Motus Mentis

As occasional leavening for the steady diet of politics and reaction I’ve been posting up here for years now, I think I’ll begin revisiting my other life: decades spent recording and mixing music. (Because so many of the recordings I’ve worked on are now on YouTube, it’s easy posting.)

I’d say about three-quarters of the work I did was for albums and singles; the rest was divided between music for films, theater, and advertising. (There’s some overlap there: film and musical-theater work often finds its way onto albums as well.) The TV and “jingle” work is evanescent, but it was good work to have: the level of professionalism is extremely high, nobody’s wasting any time, the money’s great, and you almost always get home in time for supper. (This often made a welcome contrast to 30-hour sessions with drug-addled rockers.)

Of the album work I did, perhaps a majority was for various sorts of jazz artists. At Power Station Studios, where I “made my bones” as a staff engineer in the 70s and 80s, you had to cover whatever they threw at you, from R&B and hip-hop to large orchestral ensembles. Everyone, though, finds a niche, and although I worked on a lot of R&B and rock music, what I enjoyed most was capturing the sound of acoustic instruments — so I ended up doing a lot of jazz records, orchestral overdub sessions, and things like that. Some of these artists don’t have the household-name recognition that the big rock acts have, but in addition to the many rock and R&B records I was a part of, I was fortunate to work with some of the greatest jazz artists of my generation: people like Michael and Randy Brecker, John Scofield, Peter Erskine, Weather Report, Steve Khan, Joe Lovano, Tony Bennett, Anthony Jackson, the Count Basie Orchestra, Ron Carter, Dave Holland, Bib Mintzer, the Yellowjackets, Marcus Miller, David Sanborn, Jack DeJohnette, and many, many others.

So I think that now and then I’m going to put up a couple of recordings. I hope you enjoy them, and in particular I hope it may introduce you to music you might not have heard otherwise. I’ll probably lean toward the jazz stuff, but I’ll try to strike a balance, so you can get a sense of the variety of styles a professional engineer has to be comfortable with.

For tonight, two from 1998:

Up first: Quality Time, from the album of the same name, by the great tenor player, composer, arranger, and big-band leader Bob Mintzer — with Jay Anderson on bass, Phil Markowitz on piano, and Peter Erskine on drums. (“Quality Time” is more than just a catchy title: the “time” on display by this quartet — the rhythmic interplay and “pocket” — is of the highest quality.) Recorded and mixed by MP at Carriage House Studios, Stamford, CT.

Next: Power, a single by by Chaka Khan. Lead guitar by Mike Landau: one take, no punches. Overdubs and mixing by MP at O’Henry Studios, Los Angeles.