JAZZ RECORD REVIEWS | JAMES PARKER

Digital Compact Cassette, but messy though website – nativedsd.com – which, as the that particular skirmish was, it was little more name suggests, deals only in recordings than a small local insurrection compared either originally made in DSD/DXD, or those with the way iThings were steamrollering sourced from analogue originals. As such it Jazz their way through the music industry, and provides a good hunting ground for those was soon forgotten. looking for ‘true DSD’ recordings, and not Yes, SACD lives on, in that a small just in SACD-quality DSD64 (i.e. 2.8MHz/1bit) and more number of (mainly audiophile-oriented) stereo: the company also offers a wide labels still release music in the format, but selection of recordings in both stereo and when the owner of a successful – well, in multichannel, and in a range of DSD formats SACD terms – label says with a sigh ‘I’ve got all the way up to ‘octuple-DSD’, or DSD512 in DSD about 60,000 discs in storage here – what (22.5MHz/1bit). And yes, there are DACs out can I do with those?’ you realise that things there able to handle DSD512! aren’t looking good. So, what can you play? Here are some Fortunately the file format behind SACD suggestions, covering jazz, blues and the like. It could be what DSD was invented for: – Direct Stream Digital, or DSD – lives on with its dynamic range and fine detail in the downloadable music arena, which allied to smoothness and musicality, it no brings us to the other reason behind the surprise that so many recordings of jazz, introduction of both the discs and their blues and more are available in single enabling technology: with its single-bit, bit audio. Here’s a look at some favourite high sampling rate process, it’s about as recordings, old and new close to the original analogue sound as a recording technology can get. In simple There were two good reasons for the terms, rather than hacking the waveform up introduction of DSD all those years back: into chunks of samples, it can store every the hard-nosed business one was that the sample individually. That’s why right from licence agreements for the CD format, by the start those in the know were pointing then ubiquitous, were coming up to expiry, out that digital-to-analogue conversion for and the inventors of the system were looking DSD could be very simple: as the late Ken for some way of retaining the position in Ishiwata, a long-time advocate of SACD, put which manufacturers of both hardware and it when launching the Marantz SA-10 player/ discs had to keep on stumping up to use it. DAC, in which everything is upconverted THE L.A. NETWORK That was the real backstory of the to 11.2MHz/1bit, requiring only a low-pass Ella On Our Mind unedifying format war between SACD and filter to remove the carrier before analogue 2xHD/Resonance Recordings 2XHDRE1168, DVD-Audio, which sprung up when the output, ‘DSD is analogue’. DSD64-DSD512 DVD forum, led by Toshiba, refused to pay It’s hardly surprising, then, that DSD royalties to the Sony/Philips SACD axis, and As if to prove the ‘DSD is analogue’ maxim, continues to find favour with some of in the ensuing conflict the record labels took this is an all-analogue recording, released those recording and listening to classical sides, so which format you bought – not that in a range of DSD stereo formats, and the and jazz music, and the like. And with the many did buy – was more or less determined latest release from 2xHD, which is perhaps greater availability of hardware able to play, by the artists you wanted to hear. And best-known for its remastering and release and even stream, DSD files, the format is when all this happened, as the 20th century in DSD (as well as on vinyl and analogue enjoying a popularity that may have eluded became the 21st, the Betamax/VHS format tape) of classic jazz recordings over the past it back in the days of the disc wars. war was fresh in many minds. five years. The project, led by 2xHD’s André What’s more, while it’s proving a good It was a battle set to end without any clear Perry and Resonance Records’ George Klabin, format for remastering and rediscovering old winner, in that DVD-A vanished, but SACD branched out late last year with new trio analogue recordings, at least now the dodgy failed to become the replacement for the recordings of the Brubeck catalogue (Dave old practice of remastering CD-quality digital familiar CD. Why? Well, there’s more to it than Brubeck Redux, 2XHDRE1162), and now masters to SACD seems to have fallen by just format confusion: hot on the heels of the follows up with a set paying tribute to Ella the wayside, there are also new recordings SACD launch in 1999 and DVD-A a year later Fitzgerald. being made, either directly in DSD or in came a little think called the iPod, creating Like the Brubeck set, this one was the 352.8kHz/24bit DXD (Digital eXtreme a revolution in the way the mass-market recorded ‘off the floor’, live and with no Definition) format originally developed for consumed audio. Basically the word said, overdubs, onto 15ips analogue tape in the Merging Pyramix workstation as a means ‘Who needs better sound quality? What we’ve stereo, using a Nagra-T recorder modified of editing DSD recordings, and now used as got is good enough, and this little iPod lets with valve electronics and a custom-built a recording format in its own right. me carry my entire music library in my pocket.’ carbon-fibre damped head-block, wired One of the leading distributors of the DSD Philips and Sony fought back, this time directly with silver cable to a valve preamp. format is the Netherlands-based NativeDSD battling each other with their MiniDisc and Transfer to DXD is via 2XHD’s custom ADC,

