Recent release update - Diana Krall, Bettye LaVette, Bobby Womack, Ry Cooder, Bob Dylan

A few new releases to get caught up on.

The new Bob Dylan - Tempest - is Dylan's greatest record of the 21st century, and easily a five star record. It sports a fabulous collection of songs, the band is red hot, Dylan is on great voice, and this may well be the "Desire" of his last period. If Dylan is in an Indian Summer, it is surely one of the most impressive late periods artistically ever seen, and this record cements Dylan as one of the very greatest artists to span the past century. An instant classic. The vinyl is pretty good and sounds very good, better than the enclosed CD (which is decent enough)  - I have not truly loved a Dylan record in near 20 years. 

 Diana Krall's Glad Rag Doll has a cover aimed straight at the grandpa audiophile crowd. Verging on tasteful porn, it is pretty blatant - Krall set up as a bordello whore, maybe a conscious attempt to differentiate the music contained in the sleeve from her previous string of smooth jazz-lite stuff, and it is quite different, albeit ground heavily trodden by others, starting with Cassandra Wilson and following through Madeline Peyroux as the obvious reference points. Krall has neither the soul of Cassandra or the authenticity of Peyroux, and at times, her singing here can come perilously close to being so passion-less it becomes somnambulist, but in quite a few cases, it works quite well. If it shows a path for Krall to grow along, it may be of interest. The vinyl pressing is not terribly good, but the sound is fine.

 Bettye LaVette's Thankful N'Thoughtful is for me her best album yet. It is a better set of songs and very directly delivered, with perfect accompaniment and sound. Cut a 45rpm, this one cuts some deep, powerful sonics, it packs a punch, it is raw and direct rock & soul delivered by a prop who gets better every time. Great record.

 The return of Bobby Womack via Blur's Damon Albarn is another matter entirely. Albarn gives Womack a very modern setting, touching on electronica and beats, but also very natural, and Womack fits right on top like a well worn glove, delivering a fabulous set of personal and powerful songs with a voice that shows the years but makes no apologies for it. A decent pressing and good sound clearly cut from digital. One of the best records of the year and a great comeback from a great, under appreciated artist.

Keeping with the older folks Ry Cooder delivers his Election Special, and makes it quite clear he will not be voting for Mitt Romney come November. Whatever your politics, this is s short, tight, beautifully played simple record, full of great playing superbly recorded, often hilarious, never taking itself too seriously - and in this age of hyper polarized demagoguery fueled by 'angry old white men', at minimum this good hearted record has the ability to ease the partisan passions and poke some fun at an election, and a country, which is far from funny. Superb pressing and sound. Not to be missed.

An update on my equipment tinkering and such:

I've done a bit of tinkering and tweaking over the summer months, some caused by misadventure.

First, I ripped a nice size tear in the cone of one of my PHY-HP drivers - just a really stupid, freak accident that should never have happened. Of course, a tear in the cone simply ruins the driver, even more so a full range driver, Even my crude attempt at temporary repair proved useless - some pretty wild excursions were happening, pretty ugly stuff when it hit just the right (wrong) frequency range. Repairing a PHY-HP driver is not easy - they have to be shipped back to France, and in fact both have to be shipped back as they come from the factory as a matched pair, so both have to be re-coned, not just the damaged one. These are bulky and very heavy - big brass housing. Expensive to ship to France, expensive to recone, and time consuming - ever try getting anything done in France between June and September (especially July)?  Forget it. But... the guys at PHY-HP in France were beyond superb. They arranged with the Canadian dealer, the wonderful Samuel Furon at L'Atelier Audio in Montreal, to swap my driver for a pair he had in stock, for simply the price of the recone. And Samuel is such a class guy he drove to Toronto with them on a long weekend as part of a social trip. So my KM30SAG drivers were back in action in relatively short order - a month or so, which in high end audio terms is very quick.

I did not repeat the C37  Lack that had been on the previous drivers, which I may do again at some point. So it has been a period of re-acclimatizing my aging ears to the drivers in their natural state again. These are without question the best drivers in the world, when properly implemented.

Since my vinyl rig is part of the PHY-HP based system in my basement, I had an opportunity to get more deeply reacquainted with my digital 'upstairs' system, with my Tannoy Turnberrys - already heavily modified with Duelund resistors and caps in the modified crossovers, C37 Lack on the cones, Nordost jumpers in shotgun configuration (which really radically reduced hum) - and the no digital filter 47 Labs Flatfish digital through my Komuro based 300B amp.

In the course of getting reacquainted, I was reminded of lingering dissatisfaction with this system that really stemmed from the Tannoys in comparison to the PHY-HP - never will be a fair contest, but still, I felt there was room to grow here.

