Michael Fremer

Sort By: Post Date | Title | Publish Date
RMAF 2012
DSA Phono II Has Three Independent Phono Inputs
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 11, 2012  |  0 comments
Dynamic Sound Associates' DSA Phono II features three independent inputs featuring both single ended RCA and balanced XLR inputs and a single set of RCA single ended and balanced XLR outputs.
Continue Reading >
Turntable Reviews
Dual CS 518 Turntable Priced to Be Heard
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 22, 2021  |  First Published: Nov 22, 2021  |  9 comments
The demand for new under $1000 turntables remains impressively robust. There are widespread shortages in some but not all markets around the United States with wait times for some models up to 6 weeks and for some even longer.

Continue Reading >
Album Reviews
Duck Baker's "Les Blues Du Richmond: Demos and Outtakes 1973-1979"
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 05, 2018  |  1 comments
In his 2017 liner notes for this new release, finger style guitarist/musicologist Duck Baker writes "It may seem obvious that folkies would not want to hear some kid trying to sound like Eric Dolphy with a nylon-strung guitar, but back in the 1960s and early '70s this was not quite so clear-cut. Sandy Bull had recorded with Ornette's drummer Billy Higgins, after all, and people did talk about blending genres quite a bit (they still do talk about it, anyway).

Continue Reading >
Album Reviews
Duke and Hawk Finally Get Together
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 01, 2010  |  1 comments

Like Elton and Leon, Duke and Coleman were long-time mutual admirers but somehow had never worked together until late in their careers. This session, long in the making, took place on August 28th 1962 and was released the next February.

Continue Reading >
Album Reviews
Duke and Rosie Mono Classic!
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 01, 2007  |  1 comments

Let the monomania continue! I picked up an original of this at a record swap for a few bucks on a whim and was wowed! I brought a CD-R of it to CES one year and wowed crowds with the recording without identifying the chick singer.

Continue Reading >
AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Duke Pearson's Merry Ole Soul   Swings You Into Christmas
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 10, 2021  |  4 comments
If Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas is a melancholic look back at childhood Christmas viewed through the eyes of the Peanuts gang, Duke Pearson's 1969 Blue Note release Merry Ole Soul is the Christmas record you'll want to play at a hip holiday cocktail party.

Continue Reading >
Album Reviews
Duke UK 1969 Concert Captured By Legendary UK Engineer Bob Auger
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 01, 2007  |  0 comments

I don’t know about you, but back in the winter of 1969, big band music was not exactly my “go to” musical genre. At 22 I was listening to Abbey Road which had just come out, and Tommy and Simon and Garfunkel and The Kinks, and Frank Zappa, not Duke Ellington, though I was into Monk, Coltrane, Miles and Cannonball. I drew the line at big band music.

Continue Reading >
Munich 2014
Durand Adds Lower-Priced Kairos Tonearm to Line Plus Composite Telos
Michael Fremer  |  May 16, 2014  |  First Published: May 16, 2014  |  0 comments
Durand added the new lower priced Kairos to its line of unipivot arms.
Continue Reading >
Album Reviews
Dusty T-Bone Walker Relic Makes For Curious Pure Pleasure Reissue
Michael Fremer  |  May 01, 2008  |  0 comments

Another Pure Pleasure mono reissue more important for the music than for “audiophile sound,” which these 1950 and 1951 mono sessions surely are not.

Continue Reading >
Album Reviews
Dusty's Southern Excursion Has Never Sounded This Good
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 01, 2012  |  4 comments

A fully realized production conceptually, musically, spiritually and sonically, Dusty in Memphis has rightfully attained legendary status since it was first issued by Atlantic Records as SD 8214 back in 1969. By bringing the British pop star to Memphis, Jerry Wexler figured he could do for Springfield what he managed when he redefined Aretha. Plus the former folky had had her musical life turned around when during a stopover in New York in the early ‘60s on her way to Nashville to record with her group The Springfields she heard The Exciters’ supercharged Lieber/Stoller penned hit “Tell Him.” After that, the powerfully voiced Dusty began covering American pop songs and making her covers the definitive version, though her first hit single was an original written for her: the memorable “I Only Want to Be With You.”

Continue Reading >

Pages

X