Author Archives: Sasha Matson

Barbra Streisand: Live on the Bon Soir

Streisand, vocals; Tiger Haynes, guitar; Peter Daniels, piano; Averill Pollard, bass; John Cresci, drums

Legacy/Columbia 19658713762 (reviewed as 24/96 WAV, additionally obtainable on CD, Gold CD, SACD, 2LP). 2022/23. Barbra Streisand, Jay Landers, Martin Erlichman, prods.; Roy Halee, Adjutor Theroux, Paul Blakemore, Jochem van der Saag, engs.

Performance *****

Sonics ***

When Columbia Records dragged some recording gear right into a small Greenwich Village nightclub, the Bon Soir, on November 5, 1962, it was night for music—an amazing one in reality. Barbra Streisand was 20 years outdated, having made her skilled singing debut in the identical membership two years earlier. About that event, Streisand has famous, “I had by no means even been in a nightclub till I sang in a single.”

Over three nights, Columbia recorded Streisand backed by a jazz quartet—Bon Soir home musicians plus Peter Daniels, Streisand’s common pianist—desiring to launch a dwell recording that might be Streisand’s debut. The album was to be known as Sweet and Saucy Streisand.

No go. Barbra and her new supervisor had insisted on whole management over creative decisions, in trade for a decrease pay fee. Barbra disliked the Sweet and Saucy title, the dwell tapes stayed within the can, and Streisand’s first album was recorded as a substitute in Columbia’s studios. Her debut the following 12 months, The Barbra Streisand Album (Columbia CS 8807 stereo, C 2007 mono), would win Grammy Awards for Best Female Vocal Performance and Album of the Year.

60 years on, Streisand has licensed the discharge of these very first recordings of her storied profession, 23 songs—all of the songs Barbra carried out over the course of three nights—plus a observe introducing the band. Only just a few tracks included on Live on the Bon Soir have been launched earlier than, as a part of a 1991 field set.

Some unreleased tapes from famous artists ought to stay unreleased. Not Live on the Bon Soir. This is music in a class of its personal, somewhat supernova that occurred in Greenwich Village many years in the past. This album gave me shivers. As Little Richard put it, “My massive toe shot up in my boot!”

When she was rising up, Streisand’s expertise for singing was identified in her Brooklyn neighborhood. Her mother helped her make a demo tape at age 13. By 16, Barbra was residing in Manhattan on her personal and had eliminated one letter “a” from her given identify. Her primary ambition was to interrupt into appearing, however one evening she entered an open-mike contest and gained. That led to her first skilled singing gig, on the Bon Soir, opening for Phyllis Diller.

Critics began to note her extraordinary voice very early, however much more telling was the response of her friends. Composers and writers flipped out after they heard her. Barbra by no means cared about folks or rock. The American Songbook, well-known and obscure, was all the time Streisand’s turf. The nice songwriter Harold Arlen was an early supporter; there is a great photograph of the 2 of them backstage on the membership. Of the 23 tunes on Live on the Bon Soir, Arlen wrote 5. He supplied liner notes for The Barbra Streisand Album, and 5 of the 11 songs on Barbra’s second album (The Second Barbra Streisand Album) are Harold Arlen songs.

That voice! I like Stephen Holden’s description: “a primal human longing in a wonderful sound.” As bracingly new as Streisand’s voice was, it comes out of an extended custom. Judy Garland described her as “one of many final nice belters.” Ethel Merman, Patsy Cline, Ella Fitzgerald—fairly just a few of the good feminine vocalists favored the massive ending. Check out the tantrum-like end to her efficiency of “Lover, Come Back to Me.” But what’s most wonderful in these early performances is the other of that: excessive, tender, sustained notes that appear to hold on and fade away without end.

The result’s an emotional curler coaster. On a number of tunes—”Right because the Rain” is an instance—the viewers can not help beginning to clap and cheer, masking up the final be aware.

Sinatra used to work on his lung-power by swimming laps underwater. Did Streisand do one thing comparable, or is it only a pure, bodily reward?