So I embarked on program to tweak the Tannoys.

In high end speakers, even speakers costing $10k, $20k, $30k - opening them up reveals a rather discouraging collection of cheap parts, like cheap resistors, cheap wire, cheap crossover components - and worst of all, in virtually every case a lining of cheap eggcrate foam to dampen vibration in a rather crude way. I have felt that after upgrading the crossover parts and wire (in the case of theTannoys, they came with excellent VanDenHul wire stock) the last frontier was the eggcrate foam.

I ripped it all out, going back to bare walls inside. I wanted to not dampen and kill all vibration, but to let the music sing - eggcrate heavily applied may kill vibration, but it deadens the sound too.

Looking into alternatives, I came upon Twaron Angel Hair, and what I read about it made sense intuitively (http://www.eltim.eu/index.php?item=&action=page&group_id=10000062&lang=EN) so I ordered some (more than I needed it turns out) and began the process of installing it bit by bit, fine tuning by ear to get the music out.Using spray glue to coat the walls and corners, I applied about half inch thich sheets of Twaron to virtually every surface that previously had eggcrate, using Twaron Unicorn Tail at every 90 degree angle. It took a bit of tuning via adding here and subtracting there, but in short order, the Tannoys were transformed - the bass became huge, and powerful, projecting deeply - so powerful it can rattle the glass in the china cabinet. The mid range became glorious and full of color, and the highs opened up and became super sweet. Overall, the sound became more organic - more tonally integrated, with more natural spatial cues, and certainly there is less dampening to the bottom end, but this is actually more natural - the bass moves as it would in real life, it is felt in the body, rather than just heard in the mind.

So for rather little cost and a bit of work, the Tannoy based system is transformed, and once again, I am reminded of what the audio passion is all about, as I am rediscovering the old as new again, and this digital system proves to be very musically satisfying.

And before I forget - I have taken my first steps into true High Resolution digital audio. More on that soon...the Chord QuteHd....

New Prestige 200g (or so) vinyl from Analogue Productions:

 The series of Prestige 200g vinyl starts to roll out, a year after it was announced (or was it like 2 years??) - I figure they announce these decades in advance to attract as many preorders as possible, and to get as many people to commit their dollars to them so as to 'corner' a certain piece of the market. Whatever - it actually helps me out, I am much less prone to impulse purchase if its been on my list for awhile, and that list regularly gets whittled down through occasional application of common sense to it. From me, anyways, Chad actually gets his sales reduced by announcing way too far in advance, as well as by his continual delays. I just move on to other things and realize that I really don't need it after all.

But here we are - "Coltrane", John Coltrane's first date as a leader, starts the series off in a very good 200g (or thereabouts, Chad says they are 200g, but I think they come up short of that, not that I care) pressing, sounding superb - in fact, better than ever, the characteristic Prestige tubbiness in the bass and love handles around the mids have been tamed without losing any warmth or tonality, there is an organic fully analog tone in a big, open space, Coltrane bites and the tonal range is all here. The top end is sparkling and hasn't been futzed with. All in all - and the same goes for the other two below - the sound is exemplary, even maybe a bit more than that.

Where the series falls down so far is in choice of titles. It's fair to say that 'Coltrane' would not be any even passing Coltrane disciple's lead off choice, let alone a tenth or fourteenth pick. It is an average hard bop album that is pleasant enough, hardly challenging or groundbreaking, and far from representative of Coltrane or an important Coltrane album. As one who came to Coltrane in the 1970's, and in fact took up the tenor largely because of late period Coltrane, I can say that in 40 years I have never really felt a need to own this record. So why pick it now for a high end vinyl reissue series when there are so many better Prestige records that could use a polish and relaunch?

 Much the same could be said for All Night Long, really a Mal Waldron date if anything, featuring Hank Mobley long before he developed into an interesting player, a young Donald Byrd likewise not yet at his peak, The always interesting Art Taylor - but when the most compelling attribute a record has is the fine flute playing of Jerome Richardson, you know that you are not in the presence of forgotten masterpiece. An odd record, Richardson is really the only highlight. Odd.

Mobley's Message is in many ways the best of the bunch, not just because it has a really very cool 50's vibe cover. Mobley is not entirely Mobley yet on this one, and even his weakest Blue Note date puts this to shame. But it has merit, as Mobley's tone at this point was much lighter, and his articulation much softer. He is far more of a changes-runner here than the improviser he became just a few years later, but even if this is far from an essential record, it is enjoyable.

There is nothing to fault in pressing, mastering, or artwork. All are above reproach and in fact can be considered best in class. All Chad needs now is someone who knows the music - and not just on the surface - to curate the series meaningfully.

