Enrique Haneine's Unlayered

My latest Vinyl Anachronist music review is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. You can read it here.

The Vinyl Anachronist #133 on Perfect Sound Forever

Installment #133 of The Vinyl Anachronist is now live at Perfect Sound Forever. This one discusses the $500 Rule of Turntables, something I first brought up 22 years ago. You can read it here.

2L Recordings' Fryd

My latest Vinyl Anachronist music review is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. You can read it here.

Alex Cuba's Sublime

My latest Vinyl Anachronist music review is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. You can read it here.

Ian Wardenski Quintet's Collective Thoughts

My latest Vinyl Anachronist music review, of Ian Wardenski Quintet's Collective Thoughts, is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. You can read it here.

Billy Brandt's City Noir

My latest Vinyl Anachronist music review, on Billy Brandt's City Noir, is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. You can read it here.

Ernest Turner's My Americana

My latest Vinyl Anachronist music review, of Ernest Turner's My Americana, is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. You can read it here.

Beata Pater's Tet

My latest Vinyl Anachronist music review, of Beata Pater's Tet, is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. You can read it here.

Stax Records' Soul Explosion

My latest Vinyl Anachronist music review, for the new reissue of 1969's Soul Explosion from Stax Records, is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. You can read it here.

Kenney Polson's For Lovers Only

My latest Vinyl Anachronist music review, Kenney Polson's For Lovers Only, is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. You can read it here.

Ric Harris' Open for Business

My latest Vinyl Anachronist music review is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. This one's about Ric Harris' new blues album, Open for Business. You can read it here.

Marton Juhasz's Discovery

Continuing this week's theme of international influences on jazz, my latest music review for Part-Time Audiophile is now live. This covers Hungarian drummer/composer Marton Juhasz and his exciting Discovery. You can read it here.

High End Munich 2019--McIntosh Labs

My latest show report from High End 2019 in Munich is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. This one is about that venerable New York audio brand, McIntosh, and a very humid and crowded room. You can read it here.

AXPONA 2019: AudioQuest, Vandersteen and Channel D

My latest show report from AXPONA 2019 is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. This one covers AudioQuest, Vandersteen and Channel D in a very big room. You can read it here.

AXPONA 2019: BorderPatrol, Triode Wire Labs and Volti Audio

Another show report from AXPONA 2019 for Part-Time Audiophile...this one on the panoramic systems from BorderPatrol, Volti Audio and Triode Wire Labs. You can read it here.

AXPONA 2019: Fern & Roby, LTA

My latest show report from AXPONA 2019 is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. This one's about Fern & Roby and LTA, two brands that are new to me but have totally impressed me. You can read it here.

AXPONA 2019: Unison Research, Opera and Fidelis AV

My first show report from AXPONA 2019 in Chicago is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. This is about my past life as an importer and distributor, and how friendships have carried over into my new role as a journalist. You can read it here.

Cecil Taylor's Silent Tongues from ORG Music

The ORG Music reissue of Cecil Taylor's classic Silent Tongues from Montreux '74 is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. You can read it here.

Ashley Pezzotti's We've Only Just Begun

I keep mentioning the trends in contemporary jazz, but I'm never sure if they're real trends of just my hyped-up and insular reaction to the way I receive the latest music releases. To me, it always seems like they arrive in genre groups--big band, tango, free jazz, female voice, etc. Over the last couple of weeks we've circled back to women jazz singers tackling the Great American Songbook, and I have quite a few to review. Many of these singers employ the same approach--they surround themselves with the best musicians and then let their voices do the...er, talking. I'm starting off with Ashley Pezzotti and her new album We've Only Just Begun because she's sort of a touchstone for what follows. She has a classic jazz voice from the sweet and angelic side of the street, and the arrangements of her quartet are honorable, precise and authentic.

Yesterday I wrote another review for Part-Time Audiophile which will appear in a couple of days, one of those vault discoveries that's been hiding out for fifty years from singer Jeanne Lee. Lee took so many chances, and her vocals are challenging because they deconstruct the norms of the jazz chanteuse. Pezzotti represents the opposite tack since she's someone who can take you back to a time where sheer beauty was valued beyond all else in jazz. Both styles are valid, and you need one to appreciate the other. But that aforementioned sweetness is what gets to me when I listen to Pezzotti's voice, a pure sound full of that elusive inner light, all without attempts to do something that has never been done before. Crossing frontier lines is noble, but there are simply times when you want to stay home and be comfortable and feel loved.

If I remove all the flowery language and big words, I find that I'm smitten with her voice. At just 23 years old, Pezzotti still knows how to find the joy in songs such as, well...here's the thing. Many of these songs are not from the GAS, but "inspired" by them. That's Pezzotta's one-two punch, that she wrote many of these songs and made them sound just like those jazz standards. In a way, she tricked me, and I'm impressed. It's her voice that sells this idea, however, that she's smart enough to make old guys like me feel dumb. Are you sure you're only 23? It takes an old soul to create this type of magic.

When I looked further into her quartet I expected a bunch of old vets, ones who could help her cast this spell. To my surprise, these four--sax player Alex Weitz, pianist Emmet Cohen, bassist Bob Bruya and drummer Kyle Poole--look young as well. I shouldn't keep focusing on youth, even though the album's title seems to emphasize it. Perhaps the clue is in Pezzotta's childhood where she started voice lessons at the age of four. That means she's going on twenty years of experience, which provides a much better perspective for the richness of her delivery. When performers this young are this seasoned, it's satisfying to know that they have decades of music-making in their future, and we can all sit back and enjoy the simple pleasure of beautiful music. That is, in essence, the joy of jazz.

Gregg Belisle-Chi's Book of Hours

My latest review for Part-Time Audiophile covers Gregg Belisle-Chi's Book of Hours, which bridges the gap between rock and jazz. You can read it here.