This essential launch has one downside: The band is recorded poorly. One of three tracks was Streisand’s mike, offering audio that could possibly be labored with and improved. The different two went to the band, presumably—however the piano sounds prefer it was recorded in a coatroom, and the guitar is hardly audible. The liner notes blame the acoustics of the membership, however a photograph of the room reveals a better ceiling and a bigger stage than on the Village Vanguard and comparable small New York venues which have produced nice recordings.

It hardly issues. The primary occasion is Streisand, and she or he sounds current and proper, whether or not she’s doing her Brooklyn-shtick patter between numbers or scaling the melodic heights like the good diva she already was.

There isn’t any excuse to not hearken to this distinctive, historic recording.—Sasha Matson

Columbia Records continues to increase its Bob Dylan Bootleg Series, which started in 1991. The newest version on this complicated warren of burrows brings us to Volume 17, Bob Dylan—Fragments—Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996–1997).

Fragments—the title—feels inaccurate; these recordings should not shards of some lacking complete. Rather, they kind a single massive, assorted portrait. To borrow an analogy from artwork historical past, what we’ve got right here is the results of cleansing and restoring a big canvas, eradicating layers of varnish and dust that had obscured the true colours and textures that have been there when it was first painted. Now we will expertise this masterpiece in a brand new manner.

This Dylan Bootleg Series Vol.17 assortment combines the unique tracks from the 1997 launch Time Out of Mind together with beforehand unreleased studio outtakes and reside performances. The authentic album has been remixed by Michael Brauer, working with veteran Sony Legacy producers Jeff Rosen and Steve Berkowitz. Remixing—going again to the person tracks and recombining them in a brand new manner—is a extra intensive refreshment than remastering. An apparent, high-profile comparability is the latest remixes of Beatles albums by Giles Martin and his Abbey Road staff.

Time Out of Mind was a very long time coming. When launched in 1997, it had been seven years since Dylan had launched an album of recent, authentic materials. The file was extremely praised; it offered effectively and yielded three 1998 Grammy awards together with Album of the Year. But the again story for this success wasn’t a straightforward one. Dylan introduced again producer Daniel Lanois, with whom he had final labored seven years earlier, on 1989’s Oh Mercy. Starting in fall 1996, at Lanois’s Teatro studio in Oxnard, north of Dylan’s Malibu house, the preliminary periods employed a small band consisting of Dylan, Lanois, Tony Garnier on bass, and Tony Mangurian on drums. In January 1997, Dylan determined to maneuver recording to the well-known Criteria Studios in Miami, the place an entire bunch of different musicians joined in—13 are credited—all recording within the studio reside.

Creative sparks flew. Dylan had been educating Lanois with outdated blues records. The blues has all the time been an anchor for Bob’s songwriting; of the 11 songs on Time Out of Mind, 4 are basic 12-bar blues and two others resemble vamp blues with refrains. Lanois, a profitable, extensively admired file producer with distinctive concepts about sound and music, performed a key function in forming the soundscape for Time Out of Mind: darkish, mournful, spacey, with plenty of reverb and echo. In hindsight, some individuals who write in regards to the music are piling on. But I’ve received to admire the chutzpah of a man who might stand as much as Bob Dylan creatively; not simply performed, I would not assume.

Dylan’s voice was recorded with direct vocal miking and thru a guitar amp. Added to that was plentiful reverb and slap-back echo, added throughout mixing. (Think rockabilly, Sun Records, and John Lennon.) The end result—the unique Time Out of Mind combine—is mysterious and opaque, distinctive and haunting. The draw back of his high-calorie type of recording and mixing is a lack of readability, decreasing the facility within the supply of Dylan’s lyrics.

Engineer Michael Brauer, who has been concerned with the Dylan Bootleg Series for a few years, stated “I used to be instructed to make it sound extra like a singer-songwriter file. … I revered the unique file. I’ve performed it in a different way in a great way.” Columbia/Sony Legacy producer Steve Berkowitz stated, “Make it easier.” The finish end result, for this listener, is a dramatic enhance within the visceral emotional wallop of Dylan’s nice songs. Now you possibly can hear exactly how Dylan assaults every vowel and consonant, delivered as solely he can. Whether he is spitting out a scalding putdown or caressing a young sentiment, there’s extra there there now.

