Surveying the soundscape.

The recent Prestige Profiles series of CDs merits a strong recommendation and a minor warning. Taking the latter first, you should know that these compilations are exactly the same as the corresponding "Best Of" CDs that came out in 2004.

Apparently, the first time these collections hit the market, they didn't get a lot of attention. The official explanation is bad timing. Fantasy Records turned them out during the period that Concord Music Group was acquiring Fantasy and thus the series "fell through the cracks on the retail front."

I'll expand on that hypothesis. Of the original batch of 18 Best Of compilations, only the ones that drew exclusively from Prestige label masters came close to meeting Best Of standard. In my view, it's not at all coincidental that those 10 are the ones that have been repackaged for re-release. I'd call them the best of the Best Of. And they're even better now than they were then.

When you buy one of the new Prestige Profiles versions, you get a carefully and enthusiastically selected Collector's Edition Bonus Disc in addition to the main compilation. The performances on the bonus discs are not more recordings by the artist featured on the main Profiles disc. The bonus disc that comes with the Miles Davis collection, for instance, features Chet Baker, Sonny Rollins, Kenny Dorham, Red Garland, Gil Evans, John Coltrane, Art Farmer, and Donald Byrd in a program that supports, enhances, expands on, and illuminates the Miles Davis performances it accompanies.

The subjects of the other nine Prestige Profiles packages are Jackie McLean, Red Garland (from the quintet sessions featuring John Coltrane), Lightnin' Hopkins, Sonny Rollins, Kenny Burrell, Coleman Hawkins, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis.

I'm going to urge special consideration for two of the Prestige Profiles packages: Jackie McLean and Kenny Burrell. Both sets tend toward relaxed performances and both have spectacular bonus collections. The one with the McLean profile naturally features other alto sax stars including Gigi Gryce ("Minority"), Lee Konitz ("SubconsciousLee"), and James Moody (the original "I'm In the Mood For Love" aka "Moody's Mood For Love"). And the Burrell bonus disc is manna from heaven for guitar lovers. Tal Farlow, George Benson, Jimmy Raney, Pat Martino, and Billy Butler all show up.

The bonus disc programs offer much more satisfying listening experience than those that Fantasy (and most other labels) commonly crank out. Of course, Fantasy Jazz could hardly miss coming up with respectable compilations since it's working from what it unselfconsciously (and justifiably) calls "The World's Mightiest Jazz Catalog." Typically, however, the programs have been more predictable and less interesting than they might have been.

But here are--count 'em--10 CD extras thrown in for no additional money that come close to blowing away the main event CDs they're packaged with. That led to a great curiosity on my part about who did the selection. It turned out not to be one of the "usual suspects," but instead it's Nick Phillips, long-time producer for Concord Jazz. I can imagine his delight, his ecstasy even, at being given the keys to the Prestige vaults.

If I know Nick (and I really don't except through his selections on these bonus discs), he's been in a state of aesthetic salivation ever since the acquisition of Fantasy by Concord appeared likely. I'll bet that Phillips has been longing to offer us his understanding of the importance of the Prestige catalog and history. I'm looking forward to Phillips' fresh views of Riverside/Jazzland, Contemporary, Milestone, and Pablo.

Let's have a permanent moratorium on the phrase "Limited Edition." After all, practically everything you buy--a CD, an amplifier, a computer printer, a waffle iron, a copy of The Sensible Sound--is by the nature of the marketplace, a limited edition. Only so many of any non-commodity item is or will be made. Further, if you're thinking about possible future value as a collector's item, you're more likely to have financial success with examples that specifically do NOT claim special limited status.

For example, three copies of the Jon Hendricks In Person CD are currently being offered on Half.com for prices in the $50 to $70 range. The Sonny Stitt End Game Brilliance CD compilation that came out on the low-priced 32 Jazz a few years ago now goes for $35 and up on the collectors market. (The two Muse CDs from which it was drawn, Tune-Up! and Constellation can sell for that much apiece.)

I've seen Rhino's Twisted CD compilation of Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross offered for $35 or so also. And the last time I saw a CD copy of Milt Jackson's That's the Way It Is for sale, it carried a price tag of about $75.

These might be pipe-dream prices, but I don't think so. Remember, all CDs are inherently "limited editions."

Check you your own library. How many of the CDs you own are no longer available on the retail market? If you've been buying for even four or five years, a considerable number are irreplaceable and may well be in demand by rabid collectors. You probably don't care to cash them in but you might consider getting them appraised and insured.

A Phone-y Issue: The July 10 issue of Time printed responses by Stephen Sondheim to ten questions posed by Time theater critic Richard Zoglin. Sondheim's answer to one of them should have stopped after the first word.

RZ: Do you have an iPOD?

