Recently I had occasion to read a thread on another BBS that tends to cater to more straight ahead jazz discussion. It had to do with opinions about vocalist Kurt Elling.

I was amazed at all the praise heaped upon him while he was putting out music for the Blue Note record label. But when he switched to Concord the praise descended into less-than-complimentary posts about his "Nitghtmoves" release.

For me "Nightmoves" is one of his very best and it got me to wondering how many of us will judge an artist strictly by the label with which he records? Jazz purists are obviously guilty of this, but I wondered about c-jazz fans.

Opinions???

Phil. Just go to All Music and read the comments about albums of contemporay jazz interprets. It sometimes really ridiculous how the jazz critics insist on non-jazz elements as malus.

Interesting question, Phil. I know there are people loyal to certain labels, but that has a lot more to do with how happy they are with the music put out by that label than it has to do with how an artist's sound may change after a switch.
Hbh is correct about AMG. Sometimes, the information there is helpful in getting some historical or factual information, but the writers' biases are very disturbing.

No, I am not loyal to any record label, but I do pay attention to them as a guide to what may appeal to me. After all, any company wise enough to have both the Yellowjackets and Spyro Gyra on its roster may have other good artists. Peace and goodwill.

I see the interest or loyalty to labels as a general music nerd thing, not just a jazz thing, because I've seen fans of other music do it too. Who else but a record geek would care, you know?

Personally it's interesting to me see who is where, but even some esteemed labels make absurd decisions about people's work, or someone amazing may be on a random label. It's a point of interest but not a foolproof barometer, that's for sure-- especially as so many are going indie now.

Maybe it's a carry-over from the 60's-70's time frame....in those days, it was a useful tool to get an idea of what a new artist may sound like; like Capricorn, which had the Allman Bros and other southern rock bands. Of course one totally different band of the time was on there, Sea Level, which I truly loved their music but it was waaay out of the Capricorn box; I would never had heard of them, tho, if not for the label.
Of course that whole label ended up badly anyway.....won't go there.

Another example is Atlantic ( sub division was Atco)- at the time, I thought, man if you've gotten signed by Atlantic/Atco you must be something great; those days they threw a lot of bucks at developing artists and promoting them. Like Led Zep- and lots of other styles of music, but generally good bands, like Rush, Matchbox 20, Genesis, Average White Band, Clapton, etc.
But they are obviously not what they used to be...just go to wikipedia and type in atco, look at the artist list. Wow.

With indie, self production, and "boutique" labels, the big labels seem to be more just about distribution than artist development...I doubt many major labels these days would put up with a Rolling Stones type band that needed years to develop.

Just my 2c...Clearly don't make buying decisions based on labels anymore.

Count me as a record geek, Leslie

TonyY

Labels? We don't need no stinkin' labels.

It's about the music, man....Couldn't care less.

COULDN'T AGREE MORE!

But on the other hand, which instrumental artist has so much money to make an expensive record, only labels can finance.

I honestly feel an Independent artist can track, mix, produce and master a great-sounding CD in his/her converted garage - thanks to 2008 technology.
Will the final product sound as good as if it were recorded at The Record Plant, for example? No, we still need those mothership recording studios to achieve that overwhelming, huge sound only the $200/hr studios can produce.

Having said that, it's very scary how close a good Independent artist can come to achieving that sound with today's technology. In fact, with the right engineer, today's artists ARE releasing tracks that sound BETTER than anything recorded before 1980 - ALL produced in their home studios.

That fact still doesn't diminish the appeal pre-1980 songs still hold today. Though not sonically equal to 2008 garage studio technology, these songs are still selling...
It IS all about the music!

The BIG money is needed for marketing, packaging, distribution and courting radio stations to play your music.

James is right. I think things get expensive when an artist has 50 musicians and vocalists, mixing and matching different lineups for different songs.
I know in some cases there's a certain "voice" they want for solos (Bob Mintzer on tenor or Kirk Whalum?), or maybe Vinnie Colaiuta isn't available to do an entire album, so Steve Ferrone, Lil' John Roberts and Josh Dion have to do a few tracks. But sometimes it gets crazy looking at these lineups. I'm not sure changing the arrangement of backup vocalists makes a difference in sound - the presence of Michael McDonald notwithstanding.
An instrumentalist who is not a businessman so to speak might need a label's help in marketing and distribution, but as far as the cost of producing, they can accomplish a lot today even with limited resources.

Honestly you hear the difference. I miss the wow-effect on the low-cost productions.

