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oth and then supplement their cue to the main room via live speaker monitoring. I also find that the musicians enjoy not having another row of players behind them blowing their heads off. This horseshoe type of musician floor plan also allows me to incorporate a five-room mic setup array. Essentially, I place two mid-side or Blumlein mic pair configurations, each covering an end of the space that the horns are facing. I also include an additional omnidirectional mic in between these mic positions. When I balance these room mics and include them in the mix with the spot mics, they add a very cool dimension. Another important aspect is level to digital capture. Few of us are using tape anymore, and many of us are only using the mic pre feed, whether standalone or as part of a console to record/capture the audio data. The most important thing to understand about the level you input is to observe and respect the headroom of the system you’re working with. In general, Pro Tools (for example) replicates more accurate playback when one does not push its headroom capability. (That is true for all elements in the recording chain.) This observance of headroom is also important for mixing and mastering. I mix and master in my own boutique state-of-the-art Pro Tools HD control room environment. This enables me to take a traditional control room and its budget point out of the picture. The mixing translation from my custom control room environment is extremely accurate. I emulate an analog board mixing model, with aux sends to reverb, delay and other effects, plug-in processing where necessary, and I am extremely conscious of the internal headroom characteristic of the system as I mix. When mastering, I do not use the L2 or any other brick-wall limiting method of making product louder. I have a selection of several high-end digital-to-analog converters that enable me to preserve the music’s dynamic range and process above digital zero, emulating the methods of higher-end professional mastering environments. I recommend that if you are not a mastering engineer by trade, find someone who is. Your work will thank you. DB Chicago-based studio engineer Fred Breitberg has worked for Universal Recording Corp., Chess Records, Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom Recording Studio, Streeterville Studios, Red Label Records and other major studios. Artists he has recorded include Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Mahalia Jackson, Donny Hathaway, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Aretha Franklin, Natalie Cole, Al Green, David Bowie, Koko Taylor, Albert Collins and Professor Longhair. He has engineered recordings for several of Chicago’s top large ensembles, including the New Standard Jazz Orchestra, Chicago Jazz Orchestra, Jon Faddis & the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, Rob Parton’s Jazztech Big Band, Frank Mantooth Jazz Orchestra, Bill Porter Big Band, Great Postmodern Nightmare Big Band, Kevin Mahogany Big Band, DePaul University Jazz Ensemble, Gull Lake Jazz Orchestra, Ron Hawking Big Band, Dick Reynolds Big Band and Columbia College Big Band. Currently, Breitberg’s freelance career includes music recording plus post production and sound design for Chicago-area television stations owned and operated by ABC and CBS. Visit him online at freddiebaudio.com. 94 DOWNBEAT FEBRUARY 2017
THE INSIDE STORIES OF CLASSIC JAZZ RECORDINGS Music scholar Michael Jarrett's new book brings together interviews with more than 50 producers, musicians, engineers and label executives. When someone mentions record labels like “Blue Note,” “Prestige” or “Contemporary,” whose names come to mind? If you’re like the diehard collectors and jazz lovers who place holy-grail-like status on those vaunted label catalogs, Rudy Van Gelder and Roy DuNann loom large. These recording engineers created the sound for such masterpieces as Blue Train and Sonny Rollins & The Contemporary Leaders. Often deemed of far less importance are the record producers who typically managed the sessions, helped choose the musicians and acted as representatives for the label. But to ignore the contributions and commitment of these behind-the-scenes figures would be a major oversight. Indeed, legendary producers such as Teo Macero, Bob Weinstock, Creed Taylor and Orrin Keepnews—and in the modern era, Craig Street, Bill Laswell and Michael Cuscuna—have played crucial behind-thescenes roles in shaping the catalogs of recorded music that today constitute the jazz canon. Michael Jarrett, a music scholar and professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, makes an important contribution to our collective understanding of an often overlooked corner of jazz in his excellent tome, Pressed for All Time: Producing the Great Jazz