CD Music Reviews

OMG. Little Richard, the true king of rock 'n roll, is back, and sounding better than ever. Here's Little Richard, his game-changing debut album for Specialty Records, is now beautifully remastered...

If there's any way to change weather patterns with blasts of focused air, the 13 members of the 16-year old Bay Brass stand of good chance of transforming the San Francisco Bay Area as we know it. These members of the San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Ballet, San Francisco Opera, and other regional orchestras have certainly given my ear canals the rotor rooter treatment. Sound the Bells!, their new recording on the Harmonia Mundi label, presents The Bay Brass in high-resolution, hybrid SACD format.

The term “jazz” begins to lose meaning when applied to creations as brilliant as this. Iyer's music transcends genres as it takes us on an oft-mesmerizing journey into the heart and mind of an extremely gifted musician. In “Autoscopy,” chords churn in ways that seem more connected to new music than jazz. The jazz element may be more recognizable in the relentless riffs of “Patterns,” but elements constantly change and shift in the 11 excursions on Solo in ways that transcend categories and labels. No wonder Iyer has also received commissions from the American Composers Orchestra, wind quintet Imani Winds, and new music quartet Ethel.

Sales of high definition (high resolution or "high rez") music on discs has floundered, and producers are in a difficult bind because it is expensive to master them, and with profits on low sales being low, they are looking for a different outlet. Well, downloading high rez music is the answer. The music studios, as well as independent musicians, can simply transfer the original high resolution masters (24/88.2 or 24/96) to websites that specialize in selling music by download. The high rez disc does not have to be created, packaged, or distributed by the studio. It costs them nothing to put the music on a website store. The consumer downloads the music and burns it to a disc or plays it from a computer. The reviews here are of high resolution albums downloaded and burned to DVD-A. I listened to them with an OPPO BDP-83/NuForce universal player, Lamm LL1 preamplifier, McIntosh MC1201 power amplifiers, and Carver Mark IV ribbon speakers.