[Dixielandjazz] The art of recording

[Marek Boym]

Hello Mattias,
You say "I'm specifically thinking of Louis Armstrong's recording of
Atlanta Blues on his W.C. Handy album from the fifties, where he first
plays a trumpet obligato behind his own singing, and then sings a duet
with himself! Does this make it bad
music? I don't think so..."
Well, "Atlanta Blues" is not the only spliced tune on that record (how
about "St. Louis Blues," to my ears - the best I've ever heard);
however, Armstrong was Armstrong ewas Armstrong, full stop.  And,
still, I, for one, as a listener, would have preferred to hear all the
separate takes.
Support live jazz!
Cheers,
Marek


On 31/10/2007, cmhallin at algonet.se <cmhallin at algonet.se> wrote:
> It is with great interest that I have followed the discussions over the
> last few days on the philosophies and ideals of how music can and/or
> ought to be recorded.
>
> So that my comments on these issues can be read in their proper light,
> I should perhaps first of all declare where I stand, generally, on the
> art of recording. For me, this is very similar to what I think of using
> (e.g.) stock arrangements, as discussed here last month: in the final
> analysis, for me it is the end result that counts. If is sounds good,
> it is good, and how you got there is of secondary importance.
>
> More specifically, it is my opinion that, no matter you view on
> recording, it is of rather little value for this debate to claim the
> superiority of the recording practices of the direct engraving era, for
> the simple reason that (a few experiments aside) as long as you
> recorded directly to patrix, you really did'nt have much choice. What
> you played was what you got, because that was the only way to get
> anything at all. This is fair enough as it goes; however, we simply
> have no idea how the musicians of that era would have preferred to
> record, had they had access to the same techniques and equipments that
> we do.
>
> I do, of course and obviously, recognise and tremendously admire the
> enormous skills displayed by the recording musicians of the direct
> engraving era, in overcoming the severe limitations of having to get
> everything at least satisfactory in one and the same take.
>
> However, I don't think that recording everything in one and the same
> take makes the result intrinsically better than something recorded in
> multiple takes. This, in my opinion, is a romantic rather than a
> musical point of view (and I really wonder if those who claim the
> inherent superiority of single take over multiple could actually tell
> the difference in a blind test of modern recordings).
>
> As a matter of fact, we know of at least certain musicians who
> recorded in both periods that they were not averse to availing
> themselves of technolgy as it developed. I'm specifically thinking of
> Louis Armstrong's recording of Atlanta Blues on his W.C. Handy album
> from the fifties, where he first plays a trumpet obligato behind his
> own singing, and then sings a duet with himself! Does this make it bad
> music? I don't think so...
>
> This said, for my own recordings, I have always preferred to stay *as
> close as possible* to single take recording, although for slightly
> different reasons. In my view, music that is based on musicians
> reacting to and playing off each other as they go along(which should be
> that case for OKOM) , the result is likely to be musically richer and
> better if they're all playing at the same time.
>
> This, however, has never stopped me from what I would consider a
> judicious amount of splicing between takes, because on one we nailed
> the song but fluffed the ending, or re-recording and splicing on just
> the ending. When you have limited ressources (studio time ain't exactly
> cheap), this practice makes sense, compared to always re-recording the
> complete performance. Not to mention that with the latter, you also
> risk the band, or individual musicians, losing their spontaneity and
> getting fed up with the song through too many takes.
>
> Again, for me all of this boils down to this: a recording is not a
> live performance (unless, of course it purports to be a live recording)
> but a constructed piece of art, where what counts is whether or not you
> find the final result pleasing. Not necessarily perfect, or without
> fault. That is not what I mean. Something can have faults, and still be
> perfectly pleasing, or be perfect and faultlessly un-pleasing. If it
> sounds good to me, it is good to me. If the same thing sounds bad to
> you, it is of course bad to you, but only because of how it sounds to
> you, not how it came to be in the first place.
>
> Whew. Thus endeth my sermon, or at least my tuppence'orth input.
>
> All the best,
>
> /Mattias
>
>
> ---
> Mattias Hallin · Brussels · Belgium · <cmhallin at algonet.se>
>
> "Oh bury me thar! With my battered git-tar!
> A-screamin' my heart out fer yew!"
>
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