SS: No. I'll tell you why. I listen to music all the time at home. When I'm out on the street, I don't want to wear those great big earmuff earphones that cut out the ambient noise. And you can't listen to music when trucks are roaring by. It's the same thing in the subway. It's a great invention, but I would rarely use it.

My follow-up question for SS is, "How would you know if it's a great invention? You've obviously never seen one, let alone used one."

Sondheim's "big earmuff" characterization would have been close to the mark if he'd been commenting on the new Koss Tugo rather than Apple's iPod. The Tugo is a self-contained MP3 headphone.

In other words, it's a full-sized Koss stereophone set with a 512 Mb MP3 storage and playback system built in. The built-in memory will hold 8 to 15 hours of music, depending on the MP3 compression factor. Rechargeable batteries are also contained in the headset. They'll power the Tugo for about 10 hours, so you might as well opt for higher-quality, lower-compression files.

Koss isn't the first company to build this sort of device. It's a simple concept after all--a variation on the common FM radio headphone. Koss is the first audio company to do so, however. The other MP3 headphone--the Think Headtrip--comes from the computer side and looks pretty cheesy in the company's online photos (shop.thinkcp.com).

At this writing, Koss doesn't have any information online about the Tugo, so the only view I've had of it is the printed photo on the press release. (The Koss website, www.koss.com, is currently under redevelopment and is infested with "Coming soon ..." pages.) Even in that small black and white photo, the Tugo says "Koss" even before you see the logo on the large earcup. The technical details (titanium-coated diaphragms, neodymium iron boron in the magnets, oxygen-free copper in the voice coils) suggest that the Tugo has a lot in common with the PRO4AAT and PRO3AA phones that are at the top of the Koss lineup of full-sized dynamic stereophones.

The selling price of the Tugo will be $299.99 and, according to the product announcement, will (someday) be sold exclusively through the Koss website.

Super Looper: On the last evening of my annual bike ride across New York (www.fanyride.com), a few fellow cyclists and I shared a table on the deck of the Adirondack Inn in Lake George. Soon after we sat down, the evening's entertainer, Jay "Diz" Dizacomo, started picking and strumming one of his impressive collection of guitars. (Diz showed up with a Rickenbacker solid-body electric, an early '30s National Duolian steel body resonator, a Guild Spanish acoustic, and another acoustic Guild with a cutaway body.)

His full setup included a small rack of electronics, a multi- function percussion device (electronic, but hand played), a couple of microphones and foot pedals, and speakers. It looked like a fairly typical setup for a single artist to use for extra support while singing and picking.

We were still settling in as Diz started his set, and none of us took close notice of what was going on at the bandstand. But as Diz got into the essence of the song, we heard plenty more than just his voice and his guitar. Is seemed obvious that Diz was using some sort of prerecorded or synthesized accompaniment in the common fashion of the times.

We joined in the upbeat applause at the end of the tune. The guy did good work. Diz acknowledged the appreciation and then surprised us by stating, "I want to remind you that you're not hearing any prerecorded music tonight. Everything I do is live." That got more attention from our table.

Diz started another tune, again in the "vamp till ready" mode that we'd heard earlier. This time we focused our ears and eyes and realized that Diz wasn't just aimlessly noodling or warming up. He was laying down accompaniment tracks that he saved in some sort of digital memory device.

He switched that to playback mode and added a bit of additional spice with percussion, saving both layers together. A bit of additional punching up with the guitar got recorded over those tracks and he went into the main performance, singing and playing to his own recently-created accompaniment. Even during this phase, he'd occasionally save a rift or two and cycle it back into the mix.

Diz had a printed song list available that disclosed on theback that the process we were witnessing is called "live looping" and further proclaims "Ain't technology cool!" What's cool about live looping is that, as the name says, it's absolutely a live performance technique. Taking it into a recording studio would be pointless, although a performance recording in front of an audience would probably retain a lot of validity.

Diz's info sheet also discloses that he can't read a note of music, is self-taught on guitar, banjo, dobro, mandolin, and lap steel guitar, and he "once played guitar in Utica, NY, Chicago, and Flagstaff, AZ ... on the same day." He's also a licensed Adirondack Guide. But all that's probably not enough to lure most of you to Lake George to enjoy Diz Dizacomo's crafty musical art.

So I'm going to advise that you keep an eye open for the phrase "live looping" as you scan published descriptions of performances in venues close to you. For instance, I found a report of a live looping festival that took place in Santa Cruz, CA in October of '04. A highlight of the event was a 12-hour set of continuous performance by 45 live looping artists doing successive uninterrupted 30 minute sets. You can find the details at http:// www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2004/ October/07/style/stories/06style.htm or just do a Google search on "live looping santa cruz."

If you spot something like that and show up for it, you're in for an evening of major musical fun 21st-century style.