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RECORD PROGRESSIONS:

TECHNOLOGY AND ITS ROLE IN THE DEVELOPMENT AND

DISSEMINATION OF

______

A

Presented to

The Honors Tutorial College

Ohio

______

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for Graduation

from the Honors Tutorial College

with the degree of

Bachelor of Science in

______

by

Greg A. Surber

November 2009

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This thesis has been approved by

The Honors Tutorial College and the Department of Media and Studies

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Dr. Arthur Cromwell Honors Tutorial College, Director of Studies Media Arts and Studies Thesis Advisor

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Jeremy Webster Dean, Honors Tutorial College

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page

1 Introduction 5

2 Keeping : The Birth of Recorded Jazz and the Infant Industry 13

2.1 No-tation: The Recording as Primary Text 14

2.2 America’s : What is this Thing Called Jazz? 16

2.3 Jazz on Record: The Economics of Time and 19

2.4 Learning from Mistakes: The Recording as Instructor 21

2.5 Trials and Tribulations: Jazz on Record 24

2.6 ’s the Thing: Records, and the 27

3 Reel Jazz: Tape, LP’s, and the of Independent Labels 32

3.1 Spoils of War: The Introduction of 33

3.2 Transcending Limitations: The Practice of Splicing 34

3.3 The Primary Question: Phonography as 37

3.4 Microgrooves: The Long Playing Record and the 45 40

3.5 Out of Nowhere: and Independent Labels 42

3.6 Quantity vs. Quality: The LP Era and the Recording Session 45

4

4 Record Re-imagined: Stereo, , and the Producer 49

4.1 Two Ears, Two Channels: Stereo Recording 51

4.2 on Sound on Sound: Overdubbing 53

4.3 Necessity and : Examples of Jazz Overdubbing 56

4.4 Designing and Constructing Music: Enter the Producer 59

4.5 Miles Away: and the as Instrument 61

4.6 Music in the Mechanical (Re-)Production: Assembled Art 63

5 Conclusion 67

Bibliography 70

5

Introduction

The relationship that people have with music has been irrevocably changed as it becomes increasingly mediated by . For centuries, music passed out of existence as quickly as it entered, unable to be fixed or saved even for a short time.

The revolutionized music, etching grooves into wax cylinders and

records, preserving that in a past time would be lost forever. Yet this created entire industries, permeated musical forms both old and new, and was of several agents in the mechanization and reproduction of art throughout the twentieth

century, redefining how music was written, distributed, and performed.

Music no longer escapes reproduction. From Tuvan throat to Swedish

, Chinese pop to Brazilian , musical forms, popular and little

known, old and new, are immediately captured and circulated in an age where

recording pervade our world. Indeed, the first goal of an aspiring

is to “cut a ,” to create a recording and increase exposure. Music flows

through speakers scattered throughout our public spaces, in locales as disparate as

supermarkets and . If are not satisfied with the music surrounding us, we

can and plug in to our favorite portable music device. than

one hundred years of recorded sound endlessly replayed, reshaped, and recycled

permeates our existence.

Writer and theorist Walter Benjamin’s 1935 essay “The in the

Age of Mechanical Reproduction” offers a framework with which to examine the 6

ever-changing relationship of art to the that duplicate it. Though Benjamin’s investigation of technology’s influence on modern art focused primarily on forms such as photography and film, his insights are applicable to recorded sound as well. The phonograph the reproduction of sound, a way to store the voices of our ancestors and provide living generations the music of past times. The most prescient of this shift in art and technology is found early in Benjamin’s work:

Around 1900 technical reproduction had reached a standard that not only permitted it to reproduce transmitted works of art and thus to cause the most profound change in their impact upon the public; it also had captured a place of its own among the artistic processes.1

In Benjamin’s words, “that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art.”2 Benjamin’s concept of aura as related to

art contains three separate but related ideas: first, the particular time and place in

which the work of art is located; second, the “unique of a distance,” the separation of the art from those who observe it, regardless of its physical proximity; , the of the artwork within the “fabric of tradition.” Because its aura is diminished, the work of art is free to be reproduced beyond the places, occasions, and customs that dictated its existence in the past. Mechanical reproduction, then, to two forms of art: those works which lose their aura when reproduced and removed from their traditional time and space such as and sculpture, and works

1 Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Film and Criticism: Introductory Readings, comp. Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen (New : , 1974), 614. 2 Ibid., 616. 7

“designed for reproducibility,” lacking aura from their inception by the very nature of

their form.3

Aura is reserved for those works which are valued by their “basis in ,”

namely the function of serving a “magical” or “religious” purpose, such as the

painting of the elk by early man. This painting was meant to function as a spiritual

device, a “gift” to supernatural beings rather than an aesthetically pleasing creation.

The exhibition value of the prehistoric painting was of little value because the art was,

“first and foremost, an instrument of .” Throughout history, art became further

secularized as its ritual value declined. With mechanical reproduction, the exhibition

value becomes paramount as the uniqueness of a work of art disappears with its aura,

culminating in media photography and film. Art’s function then completely

changes, no longer based in ritual but in “politics.”4

When the music called jazz is subjected to Benjamin’s analysis, it is difficult to

determine whether the music fits into either classification. Before the advent of

recording, a musical was completely transient, and jazz offered a mystifying to the unfamiliar spectator. Syncopated and improvised composed an event that could never be experienced in the same

manner again. The became agents of magic as the ritual value of jazz

emanated from its source, obscure and intangible. Yet its exhibition value was

paramount, rendering it much unlike the art that preceded the age of mechanical

3 Ibid., 618. 4 Ibid., 619. 8

reproduction. In spite of this difference, jazz is clearly not an art designed for reproducibility, most evident due to one of its central practices: improvisation.

As an improvisatory art, jazz must be considered separately from other musical

styles captured on the phonograph. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to

improvise is to “create and perform spontaneously or without preparation.” In live

performance, then, jazz existed in a specific time and place, but were

ephemeral, remaining only in the of those who heard it. Recording improvisation, however, fixes it in a form that can be reproduced, putatively, as it sounded when performed. An improvisation, then, becomes endlessly repeatable. This seemingly paradoxical statement underlines the nature of jazz as a recorded art, its history and traditions preserved in the records that reproduced its greatest examples for subsequent generations of musicians to carry forward.

There is a second definition of improvisation not often raised in the context of music, to “make from whatever is available.” All art develops from what came before it. From the grooves of records, Americans heard an indigenous music influenced by but clearly distinct from the parlor , marching bands, and pieces that preceded it. Jazz sprang from the eclectic musical of American , an African-

American art forged from the instruments, styles, and of performers in the

post-bellum South of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Jazz has a unique position in the history of recorded music. European classical

forms were recorded and sold as records, but they existed quite independently from

the phonograph, created on paper instead of records. was an art designed 9

for mass distribution by an entrenched , born of the technology that stimulated its creation. Jazz, however, emerged contemporaneously with the phonograph industry and adapted parallel to the advances in the equipment that documented it. America’s musical traditions were in a state of flux, and jazz was another style of American music recorded by a fledgling commercial enterprise looking for a profitable product.

The first jazz recording is certainly not the earliest example of the music, but it is the earliest recorded example of the music. Beyond the testimony of people who witnessed them, the details of early jazz may be lost to history forever.

Besides issues of bias and imperfect , musicians, however they were in its creation, cannot present a comprehensive account of a music that had no clear identity at that time. It was an art shaped by countless musicians in diverse geographical regions. From stories of the mythical performances of trumpeter Buddy Bolden to the controversial claim by and Jelly

Roll Morton that he “invented” the music, anecdotes offer only a glimpse of the formative years of jazz. While hindsight has given scholars insight into what qualities defined what was to be known as jazz, the many people and places that contributed to its development prohibit it from being as an artistic “movement” (this is not to that the music did not inspire movements, both physical and artistic).

