A Meeting by the River

[Deleted User]

Hello,
If you want to hear a truly amazing vinyl record that will make a grown audiophile cry with delight I highly recommend the dual disc, 45 rpm recording of Ry Cooder and Vishwa Bhatt (who resembles the great "Polk" Paul, for longtime Forum members) playing a blend of eastern and western music together. This is one of the most satisfying records I've ever heard, talk about sounding like real musicians are in the room with you! This makes every ounce of blood, sweat and tears (not to mention dollars) you've invested in your sound system seem well worth it. I ordered this from Elusive Disc company and it was beautifully packaged and arrived in perfect condition.
Do yourself a really big favor and try this recording, keep in mind it spins at 45rpm.
Enjoy, Ken

[Deleted User]

I forgot two things:
1). bass response, on the third cut there is some of the most impressive and dynamic low bass I've ever heard on any recording.
2). SDA owners should experience some interesting imaging. This is a very live recording, all four musicians are sitting on the floor, carpet actually, and the microphones should receive lots of difference informnation, which is what SDAs like best. I don't think there will be much to the outside of the speakers, but the images between the speakers should be interesting.
Ken

strider

Thanks for taking the time to post a review; I've been eyeing that up, but with all the "audiophile" titles coming out on 45 rpm, it gets difficult to narrow down to one. Ry Cooder gets around and seems to find himself playing with some talented musicians.

Another title involving VM Bhatt I've been looking at is the release he did with Bela Fleck and Jie-Bing Chen called Tabula Rasa. I heard one of the tracks off it on satellite radio and was quite taken by it. The SACD release is on the Water Lily label, which I hear has quite a good reputation in reagards to sonics.

Ben

[Deleted User]

Hello Ben,
I would definately put this on my "desert island" disc list. My wife and I were listening to this last night (she has listened to the CD for, I'm not kidding, hundreds of times) and I said that I wanted to reincarnate as either a tall, black jazz saxaphonist, Dexter Gordon, or a tabula player. That guy on the "Meeting..." record is absolutely fantastic. If your system has any transient detail at all, this will show it off. I can't believe anyone's fingers can move that fast and that accurate.
After that record we listened to George Harrision's Concert for Bangladesh, with Ravi Shankar. I believe it has the most realistic audience sound on record, I was blown away from the power of the cheering audience and the recording itself is in the same league as the Cooder. Ironically, Phil Spector was the co-producer on this one. Wierd photograph of him in the back of the booklet that comes with it. Strange looking dude...
Ken

F1nut

I've been tempted to buy "A Meeting by the River" on SACD, but just wasn't sure I'd like the music. Maybe I'll get it anyway.

ben62670

Ken posts few and far between on recommendations. I do certainly appreciate his words on the open forum.
Thanks Ken
Ben

[Deleted User]

Hello,
I'm glad the recommendation is interesting. Keep in mind these two musicians are slide guitarists, one with a western influence and the other an eastern influence. This is easily appreciated by anybody who likes the sound of master musicians playing guitars. There are two percussionists (one is Ry’s 14 year old son Joachim) who provide tremendous rhythm and excitement.
The recording used a pair of bi-directional microphones placed in a "figure 8" pattern. This is called a Blumlein pair, named after a British film audio engineer Alan Blumlein. It is an excellent method of capturing a realistic stereo image and letting the listener know where the recording was made. This is not a stale studio recording, this is four men sitting on a carpet in a large venue church which provides a sense of “space”. The right audio channel is composed of what is coming into the right microphone's front area and the information coming from the rear side of the left microphone. The same happens on the left incoming channel, the image is composed of the front image of the left microphone and the rear image "seen" by the right microphone. This creates an excellent ambient sound field. Not only do we hear what is happening in front of the microphone, but what happens to the reflected sound that comes back to the microphones from behind. It also means that the microphones have to be placed fairly close to the musicians in order to balance the direct and reflected sound fields. The brilliant Kavi Alexander was the master behind the recording and the mixing engineer was the equally talented Paul Stubblebine. The tape recorder was a highly modified vacuum tube Ampex recorder, so everything came together for one magic moment. These musicians had only met for a half hour before, so this is spontaneous and everyone is listening to what each is playing. Your speakers will disappear and you will be in on the event.
If you want something to put the spark back in enjoying why you got into this hobby in the first place, this is it.
Enjoy, Ken