MAN TRAN: The Manhattan Transfer / The Junction

An eclectic, brightly attenuated recording, 2018’s The Junction is the Manhattan Transfer’s first studio album since the death of founding member Tim Hauser from a heart attack in 2014. It’s also the first album the legendary vocal group has recorded with his replacement, M-Pact vocalist Trist Curless. Along with Curless, once again showcased are the […]

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SERIOUSLY: Image size?

Paul McGowan … All stereo systems produce a sonic image—some better than others. But, regardless of the image quality, there’s one thing we can say they have in common: a size to that image. If you turn the level of the stereo down to a whisper there’s a tiny image trapped between the speakers. Crank […]

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Why is the greatest choral music frequently the most difficult to sing?

‘The composers who break new choral ground are often those who are not so familiar with the medium’ Everyone in our business can identify the composers who ‘write well for voices’ – those who understand the singers’ need for breath, for movement between registers, and for periods of rest. Conventional wisdom maintains that the human […]

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HERBIE MANN: Live At The Whisky 1969 – The Unreleased Masters (2CD)

  While Jazz Flautist Herbie Mann Is Often Remembered as a Pop-Jazz Player, He Was Actually a Pioneer in Popularizing World Music and Even Prog-Rock with Recordings Released on His Own Embryo Imprint In the Late ‘60s, He Was Fronting One of the Most Progressive and Electrifying Bands in the World: Guitarist Sonny Sharrock, Miroslav […]

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Sélène: A Trip to the Moon with Sélène

MARTYNA KIELEK While Sélène Saint-Aimé is still to some extent in the “young and promising” category (she does not have a Wikipedia entry yet, which in 2021 probably does imply being a “rising star”), her talent is increasingly earning much-deserved recognition in the world of French jazz. Just like many of the artists I intend […]

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