With the dissemination of jazz through the phonograph, it was not only given a name, it was given a medium beyond live performance. The music quickly entered the public consciousness after it was scratched into grooves of records and sold 10

throughout the country. No longer was the music relegated to a particular region, to bars and brothels, or to ; thousands of discs carried its performances to homes across the . The record transformed folk art into popular art as an industry materialized to offer the public a new form of in the privacy of the . In turn, musicians used recording as a means to extend the and potential of their own music.

This story examines the relationship between the invention and improvement of recording technology and the manifestation of jazz through records at crucial junctures in the music’s historical developments. Throughout the history of jazz, the

phonograph has offered musicians a means to document their art. This document, the

record, preserved and disseminated their ideas to musicians, , and fans. As

recordings spread, these ideas were incorporated into jazz performance and practice.

The phonograph became a tool for entertainment, , and preservation of the

music. Improvements in recording technology eventually contributed to the development of and styles of jazz. Indeed, some of these forms could only have been created with the aid of recording technology.

The scope of this research has been limited in two substantial ways. First, the age of , still in progress and accelerating rapidly, is not considered . This is not to say its impact has not been significant. , its effects have been and continue to be immeasurable. Rather than attempt to expound on these ramifications, to instead focus on the implications of Benjamin’s essay, written in a time in which mechanical and technologies were the only 11

types in existence. In addition, period considered in this work, from the mid-

1910s to the early , what are recognized as the most artistically significant movements in the expansion of and composition of jazz, all of which began before digital technologies were adopted throughout the recording industry.

Second, radio and film have largely been excluded from this research. While both have contributed greatly to the spread of jazz, including these technologies would require greater attention and analysis. Jazz was a part of film history since the first synchronized , , but the music was not integral to the films that included it, often treated as an accessory to a film. Also, movies, seen in theaters and not purchased for home use, were not as accessible and repeatable as phonograph records to people who viewed them, precluding film’s influence from many issues raised in this work related specifically to the phonograph. On the other side, radio was primarily a broadcast, not a recorded, medium. While it certainly transmitted music, it did not have the permanence of a record. The addition of these entertainment media to this work dilutes the focus from the influence of recorded sound and its associated technology on the art of jazz.

With the dynamic shifts that accompany the technology that informs and entertains us, it is important to understand the impact this technology has on .

These changes have redefined how art is consumed and appreciated, seen and heard, understood and ignored. The effects of the “representational machines” that transmit art have been given more attention in the past few decades in fields like economics, 12

, and sociology. The impact of technology and recorded sound on music has been given an especial place in media studies in recent years. It is my that this work will contribute to the growing field of research into the phonograph and its progeny, the record, on “America’s .”

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Keeping Time: The Birth of Recorded Jazz and the Infant Industry

In 1878, a year after receiving credit for the invention of the phonograph,

Thomas Alva Edison provided a list of the new machine’s uses within an article for the North American Review. Of these ten uses, only one relates directly to music and its reproduction. This use was not considered its most profitable possibility due to the phonograph’s poor sound quality and the inability to duplicate recordings. By contrast, eight of the uses involved recording the voice for educational uses or preservation of .5 The phonograph and its proverbial sibling, the ,

were not envisioned as means to distribute art, but to transmit and reproduce the

anywhere that its representational machines could reach.

Of course, time has proven the phonograph a relative failure in its utility as an educational tool through speech alone. As a record-keeping tool, , the

phonograph has succeeded in every sense of the word: it has documented countless forms of music, speech, and other forms of sound throughout the twentieth century; it

has generated an impetus to commoditize and compartmentalize music in hopes of

creating and expanding a market for popular consumption; it has produced enthusiasts

unimaginable before its development, “record collectors,” who appreciate and

occasionally even learn to musical styles through their wares; most importantly, it

has altered not only how society is exposed to music but how music is understood,

appreciated, and consumed.

5 Chanan, Repeated Takes: a Short History of Recording and its Effects on Music (New York: Verso, 1995), 1-5. 14

The earliest jazz ensembles presented many challenging obstacles to recording engineers, not least of which was the ability to capture on record the instrumental of its bands. Musicians, on the other hand, had to be mindful that a record could contain only three minutes of music. Despite these limitations, jazz became fixed in a recorded medium and these recordings, created under considerable technological constraints, did not only disseminate the music but contributed to its development and definition as a musical art.

No-tation: The Recording as Primary Text

Unlike Western and many popular forms of the early twentieth century, including ragtime, an integral precursor to the emerging music, jazz was not proscribed by musical . This is not to say that could not be “written

down,” and if it was to be published, that was absolutely necessary. Yet attempts to

notate performances cannot provide, as Michael Chanan describes them, the “nuances

of and …among the central stylistic concerns of jazz.”6 Musicians

are often identified by their “sound,” a style characterized by these and other

performance techniques in conjunction with (or, occasionally, instead of)

and melodic choices. The numerous practices in jazz performance including inflection,

bends, slides, and the use of quarter-tones were not a part of Western art music

tradition. Like a sketch of a painting made by an amateur, notation could only provide

the contours and general outline of a jazz piece.

6 Chanan, Repeated Takes, 19. 15

The art of improvisation stands as the definitive trait of jazz, and its evasion of is clear. How can one write music that has not been composed? The spontaneity and invention of improvisation necessarily frees the music of any definitive reading or interpretation. Of course, famous solos have been notated, but they came from recordings, creating a reverse effect. The music was performed, then written based on the improvised performance. This only emphasizes the role of jazz as a music that has endured as a recorded art. Recordings have served the purpose of storing, preserving, and transmitting the music, becoming primary “texts” to demonstrate the methods and practices of past performers.

Thus, efforts to understand the earliest developments of jazz have been hampered due to the paucity of sources; before the advent of recording, few written pieces were made of what is called jazz, and those that do exist provide scant details about how and what an ensemble performed. Instead, the history of the music has found its most precise representation in aural documentation. Recording serves as a document of an instant, a collection of ideas expressed through sound made portable and repeatable. Walter Benjamin asserts that as a reproduction, the work of art loses

“its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where to be.”7 Yet this sacrifice of the work’s “aura” permits the sound to be removed from its

traditional area and purpose. The mechanical reproduction of jazz offered a record of

music that was once ephemeral and limited geographically and spatially—the music is

7 Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 615. 16

now “[emancipated]…from its parasitical dependence on ritual.”8 Most importantly,

this emancipation allowed jazz to be played of public performance areas and

inside of the homes of anyone who owned a record player.

America’s Music Captured: What is this Thing Called Jazz?

The Original Jazz , a collection of five white musicians from

New Orleans, traveled to New York in February 26, 1917 to record “Livery Stable

Blues” and “Dixie Jass Band One Step” for the Victor label. This earliest example of recorded jazz9 became an immediate sensation; Victor reported sales of more than one

million copies over the course of .10 With its “new” sounds, rhythms, and

musical exuberance, this recording was a decisive moment in the diffusion of jazz. As

this recording spread throughout the United States, so too did many jazz artists, as

hundreds of thousands of African Americans left the South to settle in Northern cities

during what was called the Great Migration during the 1910’s and 1920’s.11

Even though the ODJB was called a , the term “jazz” had no clear

definition when “Livery Stable ” was released. The etymology of the word still

remains unclear, though it did most likely originate in New Orleans. The trade press

8 Ibid., 618. 9 There is debate as to when and by which musicians the first jazz recording was made. Because many of these claims are unsubstantiated and others rest on one’s definition of the term “jazz,” the ODJB’s recordings of “Livery Stable Blues” and “Dixie Jass Band One Step” are commonly accepted as the first examples. See Barry Kernfield, ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Vol. 3 (London: Macmillan Reference, 2002), 371. 10 Kernfield, The New Grove Dictionary, Vol. 3, 371. 11 Burton W. Peretti, The Creation of Jazz: Music, Race, and in Urban America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 43-45. 17

and record company promotions often called any music with “jazz.”12

Early jazz clarinetist said, “We didn’t call the music jazz when I was growing ,” learning of the increasingly popular word during his participation in a band in 1916.13 Though the word was becoming associated with a particular

style of music instead of syncopation, the of jazz as a musical term

persisted into the as an editor of Radio Broadcast magazine pointed out in 1925:

