The conundrum of live performances of classic records

[hermes1]

"And for most non HipHop musicians I met it is the same. Bob James told me he cant understand why everybody sampled the cowbells from Mardi Gras. He said to me ???Why arent these people take a cowbell by themselfs and replay the pattern and record it ?????.





It is the SOUND.





For people like me it is the composition AND the sound which makes a great record. A great composition can be destroyed when its presented in weak sound.





Now here comes the problem.





WHAT is weak sound ??





Ask a guy who is audiophile and he will probably tell you how weak and destroyed the stuff sounds we listen to.





So hermes1 can the sound be recreated live ??





1.


Yes it could, but first you need people who are aware of this ???problem???. And like I showed you, most people do not care like us."





I totally co-sign this and that was my suspicion to begin with. Most people don't care to hear the raw warm density that is exhibited in those old recordings, however, I dont understand why considering it is the SOUND that makes that album special. It's not "silly" to want to recreate the very reason that made those concerts happen in the first place. I guarantee you that if that Verocai album had been made with professional studio musicians and with the current super compressed sound techniques that make everything sound "clean", "polished" and "soulless", people on this board would call that record a contemp brazilian jazz terd.





Also, seems that some bands do go out of their way according to discoche to keep that warm analog sound intact so obviously it can be recreated to a degree. I personally dont want it to be "exactly" the same as those recordings, I know thats impossible and unrealistic but a little closer to the recordings is all I'm asking. Lets be real here, watch that Axelrod video, its like they went to the completely other side of the spectrum with bright contemp jazz guitar, drums that sound like they could be off a Kenny G or Dave Koz record.





Also, 48 volts dropped the engineer knowledge and he agrees that he prefers the warmer recordings live and that it can be done without having to to fly back in a Delorean to 1972 to achieve it. It's the labels and the mainstream public that dictate the clean polished sound that we hear which is a shame in my opinion, considering it was NOT those labels and that mainstream audience that made those records cross over . It was the people on this board and of a similar ilk that made those records achieve the prestige that they have today.





As far as the promoters are concerned, I know their best intentions are in place and I am grateful that they put this all together regardless.

 

[maldorurr]

Plus, I think there's the issue of stylistic codification over time. Part of what I love about the Axelrod LPs, for example, is that on a number of occasions you can kind of tell that people don't exactly know what they're doing: Howard Roberts especially is walking a fuckin' tightrope every time he takes a solo, cos even in the late '60s (that as, in a time in which pop-orchestral crossover was by no means uncommon), Axelrod's vision of orchestral electric music was waaaay outside the norm, and things like this were virtually never recorded live the way he did them (do I have that right? I've always been under the impression that those records were pretty much no-overdub, but perhaps there's a deeper knowledge-cave around here somewhere).





Fastforward to 2010 and the musical propositions that were so bizarre for studio cats who, in '69, were primarily doing either R&B or pop-rock sessions (the rhythm section) or presumably a lot of TV-score/'light classical'/loungey 'jazz' stuff (the orchestra) are no longer so beyond the ken for contemporary studio players. As a graduate of what used to be North Texas State (the 'Berklee of the South'), I think a lot of this comes down to the music-school ethos by which studio musicians today are largely guys that would rather be playing jazz but take these gigs cos they're more common, better-paying, and fun -- and as jazz-trained players, they already familiar with extended harmonies, large-group dynamics, etc., so they're never compelled to pull it out of their asses the way Roberts/Kaye/Palmer were. The case of the recent recordings of someone like John McLaughlin is a similar one, I think: he's technically a better player than he was in '71, but I'm still much more interested in the first Mahavishnu records and his work with Miles than anything he's done since, because he was stretching back then.

 

[SPlDEY]

Dude.





Not only am I grateful that I was at the first Verocai LA show. I think everybody who was there felt an importance. You could see it on Verocai's face how grateful he was to have people appreciate his work. I believe I read that, that show was the first time the material has ever been played in front of a Live audience, ever.





Were you at the Verocai show?


Are you dissapointed that it doesn't sound like your mp3s?





Give me a fucking break man. boo-hoo.

Remember, the promoters/producers of these shows arent doing it for ???the love???, they are there to make money.

