Bill Cosby once said, "I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone." Apparently, the Coz never met Mark Waldrep, founder of AIX Records, who has created something for everyone with his magical little Los Angeles-based label. With selections ranging from classical to classic country, instrumental jazz to rhythm and blues, and everything in between, AIX covers the entire musical spectrum and manages to invent a few new hues in the process.

What’s more, its eclectic, original multichannel recordings are unfettered by format constraints. Each album comes in at least two versions—on one disc, mind you. There’s one side for plain-Jane DVD players, and another side for DVD-Audio players. Recent releases even manage to squeeze in CD audio and high-definition video to boot. And best of all, each session is digitally recorded, digitally mixed, and totally free from compression, artificial reverb, and equalization. Pure, unencumbered music, straight from the artists to your living room. Here are a few of my recent favorites from the company’s ever-growing catalog. For more information, check out aixrecords.com.

PAUL WILLIAMS:

I’M GOING BACK THERE SOMEDAY

BEST TRACK: 7—"CRAZY LOVING YOU"

Perhaps they should have named this one The 12 Greatest Songs You Never Knew That Little Fellow from Smokey and the Bandit Wrote. This live recording of Williams singing his own classic numbers—from "Rainbow Connection" and "Rainy Days and Mondays" to "An Old Fashioned Love Song" and "We’ve Only Just Begun," with guest vocalists ranging from Willie Nelson to Gonzo the Great—would be a must-own if it were recorded via tin can and string. The impeccable fidelity almost seems like icing on the cake.

My favorite performance here is a duet with Melissa Manchester, on a track that she and Williams penned together for her 2004 album When I Look Down That Road. With all three front channels delivering the vocals, Manchester’s voice especially takes on a rich, thick, open quality that I would simply waste words trying to describe, and the diminutive Williams sounds wall-to-wall and 10 feet tall. What I love best about the mix, though, is the way it uses the space between the speakers. The very air itself seems to will the piano and synthesizer into ethereal existence and hold them in place within a bubble of harmonious vibration.

VANTAGE POINT: RESOLUTION

BEST TRACK: 5—"STING LIKE A BEE"

For a fantastic subwoofer Show-Off, look no further than this ensemble jazz opus. The mix here is never over the top or in your face, but the bottomless bottom end is sure to rattle the rafters and dislodge a few hairpieces, nonetheless. If you think your speakers are man enough to handle it, skip straight to track five, "Sting Like a Bee," and crank up the volume.


The song opens with a loping double bass solo that tiptoes all over the boundary between subwoofer and main speaker territory, hopping between the two at times and standing defiantly on the divide at others. If the transition isn’t seamless, you should give your installer a good talking-to. From there, the track builds and builds into an aural Oreo cookie, with a gooey bass center smothered between crunchy layers of horns and high-hats, all dipped in a milky glass of Jeff Babko’s laid-back piano riffs.

ERNEST RANGLIN:

ORDER OF DISTINCTION

BEST TRACK: 4—"MY BOY LOLLIPOP"

In contrast to the airy experience of the Paul Williams recording, this sparkling celebration of Jamaican guitar and vocals is pure liquid.

The fourth track, a tune originally made famous by Millie Small, is a veritable sonic aquarium, with Ranglin’s slick lead guitar and Monty Alexander’s boppy piano wriggling around the room like flirty fishes looking for a nibble, while the rhythm and backbeat bubble up from the floor. The only thing that could hope to cut through this aqueous mix is the angelic voice of Alana Davis, who parts the waters with her angelic pipes like a modern-day female Moses in a slinky white dress.

THE AIX ALLSTAR BAND:

MOONLIGHT ACOUSTICA

BEST TRACK: 6—"DIVISION 6"

To get a feel for this inventive piece of music, think of Beethoven’s "Moonlight Sonata" reimagined as a fusion jazz-electronica jam. But with acoustical instruments. And just a pinch of Latin flair to enhance the flavor. Confused yet? Wait until you see it.

This is one of the few AIX recordings that I recommend experiencing as a DVD-Video disc, even if you have DVD-Audio playback capability. To accompany the eclectic musical production, Waldrep took the original high-definition video of the performance and processed the living daylights out of it. The result is reminiscent of the trippy, ultra-chromatic proto music videos of the psychedelic era. It’s a treat to behold, and it mates brilliantly with the disc’s explosive surround-sound mix, the aim of which seems not to create a realistic acoustical environment, but more to transport the listener to a fourth spatial dimension constructed entirely of guitars, organs, drums, bass, and marimbas.

STEVE MARCH TORME:

TORME SINGS TORME

BEST TRACK: 6—"RIDIN' HIGH/SHOOTIN' HIGH"

This disc is proof that surround-sound music doesn’t necessarily have to beat you about the head and shoulders constantly to be effective. Rather than creating a tube of tunes, the mix makes use of the surround channels to broaden the playing field and open up the air between the notes.

Take "Ridin’ High/Shootin’ High," for example. Rather than squeezing your head into a tuba, the rear speakers work more toward pulling sound out of the front. The trumpets ease a yard or so out of the front right, the saxophones are nudged a few feet to the left, the bass takes a few steps forward, and the drums take a few steps back. What’s left is a spacious center stage, giving Steve March Tormé plenty of room to rip through a selection of his daddy’s standards. And rip through them he does.

THE BRAND NEW OPRY:

ANOTHER TIME VOL. 1

BEST TRACK: 2—"FOOL AROUND"

This retro-country jam session has quickly become my favorite ploy for duping stubborn two-channel aficionados into embracing surround-sound music. Its upbeat ditties tend to build to a saucy, Crock-Pot simmer in the front channels, leaking only subtle ambience under the lid and into the surrounds, before boiling over in a thick three-dimensional mélange of down-home Americana.

Check out the second track, "Fool Around," for a taste of this. The song takes off with Jonathan McEuen and Jaime Hanna (sons of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band founders John McEuen and Jeff Hanna) strumming and harmonizing in the front channels. Just before the first chorus, a six-string starts taking a few plucky steps to the right of the room, quickly joined by a fiddle scooting around the left on its way to the cheap seats. By the beginning of the second verse, the room is filled with more textures than a fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich; by the third, mandolins and banjos are swishing through the air like a flyswatter searching for its prey.