The trouble with criticism…is that it groups all music as jazz, which is only true because we have no term which allows us to distinguish between the grades of jazz.14

Not only was the definition of the word “jazz” unclear, the racial composition of jazz was also undefined, in spite of the assertions of the music’s critics. White

musicians, including the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, spoke of imitating New

Orleans musicians to create their own sound. A number of aspiring jazz performers, in

turn, imitated the records they heard, both by black and white musicians. Black

trumpeter Adolphus “Doc” Cheatham undermined the supposed tensions and

jealousies between white and black jazz musicians, those claims exaggerated,

stating, “If musicians were good, we learned from them, and they learned from us.”15

White clarinetist-saxophonist Bob Wilber attacked these claims quite bluntly, calling

12 Tim Brooks, Lost Sounds: and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890- 1919 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 285. 13 Garvin Bushell, Jazz From the Beginning ( Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988), 13. 14 Philip K. Eberly, Music in the Air: America’s Changing Tastes in , 1920-1980 (New York: Hastings House, 1982), 22. 15 Richard . Sudhalter, Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contribution to Jazz 1915-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), xviii. 18

them “racial bullshit.”16 The color of one’s could not be heard through the record.

Although jazz was often identified as an African American music, its consumers and

creators were neither exclusively white nor black.

The opportunities for white musicians were clearly greater as segregation

remained a prevalent force in music venues and recording . It was not until

June 1922 that the first recognized jazz record by black artists was made by

trombonist ’s in Angeles, more than after the first ODJB

recording.17 With the exception of like and Duke

Ellington, black musicians were rarely given an outlet through radio performance in

the 1920s. Dance bands were exclusively white or black, and any mixed-race band

would not be hired in white establishments. The greatest irony of the “” can

be found in the success of bandleader and , the self-

proclaimed “.” His place in the history of the music has been obscured by

his much more influential contemporaries, most notably cornetist

and composer-bandleader , both of whom saw much greater success

and recognition for their early works in subsequent decades.

In spite of the success of “Livery Stable Blues,” jazz musicians, white or black, were not regularly recorded by companies until the 1920s. that brought greater opportunities for jazz recording was the success of “ Blues,” credited to

Mamie Smith and Her Jazz Hounds. Backed by jazz musicians, this blues record sold

16 Ibid. 17 Frank Hoffmann, ed., Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound (New York: Routledge, 2005), 536. 19

hundreds of thousands of copies, bringing a vast untapped market to the attention of recording firms. In trade catalogs, record companies began promoting records of

African American musicians, whether they were blues, jazz, or gospel. Black records for black consumers came to be established throughout the industry as “Race

Records,” and this market expanded significantly during the 1920s.18 This facet of the

recording market offered much greater exposure and prospects for jazz recordings.

Jazz on Record: The Economics of Time and Improvisation

The 10-inch 78-rpm record was the most common form of recorded music when

the ODJB recorded “Livery Stable Blues.” These discs could hold roughly three

minutes of music on each side and no more than three and one-quarter minutes.

However, as it was known in clubs and , performances lasted longer as the music was often played for dancing. Solo improvisations may continue well beyond what was even expected of the soloist. Al Morgan described an experience in

1932 as a member of ’s band in which, “Cab on. Me, alone,

after chorus…I played alone for…five or six minutes.”19 On record, this solo

alone would not have been possible on one side of a 78. Given the limits of the

medium, it is clear that performers had to be conscious of the time allotted to them on

record. How, then, was improvisation to be considered by the musicians ?

18 Robert M. W. Dixon and John Godrich, Recording the Blues (New York: Stein and Day, 1970), 9-17. 19 Mark Katz, Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 74. 20

In his article, “The Phonograph in Jazz History and its Influence on the

Emergent Jazz Performer,” composer David Baker expounded on the nature of early jazz recordings. Due to the brevity of recorded solos, a musician had to adapt to the studio environment in a way quite unlike that of a performance venue. This concision necessitated solos to be “non-thematic, non-developmental… even commented on by critics, who must have thought that thematic development was something jazz musicians couldn’t handle.”20 In addition, due to the state of recording

technology , “…the inability to record certain nuances…forced the jazz

player in the beginning to play much the way -woogie players did: loud, ,

and, in a word, one-dimensionally.”21

This is not to say that all solos were one-dimensional or their short length

precluded quality or . Quite the contrary, performers came to understand the

studio environment and adapted accordingly. Some jazz pieces, while sounding

spontaneous on record, were actually well thought out before the date. Multiple takes

of recordings by Duke Ellington’s band and Louis Armstrong’s works with Fletcher

Henderson in the mid-1920’s show little variation in the solos. “ Chop

Suey,” revered as an exemplary piece of improvisation, was actually submitted by

Armstrong to the for protection two years before the

20 David Baker, “The Phonograph in Jazz History and its Influence on the Emergent Jazz Performer,” in The Phonograph and Our Musical Life: Proceedings of a Centennial Conference, 7-10 December 1977, ed. H. Wiley Hitchcock (New York: Institute for Studies in American Music, Dept. of Music, School of , Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, 1980), 46. 21 Ibid., 46. 21

piece was recorded.22 Whether Armstrong reached his ideas through improvisation or

not is left to speculation; regardless, early jazz was not always the product of bands

entering the studio to simply “jam” and hope their products were suitable for the labels

that hired them.

Recorded jazz slowly shifted away from the sound of ensembles like the

ODJB. Their style of New Orleans jazz involved collective, polyphonic improvisation

as a lead instrument, usually a or cornet, played the while other

instruments played countermelodies. On record, this improvisational style sounded

cluttered as each instrument played “on top” of one another. Throughout the 1920’s,

jazz moved toward solo improvisation as each instrument was given a chorus and

supported by the section. This focus on individual performers provided clarity

to jazz performances on record and contributed to the recognition of soloists and their

contributions. The recordings of Louis Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Sevens exemplify

his skills as a talented soloist and cornet player and are often cited as among the best

performances in jazz history. They played no small part in the establishment of the

“virtuoso” musician and soloist in popularizing jazz.

Learning From Mistakes: The Recording as Instructor

Of course, many musicians did not only listen to records. They studied them

and utilized them as one of the few sources of knowledge and understanding of jazz.

Scores of popular tunes were rarely accessible to those trying to learn the music, if

22 Katz, Capturing Sound, 75. 22

they existed at all. If one did not live near a metropolitan area, live jazz was to be seen or heard at all. As a result, records became the exclusive source of jazz to thousands of people who lived in more remote regions of the United States. This view of records as a crucial learning tool to the young musician has become a tradition of

jazz that continues today. While students of classical music study the compositions of

J. S. Bach, W. A. Mozart, or , students of jazz study the

recordings of pianist , trumpeter , or saxophonist John

Coltrane.

The unforgiving and undiscriminating record occasionally led to unintended

consequences. When ’s band recorded “Dippermouth Blues” for the

Gennett label in 1923, banjoist Bill Johnson yelled out, “Play that thing!” when

drummer forgot his part. Dodds admitted to the technician that it was a

mistake, but preferred that the error remain, “and, ever since then, every

outfit uses that same trick, all because I forgot my part.”23 Baker cites an Armstrong

recording in which pianist Lil Hardin is playing in F minor while the rest of the band

is in the of F major. It is possible that they missed the mistake, but it is more

likely they accepted the take as final instead of risking studio time on another take.

Baker states, “players, learning by , imitated mistakes, simply because they didn’t know they were mistakes.”24 These instances show that the ability to interpret a

performance “correctly” lies exclusively with the performer(s); consumers of a record

23 Rick Kennedy, Jelly Roll, Bix, and Hoagy: Gennett Studios and the Birth of Recorded Jazz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 66. 24 Baker, “The Phonograph in Jazz History,” 46. 23

may consider the error as a stylistic choice, and some aspiring musicians may adopt it as another technique.

