Mics and mic set up on old jazz records

[capnreverb]

Don't you live it on some of these old records when the photos on them show a glimpse of the recording process? One of my favorite LP's of all time is Jimmy Giufffre's "Thesis", and inside the gatefold is the trio recording the record arranged in a triangle playing into a single akg c24. So cool.

On the back of Miles "Kind Of Blue" he's sitting there with some big ass mic that looks like a neumann.

When I am at used record stores going through jazz lp's I will often look to see what mics are being shown, even if it's some shitty record.

[monkey boy]

this book (i think it's this one. read it a while back) has some interesting info about recording Kind Of Blue. and nice studio pics too...

Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece


aa

[bigtoe]

there's a book on love supreme as well. great idea for a book. more, please.

Mike

[cgarges]

Both are excellent books by Ashley Kahn. I think they're both available by Penguine.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[Brett Siler]

I watched some documentary on Miles Davis and it was showing them recording "Bitches Brew" live. It was awesome seeing Miles and John McLaughlin playing together.

[Bwanasonic]

A while back I heard an interview with Al Kooper, talking about how the evolution and availability of high quality german microphones made the whole hi-fi thing possible. I know he was teaching a course at Berklee touching on this. Don't know if he has anything in print with specifics.

Kerry M

[hollywood_steve]

The whole condenser mic thing didn't really get started in the USA until the mid-50's or so. I have dozens of photos from the 40's and 50s that show jazz sessions where the whole band is playing into a single RCA 44 or maybe a 44 and a 77. RCA, and to a lesser extent Western/Altec, EV and Shure were all much larger players in the studio mic scene here in the USA. Until Neumann and AKG started getting more popular in the latter half of the 50s.

[cgarges]

One of my favorite LP's of all time is Jimmy Giufffre's "Thesis", and inside the gatefold is the trio recording the record arranged in a triangle playing into a single akg c24. So cool.

Is that the same picture on the back of Jimmy Giuffre 3, 1961? That's a cool shot. They look like they're around an SM2 and up higher in the room (near the camera) are an M49/50 and a C12/251. Jimmy and Steve Swallow are on risers. That's a cool record, too.

That's one of the few photos I've ever seen from an ECM session. Manfred Eischer was VERY protective of his recording techniques.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[Cellotron]

According to the Kind of Blue book (which is truly a fantastic read) it was recorded on Ampex 3-tracks (they had a second going also as a safety copy) at 15ips with Scotch 190 tape. 7 Telefunken U-49's used going to a custom built tube console. Every player had a mic and there were two on Jimmy Cobb (1 overhead, 1 towards snare). Trane & piano (either Bill Evans or Wyn Kelly) to left track, Miles & Paul chambers (bass) to center track, Cannonball & drums to right track. They had a concrete 12x15 reverberation chamber built in the building that they had a speaker feed to miced with an omni and they mixed some of the return into the center track also. A huge amount of the sound was the Columbia 30th St. Studio's room - nice and large, vaulted ceilings, with some minor baffling placed up between the players. Engineer was Fred Plaut, Irving Townsend producing, Bob Waller was the tape op.

damn - one of the greatest performances of all times, and it still sounds amazing!!

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Old-Draftsman]

I was inspired by this thread so much that I broke out the Crown Royal, a couple "Miles" cd's (ex wife destroyed all my lp's) hooked up the old Marantz amp to the AR4's and I'm "mellow" now.

Thanks fellows, I'll just dedicate this afternoon to "jazz therapy" on an old fart and enjoy the results of the tunes and the way they were recorded.

[hausofreanimation]

On the sleeve of my vinyl copy of Gil Evans' Out of the Cool, there is a map of how the band was set up and what mics were used.

I don't know how readable this is, but here is a link to the image:

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-8/7 ... levans.jpg

[capnreverb]

One of my favorite LP's of all time is Jimmy Giufffre's "Thesis", and inside the gatefold is the trio recording the record arranged in a triangle playing into a single akg c24. So cool.

Is that the same picture on the back of Jimmy Giuffre 3, 1961? That's a cool shot. They look like they're around an SM2 and up higher in the room (near the camera) are an M49/50 and a C12/251. Jimmy and Steve Swallow are on risers. That's a cool record, too.

That's one of the few photos I've ever seen from an ECM session. Manfred Eischer was VERY protective of his recording techniques.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

Hate to give a history lesson, but since Mr. Giuffre and Robert Wyatt are my idols, i got to set the record straight. 1961 is a reissue + extra tracks from two albums - "thesis" and " fusion" both released on Verve. Thses are the only records that ECM has ever re-issued from another label.

It's kind of cool that even though it was recorded in 1961, it sounds like it could have been done yesterday. There are few jazz lp's like that, Even giants like "a love supreme" and "kind of blue" sound like the time they were made.

For those who are not aware of who Jimmy Giuffre is and his importance in modern music should really check him out. Jimmy Giuffre started out playing/writing/ and doing arrangements for big bands in the late 40's. In the early 50's he started to branch out in a very singular direction, and by the late 50's was doing a weird kind of "folk" jazz, usually in small drummerless groups. A 10" he did around 54' with shelly manne and shorty rogers has some of the first true "free" jazz released to the public. He was constantly breaking down the barriers and rules of what jazz was supposed to be. When we hit 61' he was all ready more "far out" than cecil taylor or coltrane. Cecil and Trane where pushing boundries, but giuffre was dispensing of them entirely, but in a very "quiet" way, using space and texture along with dissonance and free improvisation. Then comes 1962 and the recording of his "free fall" lp for columbia records. Oh shit!!!!! He has dispensed with structure time and tonality. This lp sounds more like ultra modern classical more so than jazz. It's astonishing that columbia even put this thing out. It is magnificent. So, he took music as far as it was to go -----(even in 62' trane was still playing modal over vamps that hinted at freedom, and cecil may have been pushing the boundries but he still had a drummer chugging along keeping time and a pulse)----and did all there was too- he quit playing. He did not record again till the 70's. Jimmy Giuffre is one of the biggest influences on European improvised music, and really is the first architect of free jazz.


By the way, ECM recordings sound to me like Hat Art recordings with a lot of room sound/reverb.

[cgarges]

Hate to give a history lesson, but since Mr. Giuffre and Robert Wyatt are my idols, i got to set the record straight. 1961 is a reissue + extra tracks from two albums - "thesis" and " fusion" both released on Verve. Thses are the only records that ECM has ever re-issued from another label.

Cool. Thanks for the tip. I borrowed that CD from a friend of mine a while back. Great stuff! Are you a clarinet player, by chance?

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC