[Dixielandjazz] Re: A rant on the unamplified rhythm section

[Don Mopsick]

Paul Edgerton writes:



"The antidote to all of this is exemplified by the Jim Cullum band. Every
time I have heard them, they've been unamplified. Yes, there may be a PA
system, but that's not what sets the volume on the stage -- the musicians
themselves do.

"Somehow, they manage to balance horns with unamplified acoustic
instruments. The trumpet dominates the ensemble sound, as it should. Every
instrument can be heard in its proper acoustic perspective. When a softer
instrument gets a solo, the others just PLAY SOFTER."


Sometimes Howard uses a mike to slightly reinforce his wonderful chunk chunk
guitar, which is the pizza dough that holds the whole thing together. The
beautiful chunk chunk banjo is never amplified because it cuts through so
clearly.



When Jim Cullum called me to audition for the job with his band, he told me
that amps are forbidden. That's one of the main things that attracted me to
the job. I had always hated the unmusical tone quality that an amp and
bridge pickup gives to a bass fiddle, besides ruining the attack.



I thought you all would enjoy what Dick Hyman has to say about this
(reproduced in the Jazz Me News with Dick's permission. To subscribe to the
Jazz Me News, go to www.riverwalk.org and follow the links at the bottom of
the green navbar on left.):



ACOUSTIC THOUGHTS WHILE HEARING BRENDEL PLAY

By Dick Hyman



We would have spent the evening differently, had it not been for an old
friend who offered two tickets to a special Carnegie Hall concert. And we
would have missed a great event. On the bill was the Y Chamber Symphony, a
prestigious group conducted by Gerard Schwarz, and Alfred Brendel. one of
the great pianists of this era, and a distinguished Beethoven specialist.



Julia and I found ourselves in fourth row orchestra seats on the keyboard
side, no more than 20 feet from the performers. The all-Beethoven program
opened with the Fifth Symphony, a work which has survived its association
with the V-for-victory slogan of World War II (the rhythm of the opening
theme is the same as that of the Morse Code letter "V"), and has even
continued to be heard in its original form despite the success of Walter
Murphy's 1976 disco adaptation "A Fifth Of Beethoven" and a similarly
mechanistic treatment in "Hooked On Classics." It is difficult to be
convincing when presenting an overly familiar piece, but Mr. Schwarz
conducted a dramatic performance.



During the intermission, Mr. Brendel's Steinway was moved center stage. When
the orchestra was again in place, the artist himself appeared, took his
seat, and, after a moment's eye contact with Mr. Schwarz, began the solo
opening phrase of the "Fourth Concerto." At the time this concerto was
written, it was normal for the orchestra to state the entire exposition of
the first-movement themes before the solo instrument made its entrance, but
Beethoven's remarkable game plan has the piano begin the movement by itself,
proposing a relatively brief theme to which the orchestra responds at
surprising length. During this response, Brendel adjusted his seat and sat
poised patiently. (From my own more commercial background a fantasy floated
through my mind: The soloist, trapped in overtime on another gig, arrives
onstage in a panic several minutes late and sneaks onto his seat hoping that
no one has noticed his arrival. In this concerto he would have missed only
the short piano intro, and the conductor, equally panicked, might have begun
without him....I guiltily put aside such speculation to concentrate on the
performance.)



The piano re-entered, and a dialogue between soloist and orchestra built a
symbiosis in which the orchestra might at one moment support the soloist, at
another go its own way, at still another subside altogether while the piano
played unaccompanied. Brendel was a marvel of expressivity and clarity.
Every tone, every phrase was exactly right in relation to the whole. In the
first movement Beethoven used sonata form like a wordless novel. The
listener was introduced to a protagonist and a host of secondary characters
and allowed to follow them through plot complications, conflict,
reconciliation, and denouement, all in the abstract.



In the slow second movement there was a moment which made me feel as if I
were watching an incredible trapeze artist, worried that he might plunge to
the ground. Brendel had neared the end of a sensitive phrase during which
each tone had become softer than the last in coordination with a graceful
ritardando. At the next to last note, one feared that he could not possibly
settle on the final one with the ultimate delicacy demanded by the line. He
sustained the penultimate note until it had all but died away, then
concluded at last with a tone even softer. In the row ahead of me, my
neighbor turned to his companion and smiled in marveling awe.