Recording as a pedagogical tool was one born of necessity, a type of

“indigenous pedagogy” that arose through circumstance. The relative inaccessibility of live jazz left few opportunities for aspiring musicians to learn the craft. The use of records as a tool for musicians became essential for their early training because records could be endlessly repeated. , considered one of the greatest jazz cornetists of the 1920’s, slowed his record player to transcribe and learn ODJB recordings as a teenager growing up in Davenport, .25 New Orleans trumpet

player Henry “” Allen, Jr. had the luxury of learning the earliest works of Louis

Armstrong in all keys by playing back the recordings and adjusting the screw on

the family Victrola.26 Listeners now had the opportunity to examine performance

techniques of individual musicians, analyzing and imitating them at their convenience

instead of having to rely exclusively on memories of performances and sounds.

The use of the phonograph as an aid to the growth of young musicians

represents a major component of education within the jazz tradition. The record serves

as a mentor, exposing the young performer to melodies, , and performance

techniques. Though some musicians were forced to resort to recordings in the earliest

25 Paul F. Berliner, Thinking in Jazz: the Infinite Art of Improvisation (: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 75. 26 , “Jazz, the Phonograph, and Scholarship,” in The Phonograph and Our Musical Life: Proceedings of a Centennial Conference, 7-10 December 1977, ed. H. Wiley Hitchcock (New York: Institute for Studies in American Music, Dept. of Music, School of Performing Arts, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, 1980), 43. 24

days of recorded jazz, the practice became critical to the education of the music’s pupils and disciples. Without recordings, the knowledge and performance of past styles and their greatest players would be left exclusively to an oral tradition, incapable of providing all the techniques and practices essential to the understanding of those forms. The record is both a historical document of this American music and its greatest teacher as it continues to inspire musicians to learn the music.

Trials and Tribulations: Jazz Arrangement on Record

Jazz ensemble instrumentation suffered a particularly devastating setback through mechanical representation before the introduction of electrical recording in

1925, particularly the instruments that composed section. Acoustic recording required players to arrange themselves based on their volume at various distances near and far from the recording horn, sometimes having to move during the performance so that their part may be heard.27 Excessive volume or sharp jumps in the

level caused the needle to and disrupt the cutting process while recording. Even

foot stomps to the beginning of a necessitated replacement with silent

signals for the sake of the recording at times.28 Naturally, the contained

the most troublesome instruments because they were generally either the most or least

audible in the ensemble during performance.

27 Occasionally, there was more than one horn with which to record. Trombonist Kid Ory explains, “There was a separate horn for each man. The recording engineer would motion us if playing too loud or too soft, and then we’d know to move back or to move in closer.” See Nat Shapiro and , eds., Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya: the Story of Jazz by the Men Who Made It (New York: Rinehart, 1955), 110. 28 Alyn Shipton, A New History of Jazz (New York: Continuum, 2007), 402. 25

Drums presented the most problems, requiring great skill of both the drummer and the engineer trying to capture the performance. The delicate divide between audibility, balance, and “peaking” were beyond many recording technicians of this era, including those of . The Creole Jazz Band’s sessions of 1923 were rhythmically defined by Baby Dodds hitting the rims of his and wood blocks, a drummer accustomed to a full set while performing live.29 The ODJB

drummer was forced to “beat on only the cow , wood blocks, and

sides of drums.”30 Some musicians circumvented these concerns by letting the

engineer lay rugs or set up baffles to absorb the sound of the kit. Though the use

of baffles presented problems for band interaction, a full did provide for an

aural image of jazz more similar to that which one might hear in a live setting.3132

The string was another instrument that awaited improved technology

before became standard in recorded jazz. In the same 1923 sessions in which Baby

Dodds’ set was reduced to a few pieces, bassist Bill Johnson was replaced with a bass

player for the last sessions of recording because of the problems associated

with his instrument. The string bass was nearly inaudible, and its sound was obscured

because the attack of the bow was suppressed when it was cut into the wax.33

29 Kennedy, Jelly Roll, Bix, and Hoagy, 62-63. 30 Katz, Capturing Sound, 81. 31 Shipton, A New History of Jazz, 404. 32 Jimmy McPartland described a session with where, after arguing with the engineer, he was permitted to assemble a whole drum set. See Shapiro and Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya, 135. 33 Katz, Capturing Sound, 82. 26

and left-hand were common alternatives chosen to replace the string bass in the studio.34

A significant result of these acoustic compromises was the way musicians who

had never encountered live jazz came to interpret these recordings. One cannot distinguish, with the aid of recordings alone, which instrumental arrangement is more

“authentic” if both sound like they are of the same musical tradition. Thus, European jazz performers visiting American musicians with wood blocks and restrained crashes serving as the foundation of their rhythm sections.35 This imitation

may not have been a jazz arrangement found in live performances of jazz ensembles, it

was a common representation of American recorded jazz, the only source with which

European musicians could learn and understand the music.

Some of these problems and compromises in the studio were mitigated by the

introduction of the and electrical recording. In an effort to compete with

the rise of radio and its broadcasts that had greater than what current

recording technology allowed, electrical recording improved the quality of recorded

sound and boost the sales of record players. Instead of performers being strategically

placed to perform in the direction a horn that collects the vibrations, the microphone

was introduced to convert the sound into electrical energy and transfer it to the cutting

stylus. Thus, the use of multiple during a recording session became

standard practice. The resulting records created with this technology had much higher

fidelity, but this innovation was unevenly distributed, and many jazz recordings made

34 Kernfield, The New Grove Dictionary, Vol. 3, 373. 35 Shipton, A New History of Jazz, 403. 27

between 1925 and 1927 were made by companies with the traditional acoustic recording equipment.

Swing’s the Thing: Records, Radio, and the Great Depression

The onset of the Great Depression had a devastating effect on the recording industry. plummeted to a fraction of pre-Depression highs; in 1927, record sales totaled nearly 100 million while in 1932, only six million were sold.36 The

immediate result was an acute reduction in commercial jazz recordings and the companies who made them for the next six years, with recording only to be significantly revived by the “introduction” of . Most jazz recordings were

made by independent record labels, including Gennett, Paramount, Okeh, Vocalion, and Brunswick. Gennett ceased commercial recording, Okeh, Vocalion, and

Brunswick were absorbed into major labels, and Paramount declared bankruptcy.37

The record industry was left devastated in the wake of the years following the

stock market crash, and radio supplanted the phonograph as one of the most important

pastimes for Americans suffering through hard times. The record industry perceived

radio as the greatest threat as its future looked unsure. The advantage over records was

clear: once a radio set was purchased, the entertainment it provided would incur no

extra charge. Any broadcast that could be received on one’s radio set was free.

Furthermore, music played no small role in radio programming. In 1930, the majority

36 William Howland Kenney, Recorded Music in : the Phonograph and Popular Memory, 1890-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 163. 37 Kernfield, The New Grove Dictionary, Vol. 3, 372-373. 28

of broadcast time consisted of music selections, with roughly thirty percent dedicated to “popular music.”38

Jazz was broadcast on radio in the 1920’s, but with the exception of dance

bands led by Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington, many of the bands were filled

with white personnel and played a “sweet” kind of jazz. Sweet jazz bands like the

of and Vincent Lopez meshed symphonic and jazz instrumentation to perform popular tunes in a staid manner compared to the “hot” style of jazz played by musicians like Henderson and Armstrong.39 Paul Whiteman, the

self-professed “King of Jazz,” epitomized the sweet style as the most popular jazz

artist of the decade, beginning with the 1920 hit, “Whispering” (though he did not

enter radio until 1929).40 Despite its symphonic pretensions and lack of

improvisation, sweet bands offered many Americans’ first exposure to the music.

As radio appeared to threaten the record industry, the served to

maintain it. closed hundreds of bars and saloons, eliminating many more

hundreds of jobs for musicians to entertain patrons. Its repeal in 1933 “created to five taverns for every ,” and these establishments needed music. As a less expensive and more reliable replacement to live musicians, multiplied in bars, diners, and drugstores and consumed millions of discs a year. In 1936, coin- operated contained at least 40 percent of all the records produced in the

United States that year and raised to 60 percent of manufactured discs by the end of

38 Eberly, Music in the Air, 62. 39 Ibid., 19-23. 40 Ibid., 29. 29

the decade.41 As a source of income and a promotional tool, these public record players propped up a once-ailing industry and pulled it through the trying years of the

Depression.

