a constant presence on the station’s request line. Occasionally, he’d want to engage in conversation; more often, he just said two words: “Play Dolphy.”

Details: Blu-ray movies

December 2018

Sony Pictures 51742
Format: Blu-ray

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Most readers know the plot of Frank Capra’s Lost Horizon (1937), based on the novel by James Hilton. British government envoy Robert Conway (Ronald Colman) escapes a war-torn Eastern European country, only to discover that he and his four companions have been kidnapped and transported to Shangri-La, a mythical land in the Himalayas. Conway, a pacifist, almost immediately feels at home in this land that has no rulers, no strife, no war, and little of the other baggage of civilization.

Details: SoundStage! Encore

December 2018

Finnish mastering engineer Henkka Niemistö is based out of the Chartmakers East studio, located in East Helsinki, Finland. In this video, Henkka discusses his role as a mastering engineer. Mastering is the final production step before the music reaches music listeners’ ears.

Details: "On HiFi" with Wes Marshall

December 2018

This will date me, and maybe you, too. When I see the name Shinola, the first thing to hit my brain is not an expensive watch made in Detroit, or a $1500 leather bag, or a “studio quality” speaker. My association with the term even predates the joke between actors Richard Ward and Steve Martin in The Jerk. In my youth, Shinola, in business from 1877 to 1960, was the second-ranking shoe polish in the US, after Kiwi. It was even more important as an insult: “You don’t know shit from Shinola.”

Details: Music Everywhere

December 2018

This fall has presented me with high-quality Bluetooth speakers of all sizes and types. Last month it was Grace Digital’s ten-pound EcoXGear EcoXplorer. This month, through an overture from Kickstarter, I’ve crossed paths with the smallest speaker I’ve ever reviewed, the NstaJam Nspire Solo, and found that, in its own way, it can deliver a quality musical experience. It makes a perfect stocking stuffer for those on your holiday list who need better sound to go with their personal devices. Moreover, buying a speaker from NstaJam benefits a number of social causes important to the company.

Details: CD music

December 2018

Whirlwind 4729
Format: CD

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Few significant musician/composers of the past 75 years remain as enigmatic and misunderstood as Kenny Wheeler, the UK-based trumpeter who died at age 84 in 2014. Not only that, but few musicians are as influential. Ask most contemporary trumpeters about their favorite peers, and Wheeler is sure to be on the list.

Details: Blu-ray movies

November 2018

Criterion Succeeds with an Early Wuxia Masterpiece

The Criterion Collection 937
Format: 4K BD

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In film, inns, taverns, and barrooms are usually plain, innocuous settings with an undercurrent of mystery that often attract conniving patrons who ramp up the action and turn them into battlegrounds. You find them in all cultures. Remember Treasure Island and the Benbow Inn? The titular establishment in this film is an isolated, peaceful inn with wooden tables, a bar on the first floor, and, on the second, a balcony leading to bedrooms -- nice accommodations for travelers.

Details: Music Everywhere

November 2018

Last month I praised the JBL Xtreme 2 as being one of the brawniest Bluetooth speakers out there, and now comes EcoXGear’s EcoXplorer, a smaller cousin of their mighty EcoBoulder. Indeed Grace Digital and its EcoXGear subsidiary have established a record of producing quality merchandise at low prices. The EcoXplorer weighs five pounds more than the JBL but costs only slightly more than half as much: $169.99 USD.

Details: Pulse!

November 2018

Twenty-five years after Frank Zappa’s death from prostate cancer at age 52, it’s still difficult to assess his career, in part because it was so multifaceted. Composer, guitarist, satirist, free-speech activist -- Zappa had many sides, and while they often overlapped, it’s easier to appreciate each of them separately: he was almost compulsively prolific. In his last 27 years he released 64 albums, many of them multi-disc sets, and since then the Zappa Family Trust has released an additional 49 albums, bringing the total of available Zappa releases to 111.

Details: CD music

November 2018

Greenleaf Music 1065
Format: CD

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Few musicians take their geographical influences into the recording studio, and possibly least of all in the jazz realm. To further their careers, young jazz musicians gravitate toward New York City, and to a lesser degree, Los Angeles or Chicago. Whether they’re pursuing advanced education at places like the Manhattan School of Music or chasing gigs with more established players, they usually spend serious time in the big city before gaining the wherewithal to produce a recording. Whatever regionalism they carry with them has generally been erased by the time their music reaches the masses.

Details: Blu-ray movies

October 2018

The Criterion Collection 114
Format: Blu-ray

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In any conversation about screwball film comedies, My Man Godfrey is sure to be mentioned. Released in 1936, at the height of the Great Depression, it derided the rich as frivolous and empty-headed, and boosted good opinions of the poor, while still being breezy and riotously funny. One wonders if any of the ennobled poor could afford to see it.

Details: SoundStage! Encore

December 2020

The Trinity Session, by Canada’s Cowboy Junkies, was recorded in November 1987 and released the following November. Upon its released and afterwards, it was praised for its musical excellence and technical proficiency. Produced and engineered by Peter J. Moore, the album was recorded with a single Calrec microphone and a modified Beta videotape player converted into a digital audio recorder. Part 2 focuses on how the microphone was placed in the church the album was recorded in, as well as how the band was arranged around it.