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JAZZ RECORD REVIEWS

with the whole mastering system powered ANGELO VERPLOEGEN, JASPER VAN at the Jazzland club in Vienna, and recorded by a super capacitor supply. HULTEN to Studer A810 analogue tape machines, All impressive stuff, and the performances The Duke Book with monitoring using a dedicated more than live up to all the technology, Just Listen Records JL019, DXD/DSD64-DSD512 headphone amp to drive Beyerdynamics, with vocals by Aubrey Logan, who also and a Bryston amp powering Amphion Subtitled The Music of plays trombone, and Bill Cantos, also on speakers. Oh and the whole thing was Duke Ellington and Billy keyboards. Additional pianism is by Josh produced in association with Fink Audio Strayhorn, this is one of Nelson, who also played on the Brubeck set, Consulting – a name which will need no those sets that sounds while the engine room is Chris Colangelo on introduction here. like a real oddity, but bass and Jamey Tate on sticks’n’skins, Audiophile enough for you? Good – now works surprisingly well. It works, and spectacularly well, whether forget all that stuff and just listen to the man There are just the two on the plaintive Lush Life or the swing of play, for play he certainly can on this bluesy musicians here, and the instrumentation is Too Darn Hot, with Logan channelling the set of mainly self-penned tracks, most of unusual – flugelhorn player Verploegen and younger Ella in an almost uncanny fashion, which bear their inspirations prominently on drummer van Hulten – but the result is a or the sultry reading of Hernando’s Hideaway. their sleeve. And when Theesink does cover recording as intriguing as it is spare and clean. Best of all, the recording has a wonderful a classic, as he does with his acoustic take on It’s recorded and released on the Just immediacy and lack of artifice about it, and Chuck Berry’s Maybelline, you’ll find it hard Label, which is one of producer Jared Sacks’s some fabulous musicianship. not to smile. side-projects – when he’s not running This is a real foot-tapper of a set, but Channel Classics and NativeDSD, that is – FEENBROTHERS it will leave you in awe of the performer’s and the label’s approach is a very simple Play Dave Brubeck technique and sheer talent – or at least it will one. Literally so: the microphones – from Sound Liaison SL-109, the second time you listen. The first you’re B&K, Schoeps and AKG – are set up in a real DSD64-DSD512 likely to be enjoying it too much. venue, not a studio (in this case the MCO in Another take on Hilversum once more), and the recording is DAVID ELIAS Brubeck, this time by made directly, with no EQ, no compression, The Window the brothers van der Feen – and yes, they no mixing after the event and no editing. Sketti Sandwich really are siblings. Starting out as a family This is one-take recording, and the result Productions band in the Netherlands, they have worked is real music, not a collage of snippets SSP3162D64, DSD64- individually with artists from Caro Emerald assembled on a digital workstation: Sacks DSD512 to the Royal Concertgebouw, and now here balances up the microphones, and away they are back together as a band: Mark they go. All of which shows in the lively, Not by any means a new release – it was on piano, Paul on sax, Clemens on bass spontaneous performances captured here, actually recorded in 2002, and first released and Matthijs on drums in front of a small from the familiar – Satin Doll, Caravan, Take the following year – this album is striking audience in Studio 2 of the Muziekcentrum the A Train – to the lesser-known tracks and on several levels. For a start, Elias’s work van de Omroep. And a very knowledgeable the improvised interludes. You can hear the has long been an audiophile favourite, but audience it is, too, being able to clap along two master musicians feeding off each other, before you dismiss it for that, let’s make to Unsquare Dance in 7/4 time! Rather more their appreciation of the music, and the total it clear that the songwriter/guitarist not people turned up than expected, increasing confidence with which they soar off in new only produces great music, but also great- the intimacy – or at least the closeness – of directions. And for just two, it’s amazing how sounding recordings, going his own way the audience, and creating a presence that big and multi-textured a sound they can with self-released albums that still set will be familiar to those of us who haunt create, especially when van Hulten really standards almost two decades on. smaller jazz venues: as recording engineer gets the kit motoring. Not only that, he was also a DSD Frans de Rond noted as appreciation was pioneer, recording The Window direct shown at the end of the set, ‘Look at the HANS THEESINK to the format, and in multichannel too, phase meter, it’s practically straight in the Live at Jazzland using an early version of the Sonoma DSD middle –phase coherent applause!’ Sommelier du Son Workstation to capture the live acoustic Recorded on a single Josephson C700S sds0016, DSD64-DSD512 sessions in eight channels. It’s another one microphone, this set has a fabulous live of those recordings all about a realistic live As the name of the feel to it, aided and abetted by the sense sound of the musicians playing together, label suggests, this is a of improvisation and the odd mishap – a and can still induce a shiver with the recording for which all the audiophile ducks mobile phone falling into the piano at absolute ‘you are there’ ambience, whether were set in a row, from microphone choice one point – along with the sense of the in stereo or 5.1 channels, and above all to cleaning up the power supply for the performers not only bouncing off each other Elias writes ridiculously catchy songs and recording gear using a PS Power Plant. Five but also interacting with the audience. This performs them with superb musicians. separate microphones were used from three is probably as close to ‘being there’ as you’re Listen to this one and the chances are different brands – one just for Theesink’s going to hear – and the performances are you’ll be scouring NativeDSD to pick up his foot-tapping! – and it was mixed on location great, too. other recordings.

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