Jazz found one of its greatest promoters in the jukebox. As the economic

downturn had eradicated industry promotion of (though not demand for) “race

records,” jukeboxes played folk and popular music almost exclusively. This need for

new music provided some jazz and blues musicians opportunities to record during the

1930s. In one instance, producer and jazz enthusiast John Hammond convinced the

Brunswick label to record jazz records for jukeboxes in black neighborhoods. Some of

these recordings included , saxophonist , and pianist

Teddy Wilson, and though they were quickly and cheaply made, these recordings are

recognized as jazz masterpieces.42

Radio and records were not mutually exclusive, however, as each increasingly

relied on each other as the Depression continued. Records provided radio programmers with a cheap and efficient way to fill programming time in lieu of live

performances. These records were not what were found in stores but professionally

recorded electrical transcriptions, 16-inch discs that contained two to six recordings by

a popular artist. At the same time, radio promoted the record industry with these

broadcasts of “canned” music. By the end of the , these two cultural outlets,

once spoken of as being at odds with each other, had formed symbiotic bond in

41 Kenney, Recorded Music, 166-167. 42 Andre Millard, America on Record: a History of Recorded Sound (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 182-183. 30

sponsoring musical trends and artists. This partnership became most apparent in the promotion and popularization of swing music, the first of jazz identified and made distinct by the music industry.

A mostly arranged form of jazz that often relied on riffs played by large bands, the “” began in 1935 with the popularity of “King of Swing” Benny

Goodman’s (whose songs were arranged by Fletcher Henderson) soaring quickly with his Let’s Dance program on the NBC radio network.43 Some of the most

celebrated bands of the swing era include the bands of Goodman, , Cab

Calloway, Dorsey, , and of course Ellington, whose tune, “It

Don’t Mean a Thing (If it Ain’t Got That Swing)” gave the style its name. Swing

stands today as the most popular movement in jazz history, its popularity extending to

the mid-.

Though the music did not deviate from the forms and formats of the record

industry that preceded its , its endorsement by radio, the jukebox, and a

record industry created meteoric stars and impressed jazz forever on the

American cultural landscape. The Swing Era also indicated the future of the

entertainment industry; as these technologies became a part of domestic life, their

collaboration became evident as film, radio, and records sponsored musical “stars” and

sold them to the public. By the end of the 1930s, there were approximately 450 “name

bands” performing across the United States. Glenn Miller’s band led the way by the

early 1940s, credited with the first million-selling record, “,”

43 Eberly, Music in the Air, 86-90. 31

according to the Billboard national record survey. It was the first “official” million- seller, and the indicator of an industry thriving again since the devastation of the Great

Depression.44

Jazz had finally reached that public en masse, in the form of swing. The public

embraced the record and the music it played to them in their homes, restaurants, and

taverns, and swing could be heard in all of these venues. However, as the record

industry bounced back from its trials to reach new heights, swing did not remain paramount in the jazz world. Upon the entry of the United States in II, young and inventive musicians carved an approach that shifted away from the big

bands and orchestral trappings of their predecessors, some of whom received their

earliest training in swing bands. In , a new movement formed that

would take jazz out of swing, but not the swing out of jazz.

44 Millard, America on Record, 184. 32

Reel Jazz: Tape, LP’s, and the Rise of Independent Labels

It has been said that war encourages and supports technological innovation.

While this observation is certainly true of military technology, armed conflict has led to the invention and adoption of products integral to our daily lives. Advances in sound reproduction are no exception. The way music was recorded, produced, and consumed radically transformed within fifteen years of the United States entering the

Second World War. The 45-rpm record and long-player, or LP, supplanted the 78 in commercial distribution, defining two new formats, the "single" and the "."

Magnetic tape recording replaced direct-to-disc recording as a medium of higher fidelity and greater creative possibilities. Popular musical styles matured with these improvements as the recording industry continued to grow throughout the postwar era.

In particular, swing gradually lost its prominence in the recorded jazz market as a new style of jazz called bebop developed on the East and West Coasts. As a division formed between the old guard and the avant-garde, major labels ignored the new movement and focused -tested styles, principally swing. Nevertheless, a new crop of companies shot up to offer an outlet for the new music. Independent record labels recorded and released the earliest examples of bebop, ushering in an era of jazz which may not have captured the market share it once did but led to a veritable , pushing the music to new heights of creativity.

33

Spoils of War: The Introduction of Magnetic Tape

Dominant for more than twenty years, 78-rpm shellac records were the only commercially available recorded audio format for consumers when World War II began in 1939. Little progress had been made in the creation of an alternative medium on which music could be recorded and transmitted in the United States. While playback fidelity gradually improved on disc, every attempt to create an alternative to the 78 failed to match its quality. Yet across the Atlantic, there was a different technology spreading propaganda throughout . Magnetic audiotape signaled a new era in sound recording, succeeding disc recording and permitting greater freedom inside and outside of the .

Magnetic tape as a recording medium was not a new idea; there were experiments in the United States throughout the 1930s to record on materials including steel tape, steel , and paper tape coated with iron oxide. All of these trials proved fruitless when compared to the cost and quality of records. Steel tape recorders were massive, impractical, and expensive while paper tape was flimsy and suffered from poor fidelity.45 If tape was to prove viable, it had to improve upon or, at the very least,

equal the fidelity and range provided by discs. Otherwise, one of its chief

strengths—expanded recording time—could be accomplished with discs by increasing

the size of the record or recording at a slower speed. This role had already been

for broadcasting in the form 16-inch discs,

45 Mark H. Clark “Steel Tape and Wire Recorders,” in Magnetic Recording: the First 100 Years, ed. Eric D. Daniel, C. Denis Mee, and Mark H. Clark (New York: IEEE Press, 1999), 33-39.

34

containing up to fifteen minutes of audio on each side and widely used in the 1930s and 1940s for prerecorded radio programming.

When listening to German radio broadcasts, the Allies were puzzled by Adolf

Hitler’s ability to give in multiple locations at the same time, all of which sounded live. Nazi propaganda was broadcast regularly, sometimes concurrently, from opposite sides of the country. The speeches, if recorded, had no trace of associated with disc playback. How could speeches be reproduced with such clarity if they were not live? The answer came when American GI’s raided German radio stations and discovered the . recorded on magnetic tape and played back with a sound quality as high as that of the best discs produced to that point.46 After these were sent to the United States, American engineers rapidly improved upon these German components. The Corporation released its first commercially available magnetic in 1947 while 3M manufactured magnetic tape. By 1950, analog tape recording had become the principal medium for commercial recording.47

Transcending Limitations: The Practice of Splicing

One of the greatest benefits offered by magnetic tape was the ability to edit

recorded performances at any point. Recordings made directly to disc required a

satisfactory performance from start to finish. Any errors, whether they were

musical, mechanical, or electrical, could require another full take if the performance

46 Millard, America on Record, 197-198. 47 Kernfield, The New Grove Dictionary, Vol. 3, 368-369. 35

was not considered suitable for release. In an era of three-minute records, it is understandable why this limitation was tolerated—there was choice. It also demonstrates how performance errors became a part of recordings, a “question of economics,” as David Baker said.48 It was necessary to capture the performance as the

stylus cut the disc because the grooves were unalterable.

Unlike discs, magnetic tape was cheap, reusable, and could be cut and spliced

to create seamless performances. Its linear form made editing simple and precise with

no loss of sound quality, making each edit, if done skillfully, imperceptible to the

human ear. With a razor and adhesive tape, numerous edits could be made for a

variety of reasons: a section of the piece with a performance error could be recorded

again, the offending passage excised and replaced; a spirited bridge recorded in the

could replace a less inspired bridge from the first take; sections of solos

recorded in different takes could be assembled to create one musical statement. All of

these methods create the illusion of a continuous performance.