The labyrinthine nature of this Dylan rabbit gap turns into obvious whenever you examine the unique album with the newly launched alternate takes and reside performances. How a lot of that you would be able to entry depends upon which model you select. I purchased the 4-LP set (Columbia Legacy 19439981971): LPs 1 and a couple of include the brand new remix; LPs 3 and 4 are outtakes and alternates. There can be a two-CD set, a five-CD set, and a 10-LP model, the final accessible solely on Dylan’s web site. And the entire shebang is on the market streaming in 24/96 hi-rez.

We are speaking about Bob Dylan, so nothing is ready in stone. The full “Deluxe Edition” comprises six variations of “Mississippi”—5 from the studio, one reside—which did not seem on Time Out of Mind, though it was deliberate for that album. It was rerecorded for 2001’s Love and Theft (Columbia CK 85975). (The line “I stayed in Mississippi a day too lengthy” is from a music recorded by Alan Lomax in 1947 on the Mississippi State Penitentiary.) Listening to those alternates is a mini–grasp class in easy methods to discover the appropriate tempo, the appropriate drum groove. You are there with Dylan as he feels his manner ahead along with his muse.

Another connection: The Deluxe Edition has 4 variations of “Tryin’ to Get to Heaven.” The third verse comprises the road, “I’m simply happening the street feeling unhealthy.” Ring them bells? Woody Guthrie lined the normal people music “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad.” Bob sang it with The Band in the course of the 1967 Basement Tapes interval, itself the main target of a quantity within the Bootleg sequence, Vol.11, launched in 2014. The Grateful Dead made the music a everlasting a part of their setlists, and Dylan toured with the Dead in 1987. Dylan eulogized Jerry Garcia at his funeral in 1995, a 12 months earlier than the Time Out of Mind periods started.

I liked listening to 4 variations (two studio, two reside) of “Cold Irons Bound,” which received Bob one other Grammy in 1998, for Best Male Rock Vocal.

Dylan is sort of a surfer within the deep water beneath his house in Malibu, understanding that if he waits, one other massive set will roll in and carry his profession towards the shore.

Columbia Records continues to increase its Bob Dylan Bootleg Series, which started in 1991. The newest version on this advanced warren of burrows brings us to Volume 17, Bob Dylan—Fragments—Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996–1997).

Fragments—the title—feels inaccurate; these recordings aren’t shards of some lacking complete. Rather, they type a single giant, various portrait. To borrow an analogy from artwork historical past, what we’ve right here is the results of cleansing and restoring a big canvas, eradicating layers of varnish and grime that had obscured the true colours and textures that had been there when it was first painted. Now we are able to expertise this masterpiece in a brand new means.

This Dylan Bootleg Series Vol.17 assortment combines the unique tracks from the 1997 launch Time Out of Mind together with beforehand unreleased studio outtakes and dwell performances. The unique album has been remixed by Michael Brauer, working with veteran Sony Legacy producers Jeff Rosen and Steve Berkowitz. Remixing—going again to the person tracks and recombining them in a brand new means—is a extra in depth refreshment than remastering. An apparent, high-profile comparability is the current remixes of Beatles albums by Giles Martin and his Abbey Road group.

Time Out of Mind was a very long time coming. When launched in 1997, it had been seven years since Dylan had launched an album of latest, unique materials. The report was extremely praised; it offered effectively and yielded three 1998 Grammy awards together with Album of the Year. But the again story for this success wasn’t a straightforward one. Dylan introduced again producer Daniel Lanois, with whom he had final labored seven years earlier, on 1989’s Oh Mercy. Starting in fall 1996, at Lanois’s Teatro studio in Oxnard, north of Dylan’s Malibu house, the preliminary classes employed a small band consisting of Dylan, Lanois, Tony Garnier on bass, and Tony Mangurian on drums. In January 1997, Dylan determined to maneuver recording to the well-known Criteria Studios in Miami, the place a complete bunch of different musicians joined in—13 are credited—all recording within the studio dwell.

