Ella and analog

This blip shows a good old-fashioned hi-fi: all 'separates' from different brands, functioning here in the States thanks to converters. The mini disc, cassette deck and cd separates work fine but the tuner needed an aerial. No fear, Amazon.com is here. The purchased aerial arrived and, along with it, 100's of radio stations. Tick that box.

All that remained was to buy a turntable. My newly acquired Sony turntable arrived last Monday and I was super excited because the first record was going to be a big deal. Which one to play? I had a wee think and then knew exactly which one. I grabbed the album, took the record out of its sleeve, placed it on the turntable, dusted the record and carefully placed the needle on the vinyl. Stevie Wonder's 'All I Do' poured into the living room and danced with the sun's westerly evening rays. I joined in the dance.

The second track on the 1980 'Hotter Than July' album, All I Do was actually written in 1966. It makes me extremely happy knowing that music is timeless: a song from the 60's fitted so well on an album with songs that were 14 years younger. Adage: Good songs never age.

I tell you, there's something about vinyl that is special. It was a sad day when CD's replaced records. I found I couldn't appreciate the cover art as much on a small plastic case compared to an album, and MP3's are obviously worse.

I buy MP3's, don't get me wrong, but I'd rather have a CD, or better still, an album. I think this is because an album is a real thing, I mean, you can hold an album in your hand, look at the artwork, read the lyrics while you're listening to the album, wonder what the songwriter meant when he said this or that phrase, look at the credits and understand any special wording tucked in there.

You learn to take care of vinyl because you know it can 'hurt', namely, it can be scratched and tarnished, unless you clean, cover and dust it. Although this might sound an onerous task, there is a wonderful routine to perform. It's actually quite cathartic. So, most vinyl lovers will know their album's idiosyncrasies.

One of the main albums I remember us having at home in Oxgangs was Gustav Holst's 'The Planets'. I was really young at the time, probably 6 or 7 years of age. I would sit and listen to this scratched record, especially 'Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity'. I loved how uplifting and strong it was. I mean, the notes just seemed to danced rhythmically and become more and more wild and more and more wild and... well you realized they were 'more and more wild' because there was a big scratch on the record that literally made the six fast-paced notes become six hugely repetitive fast-paced notes. Therefore, over time, I learned to have my fingers ready to give the needle a little nudge to help it skip over the nasty scratch and get back to the rhythm of the piece.

Anyways, tonight I wanted to pull out the lovely Ella Fitzgerald and a recording from 1957 at the Opera House, Chicago. The description on the back of the album talks about how difficult it is to record live music in terms of technical reproduction (compared to a studio setting) and in terms of the singer and musicians performing their best. According to Norma Granz who wrote the sleeve notes 'the musicians reached an artistic peak with what they played that night'. He also submits that ' Ella's performance of 'Stompin at the Savoy' is irrefutably the most incredible, brilliant jazz vocal performance ever put to wax.'
I think her version of Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered is outstanding.

Long live analog!