Hifi demo music as used at hifi shows

[MartinC]

When I listen to jazz it's mostly non-vocal, but Melody Gardot is a female jazz singer whose albums I can enjoy when in the right mood.

 

[toms wait]

Never ceases to amaze me the hopelessly dull music retailers/importers et al use for shows/dems.
Nothing challenging, I once took 10000 maniacs to a dem to play Jubilee which to me gives goosebumps on a good system.
The shop owner hated it and went on to play the Pink Panther theme! Cliched and lame IMHO.

 

[StingRay]

Never ceases to amaze me the hopelessly dull music retailers/importers et al use for shows/dems.
Nothing challenging, I once took 10000 maniacs to a dem to play Jubilee which to me gives goosebumps on a good system.
The shop owner hated it and went on to play the Pink Panther theme! Cliched and lame IMHO.

I quite agree put me off HiFi shows, playing the same well recorded boring music, to make the system sound good. I like Natalie Merchant one of my favourite female singers, Motherland is my favourite album of hers.
I like Melody Gardot as well.

Yes need to use more challenging music, I played some Little Feat at one demo, the speakers completely lost control on the bass guitar, the dealer nearly chucked me out. Important lesson, used wide range of music for demos,

 

[toms wait]

There is one video on youtube that uses a particularly dreary breathy sparse jazz rewriting of Eleanor Rigby to demonstrate "quite highly" priced equipment, no names, no clues, you'll have to find it. Yes I'm not at the show but you just know it is to show off, take no risks and not offend. Whereas the aforementioned Natalie, or even Rickie Lee, or Mr Waits would be more impressive.

 

[pmcuk]

When I listen to jazz it's mostly non-vocal, but Melody Gardot is a female jazz singer whose albums I can enjoy when in the right mood.

Well, respect for Melody Gardot as well because she's a songwriter and does original material. She has a lot of fans.

In the sense that she's a songwriter she's more interesting than Diana Krall singing standards.

For me I don't listen much to either, but I do get more out of Diana Krall because of her piano playing, and I prefer her voice as well.

As a jazz musician all my life I have a love-hate relationship with standards, having played some of them possibly even 100 times. I do feel it's a cop-out to sing nothing but standards, and for that reason alone I rarely listen to Ella Fitzgerald and other similar jazz singers, though I realise that they have a lot of skill. But for emotion I look elsewhere. Singers like Dr John, Donny Hathaway, Taj Mahal, Ray Charles. The female singer songwriters I listen to are not usually jazz - St Vincent, Sara Bareilles, SZA, H.E.R., Blanka Inauen (Len Sander) for example.

 

[StingRay]

Well, respect for Melody Gardot as well because she's a songwriter and does original material. She has a lot of fans.

In the sense that she's a songwriter she's more interesting than Diana Krall singing standards.

For me I don't listen much to either, but I do get more out of Diana Krall because of her piano playing, and I prefer her voice as well.

As a jazz musician all my life I have a love-hate relationship with standards, having played some of them possibly even 100 times. I do feel it's a cop-out to sing nothing but standards, and for that reason alone I rarely listen to Ella Fitzgerald and other similar jazz singers, though I realise that they have a lot of skill. But for emotion I look elsewhere. Singers like Dr John, Donny Hathaway, Taj Mahal, Ray Charles. The female singer songwriters I listen to are not usually jazz - St Vincent, Sara Bareilles, SZA, H.E.R., Blanka Inauen (Len Sander) for example.

I’m not so keen on Jazz singers either. Some of my favourite female singer songwriters are:
Gretchen Peters, Natalie Merchant, Gillian Welch, Rhiannon Giddens and Lori McKenna.

Diana Krall is a good singer but the material is a bit boring for me, same for a lot of this audiophile music.