That Jazz - Monkey Max Music and File Download

In This Chapter
Chapter 17
Digital Jazz: Making Music
in High-Tech Times
� Reviewing the impact of a few innovative engineers
� Thinking about a home studio
� Marketing your music with the help of the Web
In the past 20 years, affordable equipment and the growth of the Internet
have changed the way musicians steer their careers. It’s no longer “major
label or bust.” In fact, jazz being a specialized art form, few players land big
recording contracts or audiences. Instead, jazz musicians travel independent
routes and become producers, promoters, engineers, and artists all rolled into
one. The new self-determinism is a bonus for both musicians and listeners
who surf the net for affordable music that can be downloaded to a computer.
In this chapter, I describe how to become best friends with technology as you
take control of your music from home studios to Internet marketing and distribution.
First, though, a trip back to the days of tube tone, vinyl records, and
radio, a time when Les Paul and Rudy Van Gelder were the mad professors of
home studiology and invented recording techniques still used in jazz today.
The First Recording Masterminds
Jazz has been recorded in significant quantities since the 1920s, but having a
recording studio at home wasn’t feasible until equipment was produced in
larger quantities and at lower prices in the years after World War II. For the
first time, musicians such as Les Paul and engineers like Rudy Van Gelder
could use their own equipment and knowledge of music to customize the
sound of their recordings. This marked the beginning of a new way of making
records (and eventually CDs).