In his essay, "The Prospects of Recording," classical pianist

discussed the performer as "a go-between serving both and composer," and as a specialist in the interpretation of a composed piece, "he should assume something of an editorial role."49 Gould described a recording session in which two satisfactory

takes of a Bach , each take performed with different styles of phrasing, were

"monotonous." Upon listening to the performances several times, it was decided that

48 Baker, “The Phonograph in Jazz History,” 46. 49 Glenn Gould, “The Prospects of Recording,” in Classic Essays on Twentieth- Century Music: a Continuing Symposium, ed. Richard Kostelanetz and Joseph Darby (New York: Schirmer , 1996), 66. 36

sections of each take could be spliced together to create "a performance...far superior to that at the time have done in the studio." A particularly poignant observation concludes his discussion of the fugue:

By taking advantage of the post-taping afterthought, however, one can very often transcend the limitations that performance imposes upon the imagination.50

When considering Gould's ideas in relation to jazz recording, one important

distinction becomes apparent. and the performer are often the same

individual in jazz, especially in the art of improvisation. Improvisation is

instantaneous composition "written" during the performance. Thus, the editorial role

of the performer is expanded as the lack of a written score allows the artist to create a

"definitive" interpretation. Yet even this freedom does not remove the impediments to

imagination that Gould mentioned above. With tape recording, jazz artists could

utilize this new technology to produce a work that incorporates both improvisation and

composition.

Benjamin wrote of the movie scene as an of similarly mounted

shots to create a composite that, in reality, does not exist. He explained:

There is no such place for the movie scene that is being shot. Its illusionary nature is that of degree, the result of cutting. That is to say, in the studio the mechanical equipment has penetrated so deeply into reality that its pure aspect…is the result of a special procedure, namely, the shooting by the specially adjusted camera and the mounting of the shot together with other similar ones.51

50 Ibid., 65. 51 Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 626. 37

The relationship Benjamin described between the movie scene and the camera is similar to that of the recording and the tape recorder. As a film is a strip recorded, cut, and assembled to create a work, the audio tape recording is created in the same manner. Different recordings, like different shots, create a composite that could never be experienced as it happened; if there is “no such place” for the movie scene, then there is “no such time” for the song, yet each is presented as a coherent whole, not an amalgamation of sight or sound, respectively. Benjamin called this “equipment-free aspect of reality...the height of artifice.”52

Benjamin never spoke of the camera as a tool to document as well as deceive,

and the record only gained the latter capability with magnetic tape recording. Perhaps

Benjamin neglected the phonograph in his consideration of mechanically reproduced

art because of its perceived inability to record anything but sound in real time. The

film can be manipulated, and editing techniques were embraced as critical to the

medium since its invention. By contrast, at the time his essay was completed in 1935,

audio recordings remained a document of sound produced without the aid of a "special procedure" like described above.

The Primary Question: Phonography as Art

When a recording can be manipulated and edited, the nature of music

reproduction is transformed. Which type of recording embodies the art: the unedited

take, errors and all, or the edited, “perfected” take? The former was actually

52 Ibid. 38

performed in real-time and was once heard by at least one person in its entirety, mediated by no technology. The latter is a document of a performance, though not as it occurred, altered from its original form to become more representative of the vision of the artist. Yet both recordings are considered to be “complete.” This imperceptibility of technology as an intermediary makes possible a new approach to aural art; a recording is no longer required to chronicle a solitary performance as it happened.

Through editing techniques, an artist can assemble a recording as it “should” sound.

Benjamin addressed the question of art and mechanical reproduction in the visual media of photography and film with the most poignant insight of his essay:

Earlier much futile thought had been devoted to the question of whether photography is an art. The primary question—whether the very invention of photography had not transformed the entire nature of art—was not raised.53

As photography and film revolutionized how people understood the visual arts

in relation to past media such as painting, audio recording uprooted traditional views

of music and its practice. Furthermore, as the aesthetic complexities of photography

were “mere child’s play”54 compared to those of film, audio recordings faced a similar

dichotomy between the machines used before and those used after the introduction of

audiotape. Photography, like disc recording, captured or moments in time

on a fixed medium. Unless manipulated with the machine as the moment was

captured, the piece, whether visual or aural, was difficult to imperceptibly alter. By

contrast, film and audiotape were durable, linearly recorded media, and their

53 Ibid., 621. 54 Ibid. 39

introduction into commercial production spurred the creation of editing and assembling techniques.

By extension, the use of audiotape transformed the nature of jazz recording.

Musicians could control the performance by analyzing it afterwards, re-recording sections or entire pieces. Musicians consequently had greater liberty in improvisation.

The soloist(s) could record multiple takes or solo through extra choruses, leaving the cutting and splicing to the engineer. This latitude allowed players to “stretch out” without the of reaching the end of a disc. It also reduced the need for preplanned themes or riffs to “carry” a solo. Instead, performers eschewed the “economics of time” to focus instead on the shape, nature, and progression of an improvisation.

Magnetic audiotape gave the greatest freedom to musicians as they could explore outside of, instead of being dictated by, the grooves of a record.

Thelonious Monk’s 1957 album is one recording that

benefited considerably from the prospects of magnetic tape. Monk’s composition

“Brilliant Corners” was particularly difficult for the musicians involved in the session,

including tenor saxophonist , bassist , and drummer

Roach. Monk did not provide music to his sidemen, preferring the players learn the

music by ear. Of twenty-five takes, none were considered suitable for release, many of

them flawed by errors in the opening and closing themes. Producer

edited the twenty-five takes into one performance, creating what is recognized as one 40

of the greatest jazz recordings of all time.55 Magnetic tape allowed musicians to create

works out of any number of past performances, eliminating the particularly demanding

need for at least one “perfect” take in the studio.

Microgrooves: The Long Playing Record and the 45

While magnetic tape rescued the musician from the restrictions of time and

opened doors beyond the studio, a new format was required to grant the consumer an

opportunity to hear the longer performances recorded on reels instead of discs. No

matter what length of time magnetic tape contained, the record circumscribed the

recording, the vital component of the commercial music industry. Though its

drawbacks were arbitrary, they were not always viewed as an impediment. The record

was occasionally used as a medium towards musical ends instead of an end in itself.

The preeminent composer of jazz, Duke Ellington made several attempts to

create pieces within the restraint of the 78-rpm record while expanding the format’s possibilities. The first attempt was made in the recording of the “Tiger

Rag” over of a disc in 1929. Two years later, “Creole Rhapsody” in 1931,

similarly spread over two sides. “ in ” from 1935 was considerably

longer, spread over two discs (four sides). Ellington’s attempts to extend the performance allowed not only a greater time to develop a piece but to develop

individual improvisation. For example, the solo performances of “” differ

greatly between the first and second takes, an uncommon occurrence among

55 D. G. Kelley, : the Life and Times of an American Original (New York: Free Press, 2009), 211-212. 41

Ellington’s earliest recordings. It seems that these longer works encouraged musicians of the Ellington Orchestra to improvise more freely.56

Ellington’s last major work made with the 78 was “Diminuendo and

Crescendo in ” in 1937. Contrasting with the previous recordings’ focus on

improvisation, “Diminuendo” was a completely composed piece that incorporated the

temporal limit of the record as a part of the work. The “diminuendo” section faded to

silence, leading into the “crescendo” of the second section after the listener flipped the

record to the opposite side.57 Ellington’s ingenious use of the record as an element of

the piece is both a circumvention and embrace of the technology. Nevertheless, the

composition was still divided physically and temporally by the disc itself. This

division was common to classical recordings, necessitated by the length of each work.

This partitioning of recorded music also inspired the invention of the format that

replaced the 78 in the commercial music market.