Really? Really!





Think about the logic here: Let's take some obscure artist that millions of people never heard of, and replay there whole album live. Because it will make us Millionares!





wow..





- spidey

 

[Big_Stacks]

maldorurr saidlus, I think there's the issue of stylistic codification over time. Part of what I love about the Axelrod LPs, for example, is that on a number of occasions you can kind of tell that people don't exactly know what they're doing: Howard Roberts especially is walking a fuckin' tightrope every time he takes a solo, cos even in the late '60s (that as, in a time in which pop-orchestral crossover was by no means uncommon), Axelrod's vision of orchestral electric music was waaaay outside the norm, and things like this were virtually never recorded live the way he did them (do I have that right? I've always been under the impression that those records were pretty much no-overdub, but perhaps there's a deeper knowledge-cave around here somewhere).





Fastforward to 2010 and the musical propositions that were so bizarre for studio cats who, in '69, were primarily doing either R&B or pop-rock sessions (the rhythm section) or presumably a lot of TV-score/'light classical'/loungey 'jazz' stuff (the orchestra) are no longer so beyond the ken for contemporary studio players. As a graduate of what used to be North Texas State (the 'Berklee of the South'), I think a lot of this comes down to the music-school ethos by which studio musicians today are largely guys that would rather be playing jazz but take these gigs cos they're more common, better-paying, and fun -- and as jazz-trained players, they already familiar with extended harmonies, large-group dynamics, etc., so they're never compelled to pull it out of their asses the way Roberts/Kaye/Palmer were. The case of the recent recordings of someone like John McLaughlin is a similar one, I think: he's technically a better player than he was in '71, but I'm still much more interested in the first Mahavishnu records and his work with Miles than anything he's done since, because he was stretching back then.




Hey Maldorrur,





This was an excellent and insightful post. I enjoyed reading it.





Peace,





Big Stacks from Kakalak

 

[bobtheorange]

hermes1 said:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8titCZgwW78




they ruined the edge, just awful.

 

[maldorurr]

Big_Stacks said:





Hey Maldorrur,





This was an excellent and insightful post. I enjoyed reading it.





Peace,





Big Stacks from Kakalak




Thanks, holmes. I should add as well that the music school/studio musician thing really does tend to iron out somebody's eccentricities, which is why I quit: my teacher at university was a really excellent player and a decent human being, but his stated objective was to get me "to the point where you can play something exactly the same 100 times out of 100," which is so distant from what interests me. Take a kid who's been shedding James Brown licks for 15 years and he's inevitably not going to be as interesting as Jabo or Stubblefield, because the way they got down came from their eccentricities and making do with whatever was at hand.

 

[maldorurr]

By the way, don't wanna derail this shizz, but is that Julio Cort??zar? Blow-Up destroyed my post-Catholic high school mind a few years ago.

 

[Jimster]

As a (lol) musician, I find going on stage and the only challenge being to play it exactly like the record is mind-numbingly boring. I may as well be playing bass in a rock band. Root, root, root, remember poses, root, root... It's like asking a surfer or skater or whatever to just do the same series of moves on every ride; like asking Turner to paint his clouds the same every picture.





You get a roomfull of jazzers (which is the level you may need to play through the more complex stuff in one take and therfore not chew up $tudio Time) and they are never going to play it the same way twice. It's what used to drive the pickier Motown producers mad too. Jamerson would always sneak something in, Val Simpson would nearly always hear it and make him re-do it. Cat and mouse.





I love playing jazz because it's about picking up on, and injecting in, feel, dependent on what the rest of the band is doing. No two gigs the same. The tune head and chord sheet is about as restrictive as it should get. If you go to a gig holding the sound of the record as the goal of the band, it's the wrong approach. As a listener, you should get something creative, live, which is beyond what the record can offer.





Sometimes it floats your boat, sometimes not, but appreciate that something creative is being done right in front of you.





My 2p.