Creative sparks flew. Dylan had been educating Lanois with outdated blues records. The blues has all the time been an anchor for Bob’s songwriting; of the 11 songs on Time Out of Mind, 4 are traditional 12-bar blues and two others resemble vamp blues with refrains. Lanois, a profitable, broadly admired report producer with distinctive concepts about sound and music, performed a key function in forming the soundscape for Time Out of Mind: darkish, mournful, spacey, with a lot of reverb and echo. In hindsight, some individuals who write in regards to the music are piling on. But I’ve bought to admire the chutzpah of a man who may stand as much as Bob Dylan creatively; not simply completed, I would not assume.

Dylan’s voice was recorded with direct vocal miking and thru a guitar amp. Added to that was plentiful reverb and slap-back echo, added throughout mixing. (Think rockabilly, Sun Records, and John Lennon.) The outcome—the unique Time Out of Mind combine—is mysterious and opaque, distinctive and haunting. The draw back of his high-calorie fashion of recording and mixing is a lack of readability, decreasing the ability within the supply of Dylan’s lyrics.

Engineer Michael Brauer, who has been concerned with the Dylan Bootleg Series for a few years, mentioned “I used to be informed to make it sound extra like a singer-songwriter report. … I revered the unique report. I’ve completed it in a different way in a great way.” Columbia/Sony Legacy producer Steve Berkowitz mentioned, “Make it easier.” The finish outcome, for this listener, is a dramatic enhance within the visceral emotional wallop of Dylan’s nice songs. Now you possibly can hear exactly how Dylan assaults every vowel and consonant, delivered as solely he can. Whether he is spitting out a scalding putdown or caressing a young sentiment, there’s extra there there now.

The labyrinthine nature of this Dylan rabbit gap turns into obvious while you examine the unique album with the newly launched alternate takes and dwell performances. How a lot of that you could entry is dependent upon which model you select. I purchased the 4-LP set (Columbia Legacy 19439981971): LPs 1 and a couple of comprise the brand new remix; LPs 3 and 4 are outtakes and alternates. There can be a two-CD set, a five-CD set, and a 10-LP model, the final obtainable solely on Dylan’s web site. And the entire shebang is on the market streaming in 24/96 hi-rez.

We are speaking about Bob Dylan, so nothing is ready in stone. The full “Deluxe Edition” comprises six variations of “Mississippi”—5 from the studio, one dwell—which did not seem on Time Out of Mind, though it was deliberate for that album. It was rerecorded for 2001’s Love and Theft (Columbia CK 85975). (The line “I stayed in Mississippi a day too lengthy” is from a tune recorded by Alan Lomax in 1947 on the Mississippi State Penitentiary.) Listening to those alternates is a mini–grasp class in learn how to discover the proper tempo, the proper drum groove. You are there with Dylan as he feels his means ahead together with his muse.

Another connection: The Deluxe Edition has 4 variations of “Tryin’ to Get to Heaven.” The third verse comprises the road, “I’m simply taking place the highway feeling unhealthy.” Ring them bells? Woody Guthrie coated the standard people tune “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad.” Bob sang it with The Band in the course of the 1967 Basement Tapes interval, itself the main target of a quantity within the Bootleg collection, Vol.11, launched in 2014. The Grateful Dead made the tune a everlasting a part of their setlists, and Dylan toured with the Dead in 1987. Dylan eulogized Jerry Garcia at his funeral in 1995, a 12 months earlier than the Time Out of Mind classes started.

I cherished listening to 4 variations (two studio, two dwell) of “Cold Irons Bound,” which gained Bob one other Grammy in 1998, for Best Male Rock Vocal.

Dylan is sort of a surfer within the deep water beneath his house in Malibu, realizing that if he waits, one other huge set will roll in and raise his profession towards the shore.

Hygge won’t be the primary phrase that involves thoughts when considering the Primare PRE35 Prisma preamplifier, however in Limhamn, Sweden, that’s how Primare likes to explain their merchandise. It means “cozy,” and it is an important idea within the Nordic nations, nearly a lifestyle. Another time period that seems in Primare’s product descriptions is lagom, which loosely interprets as “not too little, not an excessive amount of—excellent.”

