ULTRA AUDIO -- Archived Article
 

February 1, 2004

Radical Sounds: Patricia Barber via Mobile Fidelity, A Chicago Wind that Blows Nothing but Good

It isn’t often that I devote this introduction to an entire series of recordings by the same artist or recording company. As you know, I look for the very best to bring to readers, and even the best performers and recording teams seem to have dips now and then.

Not Patricia Barber and engineer Jim Young. Barber has recorded four CDs that have been picked up by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab and released as Hybrid Stereo SACDs: Café Blue (1994), Modern Cool (1998), Companion (1999), and Nightclub (2000). Put on any one of them and prepare to be mesmerized by Barber’s deceptively casual, languorous singing and keyboard playing. She has talent to burn, and is not afraid to take risks. On Modern Cool, she covers the Doors’ "Light My Fire"; on Café Blue, she nails "Ode to Billy Joe" in a version that will make you forget Bobby Gentry’s original hit version forever; and on Companion she swings "The Beat Goes On," made famous by Sonny and Cher. In between, she does near-definitive versions of such jazz standards as "Autumn Leaves," "You Don’t Know Me," and "The Thrill Is Gone." She also writes her own bluesy ballads, excellent observations of life in and out of the fast lane. One of these, "Touch of Trash," contains a line that has become one of my favorites of all time: "She’s just a button short of trash." Patricia Barber is a triple threat: keyboard virtuoso, singer extraordinaire, and songwriter supreme.

Barber has also attracted the best artists to her side. Michael Arnopal is the best bass player alive -- he plays in tune, even in higher registers, and he has a sense of the composition that is uncanny, placing just the right emphasis on the right beat. Listen to his hand-in-glove work with Barber on "Ode to Billy Joe" -- jazz dialogue does not get any better. The drummers for the latest CDs are fine, but the drummer for the first two is the remarkable Mark Walker. He’s my idea of what a drummer should be, accenting the musical lines with the subtlest ideas I have heard. So many drummers just beat their instruments, pumping out the rhythm in a monotonous drone. Not Walker, who caresses and weighs every stroke. When he, Barber, Arnopal, and guitarist John McLean are together, as on Café Blue, the result is expressive jazz that can’t be beat.

But this column is about sound, and the sound on these SACDs is breathtaking. Every instrument is caught in just the right light, with just the right microphone. I’ve heard a lot of intimate jazz CDs, and I’ve never heard better recording of string bass and drums. I’ve heard sound that is clear but has little warmth, sound that has warmth yet minimum presence. These recordings have everything. Clarity, subtlety, presence, warmth -- all the good descriptors -- apply at the same time: a singular event.

The liner notes make it clear that both artists and engineers go to great lengths, and are willing to experiment, to get the best sound. Mobile Fidelity has transferred the wonderful masters with uncanny accuracy, and the SACD format allows every minute detail to be heard with absolute clarity. These discs can serve as textbook examples of how to do it.

If you have the winter blues, do yourself a favor and buy these four albums. Yes, all four -- it’s a sure bet that if you hear one, you’ll be hypnotized into buying the rest.

Here are three more I heard this month that make the Radical cut and should provide you lots of listening pleasure:

Cecilia Bartoli: The Vivaldi Album
Cecilia Bartoli, mezzo-soprano; Arnold Schoenberg Choir, Il Giardino Armonico; Giovanni Antonini, conductor.

Decca B0001290-19, DVD-Audio. Contains MLP 5.0 and 2.0 mixes, Dolby Digital 5.0 mix.

Cecilia Bartoli is one of the wonders of today’s classical music world. Blessed with a rich, warm voice and an innate sense of lyricism, she can essay any normal aria with ease. But Bartoli has more -- she is a coloratura virtuoso who tosses off the most difficult, intricate, rapid passages with wild abandon, making them sound like child’s play. Freed of any technical limitation, Bartoli can pay attention to the texts, and brings great insight and drama to any aria she sings. She can also venture where other singers dare not tread; this DVD contains worthy arias that are obscure only because most singers lack the chops to cut them.

Decca has finally ventured into the realm of DVD-Audio, and The Vivaldi Album presents a most accurate recording of Bartoli’s impressive voice. The chamber orchestra, placed behind her, emerges with great clarity. The plucked strings, harpsichord, and lute at the beginning of "Dite, Oimè" are magical. This delicate passage requires both high resolution and a noise floor of zero, and this disc provides both. The surrounds are used only for ambience -- there is no sense of the orchestra being wrapped around the listener -- but the rear reverb creates wonderful "you are there" presence.

There are a few extras: a badly reproduced photo gallery, a frame-by-frame (not continuous video) interview, a list of other albums by Bartoli, and production credits. Though these features are skimpy, the printed DVD booklet is reasonably complete, including full texts and wonderfully reproduced historic art and artist photos.

Blues Traveler: Truth Be Told
Silverline 288214-9, DVD-Audio. Contains MLP 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks.

Following in the footsteps of other extended-jam bands such as Led Zeppelin and the Grateful Dead, Blues Traveler has survived tragedy to confidently emerge with their best album yet. This amiable set has fewer hard-edged rock influences and more blues inflections. Founder John Popper’s vocals and blues-perfect harmonica solos are still at the center, and that’s good news. The rest of the five-man band is filled out with virtuoso players, and the whole ensemble is tight as can be. The sound is impressive in not calling attention to itself as such. All of the instruments sound extremely natural, and there is an impressive sense of cohesive ensemble. The bass is very tight and clean, and all three front speakers create the vocals. There is some panning to the rear channels, but largely the attention is placed on the front soundstage.

Liszt: Dante Symphony; Tasso: lamento e trionfo
London Symphony Orchestra, Leon Botstein, conductor.

Telarc SACD-60613, Hybrid Multichannel SACD.

Liszt composed this sprawling, two-movement Dante Symphony while writing the more famous Faust Symphony. Neither work is a "symphony" in the formal sense, but a large-scale symphonic poem that suggests a story in music. Dante was dedicated to one of Liszt’s great musical heroes (and his future son-in-law), Richard Wagner. Its story is that of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy -- of a soul’s progression from Hell to Heaven. The first movement, Inferno, is effectively bombastic in portraying the nether regions of Christian mythology. The second, Purgatorio, deals with the soul’s release from bondage, and contains quieter yet rapturous music that builds to a final climax that adds a chorus to the large orchestra.

The interpretation and playing are first-rate on both this work and the single-movement tone poem Tasso: lamento e trionfo, which fills out the disc. The articulation of rapid passages in both is outstanding, and the sound throughout is of demonstration caliber. The sound of the basses and cellos in the first movement of the Dante is as awesome as the playing. The front soundstage is wide and deep, each instrument clearly defined in its proper position on stage. The surround channels create the impression of a large concert hall with deep reverberation. The frequency range is singularly good, everything from the highest violin note to the lowest growl of basses and bass drum reproduced without a hitch. The higher resolution of the SACD layer gives a graphic sense of presence that the bit-challenged CD layer can’t quite reproduce. All in all, an outstanding release, and the best that conductor Leon Botstein has recorded for Telarc.

 ...Rad Bennett
radb@ultraaudio.com

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