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Laying Down Tracks: Producing Multitrack Recordings, 1967–1990

Michael Jarrett

in Pressed for All Time: Producing the Great Jazz Albums from Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday to Miles Davis and Diana Krall

Recording jazz onto multitrack tape meant that, while music continued to be captured onto tape in studios, albums could be constructed in postproduction: analogous to the way movies were shot on ... More

Recording jazz onto multitrack tape meant that, while music continued to be captured onto tape in studios, albums could be constructed in postproduction: analogous to the way movies were shot on soundstages and assembled in editing rooms. Some musicians—especially Miles Davis and his jazz fusion bands—directed improvisations in the recording studio and left the task of assembling albums to their producers. Audiences for such albums heard, not studio games of cut 'n' paste, but tracks that resembled the turn-on-a-dime musical performances they heard in concert—performances which imitated techniques devised in postproduction. Enabling the naiveté of this audience is an overarching truth: jazz production almost always uses available technologies to ensure that in-the-moment performances are recorded (and, later, reproduced) as perfectly as possible.Less

Rolling Tape: Producing Jazz LPs, 1950–1966

Michael Jarrett

in Pressed for All Time: Producing the Great Jazz Albums from Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday to Miles Davis and Diana Krall

The A&R man became a record producer with the development of magnetic tape (a spoil of World War II) and the introduction of the vinyl long-playing record by Columbia Records in 1948. Producers could ... More

The A&R man became a record producer with the development of magnetic tape (a spoil of World War II) and the introduction of the vinyl long-playing record by Columbia Records in 1948. Producers could capture on tape—for reproduction and sale on records—jazz that had routinely happened for many years only on various stages. When recording technology caught up with the actual practice of improvising musicians, jazz discovered an ideal form in the "album." George Avakian's visionary work with Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Erroll Garner, Buck Clayton, and Dave Brubeck realized what could be done with the new format and technology. The productions of Milt Gabler, Bob Weinstock, Esmond Edwards, Don Schlitten Teo Macero, Bob Thiele, Orrin Keepnews, Nesuhi Ertegun, Creed Taylor, Lester Koenig, Nat Hentoff ushered in a golden age for jazz.Less

The Software Slump?1 Digital Music, the Democratization of Technology, and the Decline of the Recording Studio Sector within the Musical Economy

Andrew Leyshon

in Reformatted: Code, Networks, and the Transformation of the Music Industry

This chapter explores another area of the musical economy which has been radically transformed through software and code: the recording studio sector. It reveals how it encouraged a vertical ... More

This chapter explores another area of the musical economy which has been radically transformed through software and code: the recording studio sector. It reveals how it encouraged a vertical disintegration of production in musical agglomerations from the late 1970s on and, in so doing, helped leading recording centres to strengthen their hold on the market for recording budgets. However, the impact of software since the mid-1990s has been less benign for such centres. The rise of more affordable digital recording rigs and easier programming protocols represents a democratization of technology, making available a process that was once only accessible through a recording studio. Software and code have made possible a regime of distributed musical creativity, and the recording studio sector is undergoing a severe crisis which has produced a spate of studio closures, redundancies and underemployment within musical agglomerations.Less

Production

Jonathan Bignell

in Beckett on Screen: The Television Plays

This chapter discusses the importance of the technologies that were used in making the five dramas Beckett wrote for British television. It studies television adaptations of Beckett's theatre plays, ... More

This chapter discusses the importance of the technologies that were used in making the five dramas Beckett wrote for British television. It studies television adaptations of Beckett's theatre plays, which were recorded in a television studio. It examines the work done on the aesthetics of television and also notes how changes on production technologies affected Beckett's work and other productions. This chapter also discusses the aesthetic significance of studio production and the plays' uses of film recording technology in the television studio.Less

Recording to Hard Drive: Producing Digitally, 1991–2013

Michael Jarrett

in Pressed for All Time: Producing the Great Jazz Albums from Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday to Miles Davis and Diana Krall

When digital audio workstations (DAWs) do not multiply recording options to unthinkable levels of over-choice, they have simplified and automated tasks that were exceedingly difficult and time ... More

When digital audio workstations (DAWs) do not multiply recording options to unthinkable levels of over-choice, they have simplified and automated tasks that were exceedingly difficult and time consuming to execute on analog tape. But they have informed jazz production most profoundly in the smallest sorts of ways. Fixing the little stuff that once marred, otherwise stellar, performances is now very quick and easy. A number of jazz recordings discussed in this chapter were not recorded digitally, and when they were, many of their producers merely treated digital tape and hard drives as the new, perhaps "improved," analog tape. Much of the time, in the world of jazz production a potentially revolutionary technology is just added to—and conceptualized in terms of–what was already available.Less

Mass Media and Music in the Arab Persian Gulf

Michael Frishkopf

in Music and Media in the Arab World

The advent of recording and broadcast technologies had a profound impact on music making in the Arab Persian Gulf. Unlike many other parts of the world, however, the arrival of mass-mediated music ... More

