Canter Bridge

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Like a puppy with large paws, ESPN The Magazine may grow up to be a large periodical. Right now I’d call it a fun-loving puppy without housetraining.

Don’t get me wrong, puppies are cute. I like puppies. Everybody does. (more…)

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Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

The planets aligned when the young Tchaikovsky, the London Symphony Orchestra, and Igor Markevitch came together between 1965 and 1975 in London for performances that Philips has had the good sense to issue in their high-value Philips Classics series. This two-disk set is a classic that yearns to be played on a high-quality sound system that will bring out the concert-hall effects it includes. (more…)

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Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

Lovers of Dmitri Shostakovich’s music are likely to experience the first blush of passion through the eyes rather than the ears. The distinctive cover art of the EMI Classics series juxtaposes the EMI angelic theme to Kazimir Malevich’s Supremus No. 58: Dynamic Composition in Yellow and Black, then gives the mentioned artwork pride of place on the inside of the cd cover itself. (more…)

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Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

It’s not coincidental that Mad Season begins with the hard-driving rock & roll and the suppressed, denied, explosive anger of ‘Angry’.

Not coincidental. Rather an announcement that the fabulous band Matchbox Twenty is back and is still who they were. Only better, if that’s possible. (more…)

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Just as California’s Huntington Library broke the scholarly stranglehold on the Dead Sea Scrolls by making the unilateral decion to publish the photographic plates of which they were stewards, so Naxos can be credited with making affordable classical music available to us masses, who still whince when we pay for a CD. (more…)

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Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

I remember the first time I heard Point of Grace. The experience came though a set of headphones in the music section of a Medford, Oregon, department store. I had no idea that female vocalists today could sing such tight harmony with such a driving beat (upon occasion). I was sold. (more…)

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Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

As though from some cobwebbed corner of your memory, these Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young tunes emerge as an instantly recognizable memory. The harmonies could belong to no other than this inimitable sixties and seventies band, acoustical as it gets, tightly harmonic as any folk or Rock & Roll voices could possibly become intertwined. (more…)

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