For me, none of that is misplaced in translation. I’m all for folksy adjectives for high-tech gear. After spending hygge time with the brand new PRE35 Prisma preamplifier, I’ve come to equate hygge with “not digital-sounding” and lagom with the magnificence of its bodily and digital design: not too little, not an excessive amount of.

By trendy hi-fi requirements, Primare has been in enterprise for some time. Founded in Sweden in 1985 by Bo Christensen and Bent Nielsen, Primare takes a group strategy to analysis and improvement: Specialists work on completely different technical points of their designs, then Nielsen, Primare’s chief engineer, pulls every little thing collectively. Primare was an early adopter of class-D amplification; my colleagues Kal Rubinson and Herb Reichert have each explored this facet in current critiques of Primare amplifiers (footnote 1). Primare can be identified for being forward of the sport in exploring digital audio storage and streaming know-how, capabilities totally carried out within the PRE35 Prisma.

In current years, with an ever-increasing selection and high quality of built-in parts in the marketplace, and the rising price of interconnects, even die-hard “separatists” are giving them a glance. Primare’s lineup consists of 21 parts, most with a point of integration. The introduction of ancillary modules has rendered the notion—and worth—of stand-alone parts considerably fluid: The PRE35 Prisma preamplifier lists for $3900. Adding the subtle DM35 DAC module will increase the value to $4400. Include the SM35 Prisma community module, the value turns into $5000, and you’ve got the Primare PRE35 Prisma.

Jacks and knobs and circuit boards

Without turning this evaluation right into a person handbook, this is a quick abstract of the out there inputs and outputs: 5 analog inputs (two pair balanced), 9 digital inputs (4 TosLink, two S/PDIF on RCA, one USB-A, one USB-B, one LAN/Ethernet), Wi-Fi and Bluetooth antennae, two balanced and two unbalanced outputs (together with one line pass-through on RCA), one digital output (S/PDIF on RCA), and a LAN output. Also onboard are the same old set off connections and an RS-232 for integration. Oddly, given the surfeit of connection choices, there is no such thing as a AES3 digital enter, which I wish to have for my CD transport, and no headphone jack. On the analog aspect, balanced alerts run totally balanced—and totally analog—from enter to output.

The PRE35 Prisma is a basic one-shelf unit, standing 4.2″tall on three high-quality, twist-to-level ft. The PRE35 Prisma runs cool and may be stacked with different parts. The entrance panel is spare, with two giant multifunction knobs and 4 diminutive buttons; front-panel features are duplicated on the included distant. A comparatively small show supplies primary standing data. If my instinct has been proper all these years and the texture of the knobs on an audio part is a clue to its high quality, then the PRE35 is of the best high quality: Its hefty steel chassis is complemented by sturdy, strong knobs. Primare could also be manufactured in China, but it surely is designed in Sweden.

To get a fuller image of the PRE35 Prisma than I may from the handbook and web site, I turned to Terry Medalen, Primare’s advertising and marketing supervisor. He advised me that the linear energy provide of the PRE35 Prisma makes use of a custom-wound R-core transformer and is in a swap mode for standby solely; it switches to the linear provide. Primare places a lot give attention to their energy provides: “Thoroughly carried out energy provide designs” is the primary merchandise listed within the “Design Brief” for the PRE35 Prisma.

This is a preamplifier, so the amount management issues. The one right here, Medalen defined, is a “2 × 4 channel balanced mode IC chosen for optimum channel stability and low listening stage efficiency—the IC is totally out of the sign path.” It works in increments of 1dB between 21 and 54 (on the front-panel read-out) and in 0.5dB steps from 55 by way of 99. Finer management at louder ranges makes good sense.

The quantity management, inner DACs, and community electronics can create noise points; the PRE35 Prisma addresses this with brief circuit paths, cautious circuit implementation, and the usage of four-layer circuit boards (one layer serving as floor), and surface-mount parts, which act as antennas lower than bigger, typical parts do.