The Tale of Wagner's Ring in 2012:

 Interesting thing about Wagner's Ring cycle - in 2012, the ones getting the attention are the oldest, in one case, the first stereo Ring released (but not the first recorded) and in the other, virtually the first commercially recorded cycle in mono. In both cases, likely the two greatest Ring cycles ever recorded, significant since both are in the 50 to 60 year old range.

Solti's Vienna Ring is given a very 'deluxe' edition from Decca, almost certainly the last kick at the can for this cycle that has been the de facto standard version for over 50 years, an astonishing testament to both its exceptional recorded sound and the near perfect interpretation. Little needs to be said about the Solti Ring - it is glorious, if somewhat hard driven in places, but the drive of Solti gives it a gloriously burning quality, and it is very well sung by a fine cast (although some were getting past their primes). The stereo sound is astonishing for its time, and the many sound effects, manually produced, give the recording a feel of being a stage production of an earlier era. The new remastering is intended to compete with the out of print and astoundingly expensive Esoteric version, and although I have never heard that, I can say that this version is simply beautifully remastered with extreme care, easily supplanting the 1997 version that I have owned and quite liked (although many complained about use of noise reduction). Improvements in both mastering technology and noise reduction software are obvious, and although this remastering is taken from the 1997 digital transfer (24 bit 44.1khz), the increase in realism, tonality, and accuracy is worth every penny - and the far more natural sound, organic wholeness, and coherence of the spatial cues for me made this a compelling version, that flows seamlessly - once it is 'on the table', it grips straight through and mesmerizes such that time seems suspended. The 1997 sounded very good, if a bit polite and sterile. The 2012 sounds powerful, driven and incredibly open.

The goodies in the box are welcome, particularly the Culshaw book, the Cooke doc, and curiously the Gramophone repos which are very cool.  The fill-up disc of Wagner overtures is not of the same caliber as the Ring itself, and the Bu Ray disc containing the 24 bit 44.1 files is BD+ protected so I couldn't copy the files to my hard drive - unnecessary paranoia, and annoying.

Expensive, magnificent, the last word on a great Ring and high point of recorded music. No great music collection should be without the Solti Ring and it has never sounded so perfect.

Then again, in the same price range ( a bit more, actually) is the Japanese hybrid SACD remastering of the Furtwangler 1953 RAI Ring, an Italian Radio studio production, and just as singular an event. This is the first complete studio Ring, in fact, the first complete version at all if one ignores a poorly recorded LaScala Ring from Furtwangler in 1951, which is so poorly recorded it really cannot be considered. Over the past 60 years, it has generally been thought that the LaScala Ring had better orchestral playing, and even perhaps better singing in some key roles, but that the sound was so poor it could never be a catalog choice. The RAI cycle was better recorded, but still not good enough sonically to be a contender or even anything other than a historical document for Furtwangler obsessives.

But with the discovery - or maybe not discovery, but granting of decades-denied permission - of master tapes with significantly better sound, there needs to be a reconsideration of the RAI Furtwangler Ring. Not as to its musical merits - those are at this point undeniable. Furtwangler gives a gripping, magnificent, incandescent reading, one that is wholly unique given his very personal (idiosyncratic) approach to time and phrasing and deep emotional style. But its sonic merits - all of a sudden, in this 2011 remastering, the sound is so strongly upgraded ( from C or D grade mono to at least B+ mono) that for once we can hear the RAI as a pretty fine orchestra, much better than has long been considered, and the nuances of Furtwangler's reading come through cleanly. The accomplishment here is likely far greater than what has been given Solti by Decca - EMI have not just taken a veil off, this is almost akin to what can be seen after cleaning Michelangelo's frescoes - revelatory is an understatement. Does it all of a sudden become a first choice? No, it can never be that. The sound is still nowhere in Solti's league. But it is, at last, eminently listenable, and although the orchestra still remains recessed, the singing is not - and it far surpasses Solti. And of course Furtwangler - this style of conducting, this unique interpretive style and  insight, will never be heard again. Those who revere Furtwangler, myself among them, understand that in the hundreds of recordings of any given work, only Furtwangler is truly unique, and in every case, so deeply moving.

This new remastering of Furtwangler's Ring is just as essential as the new Solti. If I had to pick one (a stupid reviewer straw man concept, I know) it would be Solti. And then I would forever regret not picking the Furtwangler.

Who would have though that in 2012 we would be having this discussion about two Rings recorded before I was born?

And if nether the Solti or the Furtwangler float your boat - there is always the 1955 Keilberth from Testament, Decca's first stereo Ring. Sonically pretty amazing for 1955 stereo (although not perfect, as I found the orchestral climaxes curiously lacking power, and there are numerous stage noises), and as a whole, it actually hangs together better than Solti, if less spectacular. And it is better sung than any....