Peter Goldmark, an engineer at Columbia Broadcasting System, was

determined to develop a long-playing record after his friends play Brahms’

Second Piano , interrupted eight times as each 78 side ended.58 Three years

later, in 1948, CBS unveiled and promoted Goldmark’s new invention, the

microgroove record. Made of polyvinyl chloride, the record could hold three times as

56 Katz, Capturing Sound, 76. 57 Ibid., 77. 58 Peter C. Goldmark, Inventor: My Turbulent Years at CBS (New York: Saturday Review Press, 1973), 127. 42

many grooves, had greater durability and lifespan, and played at 33 1/3 rpm.59 The

time length of these vinyl “LP” records could extend to 45 minutes, divided over two

sides. Within a year, RCA released its own record: the 45 rpm record, an improved

version of the 78 that preceded it with a similar time constraint. Once they had

supplanted 78 records by the early 1950s, these two formats defined the record

industry for the next twenty-five years.

Out of Nowhere: Bebop and Independent Labels

During the years encompassing World War II, big bands were in decline.

Gasoline rationing, high transportation costs, insufficient payment, and a loss of

personnel overseas to the war effort strained bandleaders, while swing music

increasingly became passé with the public.60 Vocalists such as and Frank

Sinatra became central attractions, diminishing the names and reputations of the bands

they fronted.61 In conjunction with these difficulties, the recording strike of the

American Federation of Musicians, which lasted between August 1942 and November

1944, struck the final blow to era as they lost all opportunities to record for their patron labels, most unable to sustain their size and pay their sidemen.

On the other hand, the music found a few of its greatest examples in Harlem that led the way in what was dubbed “modern” jazz. Musicians including Charlie

59 This speed was arbitrarily chosen by Goldmark as an appropriate speed to create a long-playing record. See Goldmark, Maverick Inventor, 130. 60 Rick Kennedy and Randy McNutt, Little Labels—Big Sound: Small Record Companies and the Rise of American Music (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), xvi. 61 Eberly, Music in the Air, 110-113. 43

Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk created a new harmonic and rhythmic vocabulary out of jazz traditions while jamming at Minton’s Playhouse, Monroe’s

Uptown House, and other clubs on 52nd Street. This music was divorced from the

relatively simple melodic and popular swing music that preceded it. It was played by

groups as small as four or five musicians, in marked contrast with contemporary dance

bands. By 1945, the year recognized as the end of the Swing Era, the music was fully

developed and making inroads in the jazz scene. The musicians had given their

approach to jazz no name, referring to themselves as “modern.” Music publications

took advantage of the opportunity and referred to the style as “bebop,” “bop,” and

“rebop” by 1946.62

For bebop to extend beyond its relatively small, regional audience, musicians

required recording prospects. The music, however, was not considered "commercial"

or popular. Its break with -based swing toward a more harmonically advanced

vocabulary and greater syncopation did not fit within the popular music landscape.

Major labels did not know how to market bebop or its purveyors, and the associated

risk of promoting new, generally unknown music at the expense of “guaranteed”

forms made them reluctant to record any bebop. Many enthusiasts of bebop

recognized the dearth of recording opportunities and set out to make their own. These

entrepreneurs created their own companies to record musicians, and independent

record labels became the earliest proponents and distributors of bebop.

62 Scott DeVeaux, “Bebop and the Recording Industry: The 1942 AFM Ban Reconsidered,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 41 (1988): 160-161. 44

During the postwar economic boom, the record industry entered an unprecedented phase of expansion. As the means to record artists became cheaper with magnetic tape, so did the input costs of entering the business. Obsolete disc recorders

became affordable to startup companies as they were replaced by tape recorders.63

Between 1948 and 1954, approximately 1,000 new record labels formed.64 These

labels performed the roles of both documenting music that was little known or

supported as well as distributing it, effectively filling a “niche” for regional sounds

and disseminating records that major labels were reluctant to record.

Several independent labels recorded bebop, and four of the most significant

labels were , Savoy, Dial, and Clef. The latter three recorded the works of

Charlie Parker, the enfant terrible of the movement who is still lauded as the greatest

bebop musician and a pervasive influence on almost all saxophonists who came after

him. Other artists recorded under these labels as well including Dizzy Gillespie (Clef,

Dial), Thelonious Monk (Blue Note), (Dial, Savoy),

(Savoy), and (Savoy). Furthermore, these labels issued bebop recordings directly after its formative years between 1945 and 1948, with no proven market for its success. While bebop developed in New York City, Dial and Clef, located in

California, released the music to those on the West Coast. Like the Great Migration, which fostered the spread of music to extend throughout the United States in the

63 Pete Welding, “Modern Electronics in the Studio,” Down Beat, January 23, 1969, 18. 64 Kennedy, Little Labels, xvi. 45

1920’s, the rise of independent labels assisted the rapid spread and incorporation of bebop in the contemporary jazz vocabulary.

Some independent labels adopted the long-playing record immediately, accelerating its use as the primary format for commercial jazz. Dial owner Ross

Russell compiled and released 10-inch and 12-inch of recording sessions with

Parker, including between 1949 and 1954.65 Not only did this provide a

greater amount of available material, it established an industry practice still in use today: . Record labels could compile and release several recorded works from

78’s onto one LP. , one of the most celebrated jazz labels of the

1950s and 1960s, began as a label of jazz records released on the Paramount

and Gennett labels.66 Throughout the 1950’s, reissues revitalized interest in past

recordings and forms of jazz while inspiring younger generations of musicians who

followed.

The LP Era and the Recording Session

The postwar period witnessed the expansion of new jazz forms, facilitated by

the technological possibilities offered by the new forms of recording and distribution.

While traditional, Dixieland, and swing bands existed and performed, they were often

at odds with musicians and bands of “modern” forms. These new strains and their

practitioners established these styles almost exclusively on LPs. Of the numerous

65 Geoffrey Wheeler, Jazz by Mail: Record Clubs and Record Labels, 1936 to 1958: Including Complete Discographies for Jazztone & (Manassas: Hillbrook Press, 1999), 402. 66 Kernfield, The New Grove Dictionary, Vol. 3, 422. 46

subgenres that emerged—West Coast or “cool” jazz, , , , —each utilized the time given for extensive improvisation. Because the long-player offered 22-26 minutes on each side, the artist could forge an artistic statement beyond a few singles. Performances on record became significantly longer, and the three-minute performance became the exception rather than the rule on recorded releases after 1950.

Yet the time on record afforded to artists was not always a boon. In his survey of jazz recordings for Down Beat magazine, jazz historian Stanley Dance points to the problems associated with the recording sessions inspired by the LP. Concision and preparation were necessary in the era of the 78, often resulting in twelve minutes of original music, or four sides per recording date. In addition, these groups usually were given a month between dates, a time for and, consequently, a fresh approach when the group recorded again. Unlike those 78 sessions marked by relative brevity, the LP era encouraged one or two sessions in quick succession, perhaps separated by a day or two, to provide all the material to be released on an upcoming album. Extended sessions of a few hours depleted musicians of original and valuable ideas quickly, leading to uninspired performances in general and diluted improvisations in

particular.67

Musicians adapted to these recording sessions with a variety of methods.

Bandleaders could provide detailed charts for their music or a simple . These bands could rehearse prior to recording dates—or not. Numerous

67 Stanley Dance, “Golden Grooves,” Down Beat, December 22, 1966, 54. 47

sessions included groups who had never practiced together prior to entering the studio.

Yet great recordings could and did result from this practice. Miles Davis’ Kind of

Blue, perhaps the most celebrated album of the genre, is one such example. In the liner

notes to the album, explained:

Miles conceived these settings only hours before the recording dates and arrived with sketches which indicated to the group what was to be played. Therefore, you will hear something to pure spontaneity in these performances. The group had never played these pieces prior to the recordings without exception the first complete performance of each was a "take."68

Rarely before had groups assembled in the studio without , especially

to record music without an extensive written component to guide the musicians. This

In the past, recording sessions were expensive affairs, requiring the fewest amount of

takes possible for the greatest, both of quality and length, amount of music. Editorial

decisions determined whether the same recording needed to be . With tape

and the LP, as well as the growth of firms dedicated to documenting and fostering new

forms of the music, different attitudes towards recording emerged. Editorial decisions

could be reserved until after the session as large amounts of music were recorded to be

assembled into a collection of works on a single disc.