The advent of recording and broadcast technologies had a profound impact on music making in the Arab Persian Gulf. Unlike many other parts of the world, however, the arrival of mass-mediated music accompanied a period of dramatic economic, social, and political transformation in the region. This chapter presents an overview of mass media technologies, their musical ramifications, and the interplay of music in mass media with concurrent societal developments from the early twentieth century to the present. Although today the Gulf has become synonymous with oil and wealth, the region was very different at the beginning of the twentieth century, when pearling, date farming, and long-distance trade dominated the local economy. Most of the music traditions involved in mass-mediated music in the Gulf are either urban traditions or urban versions of maritime or Bedouin music.Less

Projecting Emotions: Motion Pictures, Social Science, and Emotional Self-Control

Brenton J. Malin

in Feeling Mediated: A History of Media Technology and Emotion in America

This chapter looks at a set of scientific and popular concerns about motion pictures and related recording technologies, focusing primarily on the work of psychologist Christian Ruckmick. As a ... More

This chapter looks at a set of scientific and popular concerns about motion pictures and related recording technologies, focusing primarily on the work of psychologist Christian Ruckmick. As a researcher in Carl Seashore's Iowa laboratory, he uses apparatuses such as the psycho-galvanometer to analyze a range of communication phenomena. Ruckmick was the primary researcher on one of the two Payne Fund motion picture studies completed at Iowa. This research demonstrated an interesting array of anxieties both within the general culture and among early twentieth-century social scientists. The same technological power that made motion pictures dangerous stimulants of emotion made the recording apparatuses of the laboratory ideal for emotional analysis. These technologies allowed Ruckmick and his colleagues to project an image of an emotionally controlled, scientific objectivity that sought to highlight their own immunity to the emotions of the new media age.Less

A Personal View of the Music

Floyd Levin

in Classic Jazz: A Personal View of the Music and the Musicians

This chapter explores the colorful history of jazz. It pieces together the origins of great jazz recordings, hit songs, and important performances. Next, it takes a look at some of the popular jazz ... More

This chapter explores the colorful history of jazz. It pieces together the origins of great jazz recordings, hit songs, and important performances. Next, it takes a look at some of the popular jazz groups and singers, such as the 369th Infantry Jazz band, Spud Murphy, and Jack Teagarden. It also studies the first recorded hit of the jazz age and the world premiere of “Rhapsody in Blue.” The chapter also studies the development of recording technology by studying Dick Hyman's recording session, which included the direct-to-CD production of Dick Hyman Plays Duke Ellington.Less

Cutting Sides: Producing 78-RPM Discs, 1936–1949

Michael Jarrett

in Pressed for All Time: Producing the Great Jazz Albums from Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday to Miles Davis and Diana Krall

Production before the advent of magnetic tape—in the era of 78-RPM records—emphasized "pre-production." A&R men (short for "artists and repertoire") chose artists to record, and they paired songs ... More

Production before the advent of magnetic tape—in the era of 78-RPM records—emphasized "pre-production." A&R men (short for "artists and repertoire") chose artists to record, and they paired songs from the publishing firms of Tin Pan Alley with artists. The A&R work of Milt Gabler (at Commodore and Decca Records) and John Hammond and George Avakian (at Columbia) is exemplary. Gabler organized a series of jam sessions, which he recorded. Avakian produced Chicago Jazz (1940), the first jazz "album" of original material. As part of their popular music divisions the major labels—Columbia, Decca, and RCA Victor—record and market jazz. A number of specialty labels emerge: Commodore, Prestige, Contemporary, Verve, Blue Note, Atlantic, Riverside, and Savoy. Though dependent on pressing plants owned by the majors, they reflect the production philosophies of the connoisseurs who founded and owned them.Less

Overview of Greek Music in America¹

Tina Bucuvalas and Stavros K. Frangos

in Greek Music in America

Members of the diaspora brought with them to America a taste for all the extrapolations of music in Greece. During the early twentieth century, a flood of immigration combined with commercial record ... More

Members of the diaspora brought with them to America a taste for all the extrapolations of music in Greece. During the early twentieth century, a flood of immigration combined with commercial record production generated unparalleled documentation of ethnic music. Ethnic recordings are invaluable documents of community musical practices and preferences in America. They also represented the daily lives of Greek immigrants and the perils that afflicted them. This chapter examines the major events and social issues affecting Greeks in America within the context of various time periods (1880-1918, 1918-1933, 1933-1945, 1945-1960, 1960-1975, 1975-1990, 1990-2015), as well as the major trends in musical genre, style, venues, artists, and technology.Less

Cadenza: Don Schlitten on Producing Jazz Records

Michael Jarrett

in Pressed for All Time: Producing the Great Jazz Albums from Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday to Miles Davis and Diana Krall

An interview with record producer Don Schlitten, serving as an overview (and survey) of jazz record production. It contrasts the recording of jazz with other types of popular music.

Should Black Boxes Be Welcome in Medicine?

