Sonos, whose multi-room digital audio system I am about ito install in my home, is now compatible with Pandora.  Pandora, the Music Genome Project’s trainable Internet radio service, which until now worked only from a browser-based Flash application and the Slim Device/Logitech Squeezebox and Transporter devices, can now be dialed up sans PC, in any room in your home.  And unlike the Slim Device implementation, Sonos’ interface to the service allows you to rate songs and create new “stations.”

I had picked Sonos before it had this capability (but after it added support for WMA-protected tracks and for the entire Rhapsody service, including streaming content).  So this will just be a wonderful bonus.

Seventh Avenue South (the extension of Seventh Avenue below Eleventh Street) is a funny, crooked street.  It was actually created specifically to provide a “cut and cover” connecting corridor for the West Side IRT subway (today’s 1, 2, 3, and 9 lines) between the southern end of Seventh Avenue and the northern end of Varick Street.  (Some excellent background info is available here.)

When the street was built in 1917, buildings in its way were demolished, or cut right through.  If you look at all carefully, you can see evidence of Seventh Avenue South’s disruption to the buildings around it.  To this day, many buildings that face the street are of odd triangular shapes, and some of them are even “shaved” at their corners.  Since the street proceeds on a diagonal, it intersects with streets that run perpendicular to each other, creating awkward intersections all along its route.  Most businesses that open on Seventh Avenue South don’t stay open for very long, and I attribute this to the street’s challenge to simple navigation by pedestrians.

One notable exception to the perennial business failures on the street is the Village Vanguard, one of Jazz’s most important landmarks, which first opened at its present location in 1935, 18 years after Seventh Avenue South was created.  The basement location and odd triangular shape forced on it by Seventh Avenue South have, for whatever reason, created an atmosphere that seems to nurture Jazz music and the audience’s appreciation of hearing and seeing it performed live.

My wife Lauren took me there for my birthday last week to hear Bill Charlap, a superlative Jazz pianist, and his trio colleagues, Peter and Kenny Washington, on bass and drums respectively (no relation).  The music was great, but hearing it at the Vanguard made it even better.  Looking at photos of Jazz greats adorning the walls (including a great one of Charlap playing mid-note with his ear to the piano) while the music’s playing, and knowing that they all played there, is just a great experience.

The Internet is actually a wonderful way to discover the prominence and continuity that is the Village Vanguard.  Try doing a Google search on “Live at the Village Vanguard” and you’ll see how many Jazz artists have performed and recorded there.  (By the way, Joe Lovano’s “Quartets Live at the Village Vanguard” album is terrific.)  If you click through the search results, you might come across this album cover of “John Coltrane Live at the Village Vanguard Again!” which was recorded in 1966 (the year I was born):

The clothes may be dated, but I can tell you that the outside of the club looks exactly the same today as it does in that photo.  There’s nothing more exciting than visiting places that persist in this way, as ongoing businesses.  I think it provides the closest possible thing there is to time travel.

If you’ve never been to the Vanguard, you should go (even if you don’t live in New York).  It may have been there for 70 years, but I worry that New York’s real estate market hyperdrive could one day spell the venue’s demise.  Make sure you experience its history before it becomes history, or else hope for a crash in the real estate market.

Friday night took us to Jazz at Lincoln Center, to hear the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, led by Wynton Marsalis.  This was, nominally, a late Christmas gift to my mother-in-law and her husband, but it was also a treat for us.

The funny thing about Jazz at Lincoln Center is that it’s not at Lincoln Center, but rather on the fifth floor of the new Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle.  This “off-campus” facility has three performance venues (and, apparently, classroom space) and we were in the largest of the three, Frederick P. Rose Hall.  Although a larger setting than I prefer for jazz, this was a very nice space, with good acoustics (unlike some of the venues at Lincoln Center proper).  The other two spaces offer a smaller auditorium and a small club (albeit with “Coca Cola,” its corporate sponsor, embedded in its name) and I’m going to make it a point to get to both.

The music, not surprisingly, was excellent.  In addition to the full orchestra, trombonist Wycliffe Gordon and bassist Rodney Whitaker were on the program.  Whitaker was great, but Gordon was just positively amazing.  Check out his incredibly prolific discography on his Web site.  Unfortunately, a search of Napster (the new, legal one), MusicMatch, and MSN Music turned up only one album, “Bone Structure.”  I bought this and think it’s great, but not a good showcase of what I heard on Friday night.  I’m going to have to hit the Tower or J&R jazz dept. and pick up some of his CDs.

There were two other very special guests, a singer and a guitarist…so special that they weren’t on the program, and I can’t remember either of their names.  This is frustrating because the singer had a stunning voice – it was a cross between Aretha Franklin’s and Ella Fitzgerald’s -- and she was just a freshman in college!  She only did vocals on one number, but she had the audience mesmerized.

The great thing about the program was that all the numbers followed a train theme…music about trains, and music that really sounded like trains.  I was a bit surprised that the band finished their set without playing “Take the ‘A’ Train.”  Luckily they came back and played it for an encore, and because the gig was at Columbus Circle, Lauren and I took the A train home immediately afterward.