Albums from Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday to Miles Davis and Diana Krall (University of North Carolina Press). Drawing together interviews with more than 50 producers, musicians, engineers and label executives, Jarrett lets his sub- jects tell their own stories and share their experiences in crafting a quintessential American sound. Clustered around specific records ordered chronologically, their comments tell the story of the jazz album and grant rare glimpses of how the recordings were fashioned. Jarrett leaves no stone unturned in his quest, from Billy Banks’ Rhythmakers’ “Margie” (1936) and Cannonball Adderley Quintet’s Mercy, Mercy, Mercy! Live At “The Club” (1966) to Herbie Hancock’s Rockit (1983) and Gregory Porter’s Liquid Spirit (2013). “I started with a question that a lot of jazz fans have,” Jarrett said. “If you have a great improviser—say, Coltrane or Wayne Shorter— why do you even need a producer? What do these guys do? I also noticed that I loved everything Orrin Keepnews ever did. Or John Hammond. I knew they were important, but I didn’t know what they really did.” There is a rich well of information disseminated in Jarrett’s vibrant book, which provides fascinating insights and fresh perspectives on more than 200 historically significant recordings. Pop the volume open at any page, and a great story emerges. Creed Taylor on Ray Charles’ Genius + Soul = Jazz (Impulse!, 1961): “Quincy Jones and I talked about the arrangements. He was very slow; he took forever. He’d show up a day late, but of course what he showed up with was great stuff. I could ask him to change anything, and he very quickly did it. Like ‘Killer Joe.’ Quincy and I agreed on just about everything, until he went to Hollywood. And then everything changed.” Joe Zawinul on Weather Report’s “Barbary Coast” from Black Market (Columbia, 1976): “I learned how to love music and a groove from trains in Europe when I was a kid. On ‘Barbary Coast’ I set the music to the train sound. It was in the same groove. If you play that tempo, you can bring in the train whenever you want.” Jay Newland on Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette’s Bye Bye Blackbird (ECM, 1993): “I got a call from Manfred Eicher. He says, ‘I want everybody in a separate room— total isolation.’ Half an hour later, I get a call from Keith. He goes, ‘I don’t want any of that separate room thing. I want everybody in the same room, like we’re in a club.’ … I guess Manfred mixed the multi-track a few times to do the ECM thing. It didn’t work because there was leakage and Keith didn’t like it. The board mixes became the record.” Pressed For All Time is essential reading for every jazz aficionado. “Whatever ‘jazz producer’ means, it’s completely eclectic as to what their roles constituted,” Jarrett mused. “It’s whatever was needed to get the job done. I was also struck by this notion that the great producers, from Tommy Lipuma to Don Schlitten, were both connoisseurs and they loved the music they recorded. They ate, slept and drank that music.” —Ken Micallef Ordering info: uncpress.unc.edu/books FEBRUARY 2017 DOWNBEAT 95
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February 2017 VOLUME 84 / NUMBER 2
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First Take BY BRIAN ZIMMERMAN JIMMY
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Riffs Caught COURTESY DOMINICAN REP
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VINYL / BY PETER MARGASAK Good for
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Caught Jazz at the Limits: Avant Ar
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Yotam Silberstein’s new album is
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Pianist Emmet Cohen recorded his la
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ROBERT GLASPER ‘SO WHY THE HELL A
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The new album by the Robert Glasper
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©MARK SHELDON Larry Coryell is acc
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Page 46 and 47: ADAM MCCULLOUGH Kermit Ruffins perf
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Page 50 and 51: Guitarist Dorado Schmitt (left) and
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Page 54 and 55: SHARON GARNER Helen Sung performs a
Page 56 and 57: theofficialbakerskeyboardlounge.com
Page 58 and 59: WEST ARIZONA Elliott’s On Congres
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Page 62 and 63: The Jazz Dock in Prague BRAZIL Bour
Page 64 and 65: LUCAS CUTAIA The Pipi Piazzolla Tri
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Page 78 and 79: Beyond / BY J. POET Tinariwen A Lit
Page 80 and 81: Historical / BY DAN OULLETTE ECM RE
Page 82 and 83: Books / BY SCOTT YANOW A Story Beni
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