Michael D. Stein and Sandro Galea

in Pained: Uncomfortable Conversations about the Public's Health

This chapter explores the use of “black boxes” in surgeries. When an airplane goes down, there is an urgent search for the plane’s black box. The black box contains both the audio recording of all ... More

This chapter explores the use of “black boxes” in surgeries. When an airplane goes down, there is an urgent search for the plane’s black box. The black box contains both the audio recording of all cockpit discussion, as well as a recording of flight instrument readings. These two flight recorders are required by international regulation and together offer the best possibility of learning what happened in the minutes preceding any aviation accident or incident. A version of this kind of recording technology—which captures medical conversation and physiological parameters, allowing for postsurgery analysis—is starting to make its way into the world of medicine. However, this new technology raises important questions: Will surgeons and other health professionals be put in malpractice jeopardy by such new information? Will patients and their families become more likely to sue? Will more information undermine patient trust? Ultimately, medicine aspires to create a culture of continual improvement. As such, one can imagine black box technology entering medicine widely over the next years.Less

The Death Rattle of a Laughing Hyena: The Sound of Musical Democracy

Albin J. Zak

in The Relentless Pursuit of Tone: Timbre in Popular Music

In 1958, record producer Mitch Miller vehemently criticized the state of Top 40 radio. He argued that DJs were pandering excessively to the tastes of teenagers and playing low-quality popular music. ... More

In 1958, record producer Mitch Miller vehemently criticized the state of Top 40 radio. He argued that DJs were pandering excessively to the tastes of teenagers and playing low-quality popular music. This criticism was aimed largely at rock and roll records produced by the low-budget, independent recording firms with whom he now found himself in competition. This chapter traces the development of the major-labels’ novel pop music production practices in the 1950s, specifically the use of overdubbing, unconventional arrangements, added reverb, and Foley effects. These techniques are compared with indie-label recording, which captured more populist genres with less expensive postproduction capabilities. Finally, the chapter traces the aesthetics of DIY (do-it-yourself) records made by amateur musicians-turned-radio-stars, and concludes with a discussion of the lasting effects of these 1950s pop music crosscurrents.Less

Versions of Neutrality: Denis Johnston’s War Reports

Ian Whittington

in Writing the Radio War: Literature, Politics and the BBC, 1939-1945

As his job with the BBC News Division took him from the deserts of Egypt, through Italy, to the gates of Buchenwald, Irish playwright Denis Johnston struggled with a multiply determined neutrality ... More

As his job with the BBC News Division took him from the deserts of Egypt, through Italy, to the gates of Buchenwald, Irish playwright Denis Johnston struggled with a multiply determined neutrality which inhered partly in his role of war correspondent, and partly in circumstances specific to his own life. In particular, Johnston sought to balance the ideal of journalistic objectivity with the need to convey the emotional horrors of the struggle, all while serving as a politically neutral Protestant Irishman within a semi-autonomous British broadcaster. Johnston’s position as a neutral mediator was intensified by the development of newly compact recording technologies which allowed him to record actuality broadcasts, commentary, and interviews in the field—in a sense, to allow the war to speak for itself. For all these traces of immediacy, after the war Johnston would frame his experience in a heavily embellished and fantastical memoir, Nine Rivers from Jordan (1953). By weaving together Johnston’s war broadcasts, his journals, and his memoir, this chapter illustrates how journalistic objectivity and literary experiment existed in productive tension during the war; at the same time, Johnston’s postwar response to the atrocities of the holocaust reveal a journalist shaken by the moral vacuum revealed in wartime Europe.Less

The Role of Money

Ed Nosal and Guillaume Rocheteau

in Money, Payments, and Liquidity

Building on the previous chapter’s presentation of credit arrangements that allow intertemporal gains from trade to be exploited by agents, this chapter studies agents under an environment of ... More

Building on the previous chapter’s presentation of credit arrangements that allow intertemporal gains from trade to be exploited by agents, this chapter studies agents under an environment of distrust. Assuming that buyers and sellers have no trust for one another due to the lack of commitment in repaying their debts, trade by credit may not be incentive feasible. If ever trade were to occur, agents would need a kind of tangible medium of exchange. The chapter demonstrates that money is essential in an environment where agents cannot commit and there is no record-keeping technology. The role of money is the record-keeping technology itself.Less

The Spectromorphology of Recorded Popular Music: The Shaping of Sonic Cartoons through Record Production

Simon Zagorski-Thomas

in The Relentless Pursuit of Tone: Timbre in Popular Music

This chapter explores the cognitive processes involved in listening to electronically mediated music. Drawing on theories of embodied cognition, the chapter argues that the record-production process ... More

This chapter explores the cognitive processes involved in listening to electronically mediated music. Drawing on theories of embodied cognition, the chapter argues that the record-production process can result in “sonic cartoons,” with certain aspects of a performance accentuated and others attenuated. This can lead to paradoxical listening experiences, such as an acoustic sound rendered antinaturalistically or an electronic sound imitating the behavior of a real sound-producing event. The chapter illustrates these perceptual ambiguities with examples of spectrographic analyses of acoustic works by Shania Twain and Terence Blanchard, in addition to electronic works by Aphex Twin and William Orbit.Less