When Ella Fitzgerald joined Verve Records in 1955, the 38-year-old singer was best known for a single hit (“A-Tisket, A-Tasket”), her bop-inspired scat singing, and a stack of mostly forgettable recordings. Her manager (and Verve-founder) ...

Simaudio’s Moon 310LP is a highly articulate phono preamp. By which I mean that here is a design that can take, say, the maddeningly intricate fingerwork of a Glenn Gould—many examples abound, but let’s settle ...

Now 77, Willie Nelson has been part of America’s cultural consciousness for so long it’s hard to remember that this brilliant, braided, pot-smoking iconoclast spent the beginning of his career penning tunes for others, because ...

Two years after the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s ground- and time-signature breaking Time Out (1959), this classic quartet (Brubeck, piano, Paul Desmond, alto sax, Eugene Wright, bass, and Joe Morello, drums) would continue its jazz experiments ...

First released in 1962, Ellington Indigos finds the maestro and his impeccable orchestra in a low-key, nocturnal mood. “Solitude” begins with Ellington’s quietly introspective solo, but when his band jumps in a huge grin will ...

Goldenote, the Italian audio firm known for its Demidoff integrated amp, Stibbert Black Pearl CD player, and Tuscany Signature cartridge, has launched the DOXY record label dedicated to a pair of ongoing reissue series. The ...

Andrew Hill’s funky yet lyrical piano playing and intricately beautiful compositions seized the attentions of Blue Note’s Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff. The pair recorded material for four LPs before the first, Black Fire, was ...

Having spent most of the 1950s with Atlantic Records, Ray Charles moved to ABC Paramount in 1960, triggering fame and success beyond any he had previously known. The following year, Atlantic compiled twelve tracks Charles ...

In 1966 Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington travelled to Antibes for a four-night stint that was recorded and released as two separate titles: Ella & Duke at The Cote D’Azur, which juxtaposes tunes between them—with ...

Back in 2008 I wrote very favorably about a CD player and integrated amplifier from Exposure’s 3010S Series. These components fell into the highly competitive mid-$2000 price range, which is reachable by most non-one-percenters and ...

Confession: Even though I’m a longtime contributor to (and once-upon-a-time editor of) these pages, I still await each issue with the same almost childlike eagerness I had as a “civilian” reader. And having attended many ...

These days we take it for granted that our smartphones have more computing power than most desktop rigs of the not-too-distant past—not to mention far more elegant graphics, user interfaces, and once-unimaginable flexibility from something ...

While typing my finishing thoughts to this article, my hometown team won its second World Series in three years. As it was in 2010, this year’s edition of the San Francisco Giants seems a most ...

One hazard of being on the retail side of the audio biz is that you end up hearing a lot of the same music—ad nauseam. And while I haven’t sold high-end gear for 16 years ...

It’s not exactly a secret that over the past decade turntables have gained popularity with the young and hip—okay, they’re also popular with the not-so-young and not-so-hip— appearing in movies, fashion spreads, and newspaper articles. ...