A New Way to Buy a Mattress

Review: My new leesa mattress

In the past, purchasing a mattress has been akin to buying a car. When you walk in the showroom, the price tags seem ridiculously high and you never quite trust the sales rep. When you decide you surely can find a better deal elsewhere, they always come up with a discount that for some reason hadn’t been offered earlier.

Now, with today’s technology the mattress industry has been transformed. Like nearly every other retail business, “Click and Order” has encroached on “Brick and Mortar”. But that isn’t the only thing that has changed. The materials and construction are different. Mattress springs are replaced by high density pads and memory foam. The entire mattress can be compressed, rolled-up and boxed. What had been an unruly shipping, delivery and set-up, is now delivered in a manageable box by UPS, easily carried to the bedroom, and unwrapped. Magically, within a couple minutes this hard flat pad unfolds and decompresses into a real full bed,

What is really important is the quality of the sleep. I have been sleeping on our new leesa mattress for over a month. I can confidently say that this is the most comfortable mattress I have owned, and I have had waterbeds, air mattresses and conventional mattress/boxspring sets. This is a firm bed. My first impression was maybe too firm. But within minutes the mattress conforms nicely to the contours of your body as you settle into a good nights sleep. The leesa has me sleeping more soundly and awakening ache-free.

This new paradigm of mattress shopping is definitely taking the industry by storm. There are now at least a half dozen Internet offerings to choose from. I can only speak for the leesa. I am very pleased with my choice. Ordering couldn't be more simple, free shipping and you have up to 100 days if you don't like it, they will pick it up and issue a prompt refund (so they say). If you are considering getting a leesa mattress, please use this link.  You will get a hefty discount and I get a referral bonus as well.

The Joy of Vinyl

During this year’s holiday season I decided to set up my turntable which had been purchased during my college years back in the 70s. Sometime after the advent of CDs in the 80s my records and turntable had been relegated to storage in my basement. On rare occasions I would peruse through my collection, and at times I would bring a record to the radio station where I host a jazz show and play it over the air.

In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in vinyl long playing records (LP’s). Ironically, the impetus for this has not been from my generation which grew up with this medium, but with millennials who’s current popular format for music is digital streaming.


Digitization of the music industry has been a double edged sword. While there is more music available with unlimited streaming at the touch of your iPhone, music has also become a cheap commodity. The experience of discovery, acquiring and listening to your music is now so easy and commonplace that its value has been diminished.

The LP “experience” was a significant part of my formative years. Leafing through albums in the record store, marveling at the cover art, shelling out my hard earned cash, unwrapping, carefully handling the disk, setting the needle down on the spinning turntable is an experience that is totally lost in the digital age.

Listening to records was also a social experience. Untold hours were spent with friends taking in the music, passing around the album covers, reading the lyrics and liner notes, sharing our recently purchased LP’s, discovering new music together. Admittedly we were often stoned as we enjoyed the music and each other’s company. We listened to the music intently. It was not background sound or dance music. We listened to the lyric, musicianship, compositions and arrangements.

I am now re-discovering much of this experience. Listening to these old albums is like getting back together with old friends, re-experiencing some important times of our lives. My collection has some iconic rock albums (Meet the Beatles, Sargent Pepper, Electric Ladyland). However, my most cherished albums are those that introduced me to Jazz (Kind of Blue, Miles Smiles, A Love Supreme). I remember buying Miles Davis Bitches Brew at Sam Goody’s because I was enthralled by the artwork. That album along with Mahavishnu John McLaughlin's Inner Mounting Flame introduced me to Jazz/Rock Fusion and eventually to Miles and Coltrane which began my obsession for Jazz. Those albums changed my life. Another life altering experience was listening to Chick Corea’s  Light as a Feather. Playing this LP in my dark smoke filled dorm room one evening with new friends was responsible for hooking up with my wife of over 40 years.

Cover art by Mati Klarwein (click to enlarge)

But, enough of nostalgia. There really is something to recordings on vinyl. There is a warmth to the sound that is unique to this format . Vinyl fans had told me this, but I always discounted it. Digital is cleaner, more accurate, truer to the source, I always thought.  But now I hear a lush warm sound that is comforting like a warm blanket over the music. It is a softening of the edges that is inherent in analog recordings compared to the antiseptic feel from a digital format.