The PRE35 DAC is predicated on a flagship AKM DAC chip, the AK4497EQ. This chip is alleged to be “able to reaching 128dB (stereo) S/N and –116dB THD+N, whereas supporting as much as 768kHz PCM and 22.4MHz DSD. This potential to deal with larger decision file codecs will enable for the potential of future software program upgrades,” in accordance with the design transient. The AK4497EQ additionally consists of “a newly developed switched capacitor filter ‘OSR Doubler’ that enormously reduces sound degradation from noise shaping, reaching a flat noise flooring as much as 200kHz.”

Forming connections

Both customers and designers of high-quality audio gear face a brand new set of challenges resulting from the truth that, for higher and worse, {hardware} and software program have turn out to be bedmates demanding reciprocal consideration. Audio corporations should now make use of or collaborate with software program designers, and we should study to work with the merchandise of those collaborations, together with app integration and an ever-developing function set. During my evaluation of the PRE35 Prisma, a lot of these {hardware}/software program marriages have been nonetheless in progress and had not but been consummated. Terry Medalen up to date me about a few of Primare’s engagements, present and future. Software is updatable on-line by way of the community connection. •

• The PRE35 Prisma is designed to be managed by the multiroom Primare Prisma app, which is obtainable for iOS and Android. Currently, the app facilitates part setup, integrates web radio, permits entry to music information saved in your native community, and supplies hyperlinks permitting you to entry native streaming providers by way of Chromecast, AirPlay, Bluetooth, and Spotify Connect connections—however see under.

• In the approaching months, Qobuz and Tidal shall be built-in into the Prisma app, permitting gapless playback with each providers. Once that occurs, Qobuz will present gapless playback as much as 24/192 and Tidal will assist gapless playback and MQA decoding to the primary full unfold at 48, 88.2 or 96kHz.

• At the time of testing, Roon relied on AirPlay or Chromecast to connect with the PRE35, limiting decision to 16/44.1 (AirPlay) or 24/96 (Chromecast). But a firmware replace scheduled for March—across the time you are studying this—will implement RaaT, Roon’s industrial-strength streaming protocol, which goals to assist “all related audio codecs, now and sooner or later,” each wired and wirelessly. At that time, the PRE35 shall be licensed “Roon Ready.”

• Once Tidal is totally built-in with the Prisma app (and in addition with Roon), Tidal Connect and the forthcoming Qobuz Connect shall be superfluous, so they will not be supported.

• Primare’s strategy to Bluetooth is uncommon. Recognizing the constraints of all present Bluetooth implementations, they make the most of an older model (Bluetooth 4.1 and its primary SBC codec) in a configuration optimized for informal listening. Want higher sound? Choose a greater connection.

• In an fascinating little bit of future-proofing, the PRE35 helps WiSA for connection to wi-fi audio system. WiSA facilitates connections at as much as 24/96 with near-zero latency and speaker synchronization as much as a microsecond. According to analysis, that is effectively under the brink for human discrimination.

Initially, I relied on my laptop computer’s connection to Wi-Fi and used a USB cable to connect with the PRE35 Prisma. Later, I related the router on to the Primare with an Ethernet cable. I additionally tried the Wi-Fi connection, and it labored positive, however I used the Ethernet connection for all my severe listening.

For setup, I sat shut, with my studying glasses on, as a result of the show on the PRE35 Prisma, as I discussed, is kind of small. Settings are configurable in 5 classes—normal, enter, audio, streaming, and community—and embrace customizing standby habits, quantity at startup, most quantity, and enter acquire. Even Mute is adjustable: from 0 as much as any setting you select.

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Footnote 1: See Herb Reichert’s April 2020 evaluation of Primare’s A35.2 energy amplifier right here and Kalman Rubinson’s November 2022 evaluation of the A35.8 energy amplifier right here.

One of my favorite comments by an actual participant in rock history is from Bonnie Raitt: “I miss Little Feat like I miss being eight years old.” That remark was included in the liner notes for the Feat’s 1981 album Hoy-Hoy (Warner Bros. 2BSK 3538), which was released two years after front man Lowell George’s passing in 1979.