LATEST ADDITIONS

One of my coolest radio-related experiences happened just a few months ago, when, churning through FM stations in my car, I encountered a country-inflected male voice singing "Fast Car," the Tracy Chapman song. Rolling Stone dubbed "Fast Car" the 168th best song of all time. It has audiophile cred because its simple sonics (predominantly voice and acoustic guitar) and good engineering made it an important test track, used, eg, by Harman for listening tests and by others for assessing compression artifacts in MP3s.

Charles Lloyd: The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow
Lloyd, tenor & alto saxophone, bass & alto flute; Jason Moran, piano; Larry Grenadier, bass; Brian Blade, drums, percussion
Blue Note 00602458167962 (reviewed as 24/96 FLAC; available on CD, digital, LP). 2024. Dorothy Darr, Lloyd, Joe Harley, prods.; Dom Camardella, Kevin Gray, engs.
Performance *****
Sonics *****

The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow was released by Blue Note Records on March 15, 2024, which was Charles Lloyd's 86th birthday. It is Lloyd's 47th album as a leader—the first was Discovery!, on Columbia Records, in 1964—how about that! With a running time one minute over an hour and a half, pressed on two LPs, this album is a significant addition to Lloyd's era-traversing catalog. Of the album's 15 tracks, 13 are Charles Lloyd compositions, split between new pieces and new arrangements of older works.

Air Tight Managing Director Yutaka "Jack" Miura was in Munich to introduce the new Air Tight Stereo Power Amplifier ATM-1 (price TBD).

Assisted by IAD Audio’s Thomas Henke, I gained access to information regarding Quad HiFi’s relaunch of their beloved Quad HiFi Preamplifier and Quad HiFi 303 Power Amplifier, which were available and very popular from 1967 to 1985.