Honestly, I don't.
I mean, sure, if one song has all-females and another has all-males, that's an obvious difference. But where there's 2 or 3 backing vocalists, and there's a different mix on every song, I'm not hearing a distinction.
Maybe that's because my focus is on the instruments and the background vocalists are just that - background. Maybe it's because the songs are inherently different, and therefore a fair comparison of the contributing voices cannot be made. Either way, I'm not listening that closely to background voices on an otherwise instrumental recording to appreciate any individual vocal distinctions - save for the aforementioned Michael McDonald.

I would not call them "low cost productions" but rather "low quality productions". The wow effect comes from great writing, great playing, great production and then properly recording and mixing it all. And when it comes to jazz recording, big budgets have historically almost never been the issue except as regards using a ton of musicians as Woody pointed out. Personally, I think a unified band concept will almost always make a better jazz record than 50 players recorded in half a dozen studios by 10 different people.

James and Tony said "the big labels seem to be just about distribution" and I agree. Of course there are no big labels that are interested in jazz any more.

What makes anyone think a big label can (or is willing to) make a better recording than an independent artist? Heck ,look what Ken did with "Grace..? Just excellent.

I think there is just a trend in the public consciousness that extreme compression (lack of headroom and complete absence of dynamics) is what sounds good. I even think that for 3 minutes of listening, this method could almost sound more appealing....Radio certainly thinks so, but then jazz is not on the radio. Doh!! The problem is that music is not about consistant loudness, but is instead about creating an emotional response. This emotional response is achieved through many many many things, one of which is peaks and dips in the dynamics of a recording.
The exaggeration of highs in present recordings is due to the fact that bass is so exaggerated in present systems that the treble needs to bleed through a little more.

I am new to this forum, but I would like to hear this artists' music. Would you please give me his URL - Thanks

James

Hi James - I'm talking about Ken Navarro's latest release "Grace of Summer Light." There's a few threads on it on the forum lists. Also, Ken joins in on some of the threads on occasion.

I was really into shredder guitar material back in the 80's and early 90's and I was in love with Shrapnel Records. I thought the owner (Mike Varney) had a tremendous eye & ear for talent, and I gobbled up everything he put out (and genuinely liked it!)

Now, I could care less. If it sounds good to me...I like it, regardless of the label.

Thanks for the info, SH.

Peace
James

Ken Navarro's Meeting Place and Grace of.. are both exceptional efforts, and the sound quality is superb, stunning even. SH, hallelujah for someone who uses very very little compression, right?

However, I think Ken is a rare bird in that respect; he's very meticulous, very picky, and takes complete responsibility for all the control that he has over his music...in other words, it's the only way he CAN do it that would please him. Now, a big label, like Verve, could do it too, but it'd cost a ton, require ten people at least, and probably wouldn't get to market much faster except that since Ken does it all, it will naturally take him longer than a team of sound engineers etc.

The problem with a lot of the indies that I've heard is the lower quality of talent AND production. Not everyone can be a Ken, there's a lot of talented musicians that have no clue how to run a business, and for them a major label may be the only way. Which means a lot of the borderline artists won't get signed, and therefore won't make a living at it. But that's ok in a lot of ways, would cut out a lot of the wannabes and clutter.

Since we're in an imperfect world there are no perfect systems for each style of music to get out there, so I will continue to rely on places like this BBS to find new music. As I said before, not many big labels I would trust to give me my money's worth anymore, and not many indie labels that aren't too narrowly focused, where it all ends up sounding alike too.

It's a challenge these days.
Rather than wade through CD Baby, I usually go to iTunes first, or to the artists' website, like Ken's.

Later
TonyY

I still don't understand the relationship between the label and the artist when it comes to how a cd is recorded?

Anybody have Michael Brecker's "Pilgrimage"? It sounds like analog vinyl. Very well done, not HOT, not compressed. It's on Heads Up yet there are other bigtime artists on Heads Up where I found the recordings rather hot and compressed. So who's controlling it? The artists or the label?

Search on the CD after the technical producer. Executive producer: Darryl Pitt, associate producers: Dave Love & Wulf Muller.

Right, so are those Head Up employees? Friends of the bands? I don't have the cd in front of me but I thought Steve Rodby had his hands in it too?

Darryl Pitt was Brecker's long-time manager. Dave Love is president of Heads Up International and responsible for many productions of this label.

More information about the recordings is published here:

http://mixonline.com/recording/tracking/audio_michael_brecker/

Thanks for the link Hans - very interesting story. No info on mastering but everything else about the recording process was discussed. I heard that Metheny worked on this music some more after the fact - Pro Tools makes that possible, for better or for worse.

Tony and Steve - thanks very much for the good words about "Grace". Also, I know that you guys, like me, are discerning about sound quality so I especially appreciate your comments about that element of my new CD.