 

[The_Hook_Up]

another thing about re-creating a sound of days past is equipment...sad to say, drum heads are different now...session/jazzers tend to like tiny, clicky sounding kick drums...pro bass players tend to be fond of 5/6 string monstrosities that clang with a horrible tone full of attack and no resonance...sound engineers brought up on awful recordings of the 90s as their benchmark tend to do silly shit like mic hi-hats, and mic above and under the snare, micing every damn tom...the natural, airy punch of the drums are lost in a sea of compression.





Ya notice how bands like the dap kings keep that authentic sound? Look at their equipment...its old, the drums only have an overhead, and kick mic'd...they know whats up. "Pro" players and sound dudes...dont have a clue on what music sounded like 40-odd years ago.

 

[48volts]

The_Hook_Up said:


Ya notice how bands like the dap kings keep that authentic sound? Look at their equipment...its old, the drums only have an overhead, and kick mic'd...they know whats up. "Pro" players and sound dudes...dont have a clue on what music sounded like 40-odd years ago.




Maybe for rock and arena stuff they mic the whole kit, but most NYC jazz engineers just keep it simple, kick, snare, overhead. I very rarely see toms mic'd or bottom snare. In the live sound arena, the mics have pretty much are the same joints they were using 30 years ago. 58's, 57's, 414's-these are all mics that are tried and tested. Daptones have a sound. Gritty and funky. Its the way Gabe mixes. Someone can achieve this all in the box with protools, if that is their style. I mean look at the new Black Keys record. I thought that was all done analog and on tape, but turns out everything was ITB.





Its hard to generalize all engineers cause of what you see at a rock show or a festival. These things need more reinforcement due to how large the stage is, distance to audience. A good engineer will only mic what isn't loud enough acoustically. Small venues don't really even need the drums in the mix, just real subtly for definition. Same with guitar and bass amps. But when you are playing a show in front of 25,000 people, with satellite mixes, everything needs to be mic'd.





But seriously trying to compare a studio recording to a live show is apples and oranges. Live shows provide energy and a mood that is shared with a group of people. There is an atmosphere. You cant get things like stage presence, improvised playing and vibe, off a record that someone spent a week mixing the snare drum. I hope the live show doesn't sound exactly like the record cause that would be pretty fucking boring.

 

[The_Hook_Up]

I think most folks here are missing a huge point in regards to at least the axelrod situation...we are talking about an artist who is revered for his compostions AND sound/timbre...without both, you have alimp presentation. Not many folks give a crap about how a musician is going to stretch out on his/her solo. This is not improvisation. The musician's role on this situation is to play the composition. However, timbre isn't of concern, which is unfortunate, because I'm guessing most folks who have bought and appreciated an Axelrod Lp from the 70s in the last 20 years holds timbre as important, if not more important than composistion. Those are the people who bought tickets to see him. I'm not a huge fan, but I can certainly understand the disappointment in witnessing a limp sonic presentation in concert as then you are missing half , if not more of what people listen to him for.

 

[asstro]

I have a friend who was at the Axelrod performance, and he said that the sound in the concert hall was very different from what you hear on that DVD/CD. As 48 Volts mentioned, that is mixed and cleaned up and yes, pretty sterile. However, in person it was much more organic and full sounding apparently. I would have loved to have been there. You can take issue with some of the individual performers (I hate the guitarists soloing personally) but that is a different thing, the point is that the live sound, at least of that performance, can't really be done justice by a DVD or especially a youtube clip.

 

[DocMcCoy]

I was at the Axelrod show that was recorded for the DVD/CD. Much as I love the albums, the whole buzz of that performance was in hearing those songs performed by a full orchestra, in front of an appreciative and enthusiastic audience and in a venue pretty much purpose-built for orchestras. I'm not interested, and nor have I ever been interested, in hearing a live performance that attempts to replicate what's on the record. If that's supposed to be the ultimate objective of a live performance, then why bother? Just stay at home and listen to the record. I happen to think this recent trend for bands/performers playing entire albums end-to-end is an interesting one, not least because, in an overwhelming majority of cases, quite a lot of the material will have never before been played live. There are often specific logistical reasons for this, and its these logistical challenges that are a big part of what makes these events attractive, above and beyond the "VH1 Classic Albums" nostalgia aspect.