Besides the obvious differences in packaging, handling and playing of records versus digital, there is something wonderful in the format itself. Records have a physical “limitation” of having two sides of about 20 minutes of music, 40 minutes in total. This is a perfect amount of time to stay immersed in the music. It requires you to get up and turn the disk after 20 minutes, keeping you engaged. Artists used this time-frame to sequence their songs into a cohesive story. I find that this format lends itself to listening to an entire album from the first track on Side One till the last one on Side Two. Not so with CD’s, which are nearly 1 1/2 hour in length, or streaming digital where single tracks and shuffle modes are more common.

I've only listened to a dozen or so albums in the last couple of days, but I look forward to getting to know my old records once again. And, due to the resurgence of vinyl, there are record shops here in Connecticut like The Telegraph in New London, or Integrity in Music (Wethersfield) where I can get lost flipping through isles of record bins and filling in the holes in my collection of classic Jazz releases, and maybe some new vinyl too!

Newport Jazz Festival 2014 Review

This years Newport Jazz Festival was a very wet affair, but that didn't keep Jazz fans from showing their love and devotion to this art form. Thousands endured the rainy weather to hear both classic jazz and modern new music. This year, the 60th anniversary of the Festival added a third day to the weekend schedule. It was a good thing they did, because the added Friday schedule was the driest day of the Festival. Here is my day-by-day review of the acts we caught during the Newport Jazz Festival. There were 43 shows scheduled over 3 days. We saw about 20. Below are the highlights of what we saw.

Jon Batiste Stay Human

Friday was a perfect sunny day for the outdoor concerts at Fort Adams Park. Hightlights for me were two modern big bands. Darcy James Argue Secret Society, and Miguel Zenon & The Identities Big Band. The former featured Darcy's "Steampunk Jazz" sound; industrial complex rhythm changes over lively horn arrangements. Miguel Zenon's large ensemble featured his regular quartet fronting a tightly arranged big band, playing compositions inspired by his Puerto Rican heritage. The day concluded for us with a rousing performance by Jon Batiste and Stay Human, evoking a New Orleans street band performance to the big Fort Stage. They had the crowd on their feet.

Pedro Martinez Group

Day two brought a deluge of rain. Usually one would be sampling the concerts, running between the three stages that are in Fort Adams State Park. But because of the heavy downpours, once you got a seat under a tent of one of the two smaller covered venues, you are best to stay put and enjoy the shows, keeping as dry as possible. We planted ourselves under the Quad Stage and heard great performances by Brian Blade Fellowship featuring his understated hymn inspired sound that had a folk music quality to it. SF Jazz Collective resurrected a "best of" set from its previous 6 albums. An outrageously awesome percussive Cuban band, Pedrito Martinez rocked the audience with its Latin beats. Late in the afternoon, the rain subsided enough to leave that tent and hear a tremendous set by the Kurt Rosenwinkel's New Quartet. The rain held off to venture to the open air large Fort Stage to hear Wynton Marsalis leading the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. We finished the day back under the Quad Stage Tent to hear Dave Holland and Prism. This band totally rocked out, with guitarist Robin Eubanks channeling Mahavishnu, Hendrix and Jimmy Page all at once.

Anat Cohen

Sunday, day three had more of the same weather issues, and once again we claimed our space under the Quad tent. The Cookers kicked it off with their all-star lineup of Billy Harper, Donald Harrison, Billy Hart, Cecil McBee and more. Just when I think I am growing tired of straight ahead classic jazz, I am blown away by how this music can swing so hard. Next up was Vijay Iyer's Septet. Vijay brought some modern new compositions and arrangements that ventured into avant garde, yet never lost its foundations. At one point, they broke into a very tight funky refrain that had everyone's head bobbing. That was followed by George Wein's All-Stars featuring Anat Cohen, Randy Brecker, Lew Tabakin and others. Again, the straight ahead jazz classics were kicked up a notch with heavy swing and virtuoso soloing. Gary Burton took the stage with his quartet featuring Julian Lage on guitar. No surprises here, just solid playing with that great bright sound coming from expertly executed vibes and guitar. We concluded our Newport Jazz experience at the Harbor Stage with Danillo Perez Panama 500 band. It was a laid back performance with Latin rhythms over the thoughtful improvisations by the creative Perez on piano and a harmonica soloist as well. Danillo's 3 year old son took the stage and actually played the Congas on the final piece delighting the crowd.

Despite the nasty weather, this Newport Jazz Festival was one of the best I've attended. The quality and variety of the music, the appreciation, devotion and the feeling of community shown by the jazz fans trumped any negativity that the weather brought on. It's great to see Newport Jazz Festival's founder George Wein, more than holding his own on piano at 88 yrs old, still active in organizing this historic festival for most of its 60 year existence.

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