Yeah, Steve, I don't really understand how this belief that louder is better started but all I can say is that once you get off that road, you really wonder how you ever got on it. I think it boils down to fear on the record labels' part (and sometimes the artists too), fear that your record won't be as loud as the next persons and somehow people won't perceive it as full and strong. But what really turned me around was a friend of mine who has great ears and notices everything who said to me - "Oh, when a CD seems a little softer, I just turn it up a bit". So why do record labels, producers and artists continue to choose to compromise a great mix just to make it 2-3 db louder and much more compressed? I for one simply won't do it.

Regarding the Brecker CD (what a fantastic CD!) - since it was conceived/perceived as a more stright ahead, acoustic project, I think it was mastered accordingly. But I think all music sounds better with all of the original dynamics!

Wulf mueller is VP of marketing at Universal for classics and jazz, or at least I thought he was-- is Heads Up part of Universal?

Either way, not responsible for the mix either!

I also read that Leslie. May be there are two Wulfs. Wuw wuw.

Ken I'm absolutely corresponding with your statement about dynamics. Don't let it go to red.

Regarding the "fear" factor, I wonder if it has anything to do with so many "fans" wanting amplified bass. They buy super woofers. They crank it up until the sound is distorted and the rest of the instruments are drowned out.
They talk about liking "that bass," but are clueless as to what a bass (acoustic or electric) is supposed to sound like.
Is it possible that these amplification and compression issues are an industry response to that particular market?

Very interesting point, Woody.

There is no question in my mind that the bottom end particularly suffers when compression and brick wall limiting are over used in the mixing and/or mastering process. It's bad enough when it happens to the sound of an electric bass but when an acoustic bass is squashed, it loses the heart and soul of it's character. I worked very hard on the acoustic bass sound on "Grace..." to keep it full and present but always natural and "woody". That said, it always starts with great playing on a great acoustic instrument, recorded with a great mic.

I think that the bass content can have a lot to do with a listener's overall perception of the fullness and loudness of a record. But achieving it through compression and artifical coloring (EQ) ultimately makes the listener's ears feel fatigued.

If this is an industry response to what it thinks the public wants, it's just part of an overall desire to be the loudest, hottest sounding product out there.

Yes, no doubt...the compression just kills any natural decay of the instrument timbre, which, like Ken just said fatigues the ear.

Woody, I agree and we've touched on this before. I don't have stats but the VAST MAJORITY of music listeners out there (if not in their cars) use an Ipod with the $5 provided earbuds. I'm somewhat shocked that such a high percentage of people are content with this set up but it has much to do with lower expectations and how the music is marketed and how it is played in clubs. Hip hop and rap is still very popular and the main sound attribute is bass and impact...quite easy to sloppily duplicate with cheap earphones. When I was growing up, and certainly before the digital portable age there was FAR more diversity in music listening "set-ups". Few used the same headphones. You saw more people wearing Beyer Dynamics, Grados, AKG's and Sennheisers because they were sold in brick and mortar audio stores but those no longer exist. Probably 80% of audio listening gear is currently sold through online internet stores. This plays right into the dumbing down of the listening experience. Run down to Target, Best Buy or Circuit City and pick up some "Marshmellow Earphones."

I agree -- some of the early Beatles stuff was pretty raw, but it was good.

I also think one can be positive or negative about the labels -- they do seem to have a big impact on "What the artist is allowed to do", so the label's gift of artistic freedom can do a lot to influence the sound of the artist.

For example, Windham Hill seemed to squelch the Spyro Gyra I knew and loved with "Got the Magic". I was so disappointed that the only song that seemed to have the same sparkle was a vocal track called Springtime Laughter that wasn't even one of their compositions and didn't sounds much like them. I think a more appropriate title for that CD might've been "Lost the Magic" (by the way, I still love Spyro Gyra in spite of that comment I just made). People on the board here have indicated they think it was the influence of the label to put the music into a smoother jazz format that was culprit.

On the other hand, the consensus seems to be that Heads Up allows the band more freedom, and after listening to a few productions from that label, it seems that it brings out the best in the artists. So I think there is some merit in being loyal to a label -- so long as they let the musicians do their best...

A faithful companion to the "lower expectations" is the convenience factor. Between iPods, file sharing and cheap CD burners, a lot of people settle for poor quality because they can get more stuff, get it faster and not pay much for it (if pay at all).
Consider the bootleg culture. Yes, there are a few pirates out there who get their hands on quality recordings and make quality copies. But the vast majority of them are cheap ripoffs. If it's a DVD, the image is fuzzy and murky instead of clear and bright. The sound is muffled, but if you can make out every other word, that's okay. You got it for cheap/free, so you don't mind mediocre quality.