I remember when one of the stock cliches every band would come out with in interviews was "we really want to capture our live sound on record". Yep, in a dead room with no audience and none of the energy and adrenaline that's actually generated during a live show. Good luck with that. Thing is, it works the other way as well. Whether or not the technology exists to exactly replicate the sound of "Holy Thursday" in a live situation is beside the point - in any event, Carol Kaye has arthritis and has retired, and Earl Palmer's in the bone orchard. The two mediums aren't the same, and aren't meant to be the same, and if the main thing you want from a live show is that it sounds exactly like the record, then you may be missing the actual point.

 

[Bplus]

Hey all, pretty interesting discussion if uninformed some of the time.


Here are some thoughts on both the Axelrod and the Verocai as someone who was there,


who was involved in the post and the the pre-production on both shows. I also directed the Verocai.





1 The Axelrod Show was commission by The Royal Festival Hall and they hired "The Orchestra" to play the music. David had two days of rehersal with them and despite him being really sick with the flu, he was happy with their performance. On the night it went well - people seemed really happy to be there, to have witnessed all that music perforned live for the first time (with the exception of Tensity). David mixed the performance himself. He insisted on it. Personally I have less problems with the sound of it than the quality of the performance. But what can you do. Earl Palmer, Carol Kaye, Howard Roberts, Joe Sample arent easily replaced with cats from London or from anywhere. The sound quality issue is more to do with instruments, micing, and the whole process of separation that happens in a dead audio environment like Capital Studio A. Axelrod live in 1972 would never have sounded like his RFH concert but it also wouldnt have sounded like the studio recordings.... technology changes, recording methods change.





2 The Verocai show was put together by us at Mochilla. Arthur was delighted to be involved and again insisted on mixing it himself. What part of that can you argue about. I fetishise recordings as much as the next guy but if Arthur Verocai wants to mix are you gonna say no? The musicians involved were the highest quality cats from Brasil (10 total) mixed with the highest quality cats from here (LA). I think the performance was incredible. All your complaining about "world music" is unfounded and idiotic sounding. This was a good performance period. The sound of the mix again isnt exactly the way I would have done it but it was mixed by Arthur in a top quality studio in Rio and who am I to argue with him. The same him that wrote the damned album.





Some points to remember.


1 You have demo ears! You are used to the record. You will notice the difference between the record and the live recording but you will assume this is a mistake. It may not be. Arthur and Axelrod weren't trying to recreate the records they were doing good shows and then making good records from those shows. The title of this thread is misleading here I think.





2 Yes drums sounded different in 1972 but film looked different too. How come none of you have problems with that?? I think in general close micing and digital recording has compromised these recordings but considering the complications of doing it old school style (see Soul Power if you need to know) this is a necessary compromise. Im not sure I buy the whole Daptone argument. I like how their records sound but is sound more important than song? Daptone as indeed a growing group of newer producers Quantic is another example use tape. Tape is great as film is but it has limitations too. And tape does not make great music. Great musicians do.


We could have done the whole thing straight to 4 track tape. We recorded SFMD this way in Cedar Falls Iowa as an experiment - what was funny about that was there were times when a baby crying or people coughing was louder than the strings, one flub on the trombone and the whole song is botched...So these are all compromises - creative compromises. Done with care and consideration and reverence for the artists and their art (read the original record).





Lastly look this music for the most part has never been experienced live. As the cat who was at the Verocai concert pointed out (above) this was a very special and wonderful thing. Both Verocai and Axe are studio cats, they never really heard the applause of a 2000 people theatre. That we recorded that and made a film from it is what is important here. We need your support to do these things, I am happy to debate the pros and cons of how we do it but the whys should be obvious.





And for the record you could never do these shows for the money. Thats a joke.





thanks to Soulstrut and all of you for your time and interest....





If you want to see the Verocai for yourself go here www.mochilla.com/timeless





b+

 

[bobtheorange]

 

[hertzhog]

First things first:

Bplus said:





2 Yes drums sounded different in 1972 but film looked different too. How come none of you have problems with that??




Uhh, because the discussion was about SOUND, not film? I have yet to see Scorcese try to perform Taxi Driver live on film. Although I'm sure it wouldn't look as good if he went digital.