While one side of my brain followed Beethoven's inexorable logic and
Brendel's exquisite playing, the other side was entertaining quite different
thoughts. I myself have been on the august stage of Carnegie Hail a fair
number of times, and have wondered on each occasion whether we ought to be
performing with natural sound, as at this concert, taking advantage of the
hall's magnificent acoustics. Pragmatically, however, in every situation I
can recall we have used some form of audio amplification.



This is not to say that I cannot imagine an acoustic jazz concert at
Carnegie. Solo piano obviously works fine. The trouble begins when bass is
added. An unamplified bass simply doesn't project satisfactory, at least not
with the presence to which we have grown accustomed. The acoustic problem
grows worse when we add the drum set. Even if the drummer limits himself to
playing with brushes on the snare and cymbals, this tends to distract from
the sound of the piano, and as soon as our man picks up his sticks, the game
is up. At that point one is forced to acknowledge that, as far as the role
of the acoustic piano is concerned, a jazz combo is inherently unbalanced in
volume; a jazz band of any size is even worse.



Amplification leads to more amplification. From the point of view of the
bass player, it is understandable for him to want to keep turning the knob
to the right. Not only does his tone gain in presence, his agility is
greater since he can play with less force. Having turned up, however, he is
liable to be carried away by the excitement of the song and may well play
just as hard as he would have at the lower volume setting. The raised level
of the bass, in turn, requires that the drummer play louder. There is no way
that the poor pianist can match the pair acoustically except by playing more
forcefully than he ought to, which may lead to a hard tone and less than
facile technique. Even then, he will probably be overwhelmed. Add an
electric guitar to the group, and it is easy to see how tempting it is for
the pianist to switch to an electric keyboard altogether.



The answer, and it is not a perfect one, is to convince the bass player that
we know he is there, even if we do not hear the tramping of dinosaurs, to
beg the drummer to percuss in a more moderate fashion, and to apply a
microphone to the piano. The piano mike does not have to be very loud,
merely sufficient for the player to hear himself while others are playing.



Our acoustic problem is also related to the requirements of singers. Since
pop-jazz singers do not project in the manner of opera singers, they must be
amplified. Pop singing since Bing Crosby has depended on the use of the
microphone, and an entire idiom has come about because of the discovery in
the '20s of microphone technique. This is well and good, but the corollary
is that the accompanying instruments, at least the piano, must also be
amplified to match the voice.



Stage monitor speakers, in my opinion, are a cure for acoustical problems
which is worse than the disease. While their ostensible function is to keep
scattered sections of the orchestra in touch with one another, my experience
is that they often add to the general muddle of sound, so that the players
get progressively louder in an effort to project their individual parts. I
certainly didn't see any monitors onstage during the Beethoven concert, and
there were 40-odd musicians up there, frequently all playing at the same
time - and very nicely, too. A full-sized symphony orchestra, which the Y
Chamber Symphony is not, may consist of up to 100 people, none of them
screaming to stagehands to get them a monitor.



One more point needs to be made: Pianists like Alfred Brendel are trained to
play with a full dynamic range, from very soft to very loud. Jazz pianists
generally play within a more circumscribed range. When Brendel plays softly,
however, it is not necessarily the pianissimo the audience assumes it to be.
He is able to play tenderly and delicately and still cause his sound to sing
out. Many of us, on the other hand, have come to depend lamely on
amplification and have not thought enough about projection.



On the positive side, a new idiom has been created with an esthetic based on
the technology of amplified sound. Without even thinking about synthesizers,
we should consider the variety of guitar styles, the enriched possibilities
of tone control and agility for brass instruments played directly into a
microphone, the use of an amplified flute, the dazzling technique of
amplified bass players. My plea, therefore, is not to do away with all
amplification. Rather, it is to use it only as needed for balance in halls
such as Carnegie. And perhaps, for chamber jazz, we might attempt now and
then to get by with none at all, everyone playing more softly than usual.



>From "Dick Hyman: Piano Pro" (c) 1992 Ekay Music Inc. Reproduced with
permission of the author.