As the LP became the preeminent for the dissemination of the music

and new forms of expression surfaced, it is apparent that these styles needed a medium

capable of capturing them. Third stream, a title given to music that mixes jazz and

European art forms, may have well remained in the theater or the hall without

68 Bill Evans, to Miles Davis, (United States: Columbia, 1958), 1. 48

the long-player. It is hard to imagine a three-minute record adequately representing a music based in European traditions. Avant-garde and movements may never have been recorded at all, certainly incapable of transmitting long-form improvisation through a 78. The works of each style required a temporally flexible medium, and musicians found it in the LP.

The record in the postwar era became the principal means in the to exchange musical ideas. While live performance was generally considered a necessary path for a musician’s career, the proliferation of music publications, critics,

and collectors celebrated and focused primarily on the record. It served as a static,

universal representation of both art and artist as opposed to discussing particular live

performances. Indeed, Evan Eisenberg claimed that records make jazz “legitimate” by

“giving scholars and critics something to cite instead of swapping stories.”69

The of both technology and the record industry ushered in a new era

for jazz. The postwar era witnessed a veritable renaissance in the art. Music historian

Ted Gioia compared the development of jazz to that of Western art music.

What the European tradition accomplished between 1740 and 1920, jazz movements

from 1940, with the introduction of bebop, to 1960, when free jazz and

avant-garde artists had made inroads into jazz performance and recording.70 Recording technology was critical to this shift with magnetic tape quickly becoming the primary

69 Evan Eisenberg, The Recording : the Experience of Music from to Zappa (New York: Penguin, 1988), 123. 70 , The Imperfect Art: Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 72. 49

recording medium and the long-playing record standing as the pillar of distribution for commercial jazz recordings. Musicians immediately responded to and often incorporated these to expand the definition of a music in perpetual motion.

Records Re-Imagined: Stereo, Overdubbing, and the Producer

As recording ideas and methods proliferated with its latest developments, roles in the recording process between musicians and those who worked with them underwent a notable change. An agent in the creative process, the producer, entered the studio and fundamentally transformed the relationship between the musicians and the product made from the fruits of their labor. Engineers, while not marginalized, took less active roles in the creation of the final product as recording offered greater opportunities to shape and alter its sound, leading to the creation of a new kind of musical intermediary, the producer.

During the first fifty years of recording, an engineer could rightfully be called a . His work required an intimate understanding of the equipment that captured sound, from the materials that composed the recording medium to the pressure of the stylus. When added to the demands of placing musicians in appropriate distances from the recording horn, accounting for the acoustical properties of the room, all while remaining mindful of the time constraint a record presented, an engineer faced quite a daunting task when recording a 3-minute disc. His focus devoted to mechanical and acoustical concerns, creating the most accurate sound recording was the only priority. It is no wonder that studios were referred to as 50

in the early days of recording.71 Musicians were often treated like

employees or experimental subjects as recording professionals commanded them

through a recording session, allowing them little to no input in the proceedings.72

As recording techniques improved, the role of the engineer did not diminish, but it gradually shifted away from exclusively technical matters. The introduction of multiple microphones in recording sessions significantly freed the engineer to give greater attention to mixing. Mixing is the practice of blending the signals from each audio source, usually a microphone, to create an instrumentally balanced recording.

The separate sources could be monitored as the recording progressed, and this practice allowed a greater dynamic range than acoustic era recordings, subject completely to the placement of musicians and their relative volume as it collected inside the recording horn. Furthermore, the introduction of magnetic tape, disc-recording tables were replaced with low-maintenance machines that freed the engineer from “watching the needle.” The engineer had a greater role in the artistic process, raising and lowering the volume of each instrument as he saw fit to create the most aurally pleasing recording.

In spite of these notable modifications in his role, the engineer remained a recording specialist first and foremost, hired and paid to replicate the sound of music with the highest fidelity and clarity possible. Matters of were of secondary importance, if they were a in his work at all. However, the introduction of magnetic tape signaled the end of the studio as a domain exclusive to the engineer.

71 Millard, America on Record, 258. 72 Ibid., 270. 51

Two novel practices introduced in the 1950s stretched the possibilities of recording while spreading the engineer too thin. “Recording” gave way to “production” with the adoption of , followed by “tracking” or “overdubbing.”

Two Ears, Two Channels: Stereo Recording

Stereo trumped the recording style that preceded it, retroactively labeled

“,” with two distinct channels of audio reproduced through two separate speakers, positioned at least a few feet from each other. Standardized for LP recording in 1957 and marketed by most U.S. record companies by late 1958, stereo recording was hailed as a step toward more “realistic” recording because of its ability to replicate dimension, space, and placement in sound.73 Indeed, stereo was meant to

deliver sound as heard it. Instead of the same signal reaching both ears, two

signals, mixed appropriately, were said to accomplish the illusion of musicians being

“in the room” with the listener.

Strangely, many early examples of commercial music recorded with stereo as a

central consideration did little to imitate reality. As stereo sales increased beyond a

, companies directed funds towards creating records designed to promote its

“life-like” sound. Demonstration records and series such as RCA’s “Stereo Action”

LP’s were characterized by “futuristic” and gimmicky sound effects that

bounced or swept across the left and right speakers. born of hi-fi stereo like

“” came and went within the span of a few years. Stereo’s popularity

73 Roland Gelatt, The Fabulous Phonograph 1877-1977 (New York: Macmillan, 1977), 315-317. 52

continued to increase in spite of these failed experiments to excite the public’s imagination. Stereo succeeded because of its ability to create a fuller aural image of the music. It clarified and separated sounds instead of stacking them in one channel, expanding the sound field and enlivening the listening experience.

Few jazz artists turned to stereo as a chief element of their music, instead using it as a way to design a “live” . One notable exception, however, is a Benny

Golson LP titled Pop + Jazz = Swing, recorded in 1957 and released by Audio

Fidelity, one of the first companies to release stereo records. The album contained left and right channels of a “string-reed-French horn ensemble” and a jazz nonet, respectively, that could be balanced as the listener preferred. With the twist of a knob, a listener could hear a pop performance, a jazz performance, or combine them for a big band arrangement, as the title implies. In essence, it was two performances on one record, and a listener could control the mix between the two styles to create a preferred blend.74

Certainly an innovative idea, the album remains an isolated example of

experimentation in stereo jazz recording. A review from Down Beat magazine

acknowledges the potential of this approach while criticizing the result: the two

arrangements are harmonically related but detract another when mixed

together. Because each channel is meant to be a performance that can stand

independently of the other, both become dense and difficult to follow when mixed

together. The jazz performances suffer accordingly as each arrangement is hampered

74 Bernard Lee, liner notes to , ! (United States: Jazz Beat, 2009), 1-2. 53

by the restrictions imposed on the musicians trying not to clash with the busy strings or each other. Never adopted as a viable alternative recording approach, Pop + Jazz =

Swing remains an obscure sample of stereo recording in its daring early years.

While Pop + Jazz = Swing may not have been a commercial success and

quickly went out of print, it is indicative of a practice that was growing in popularity

and use. Stereo, by definition, is a two-track recording. Multiple tracks improved the

control over separate signals to create an appropriate sonic balance. Two-track

recording also improved the fidelity of recording as each signal could be isolated and

adjusted appropriately to further manipulate the sound. Yet these were not its only

benefits. Multiple-track recording made practical a technique that revolutionized the

recording process: overdubbing.

Sound on Sound on Sound: Overdubbing

Overdubbing is the recording of sound that is layered on top of pre-recorded audio. Like stereo before it, overdubbing was a practice that emerged naturally from the potential of magnetic tape. It was rarely used in the days of single-track recording because two separately recorded signals would have to be “bounced” to another machine and mixed track. This became a and time- consuming process with several overdubs. By contrast, because stereo contained two tracks, it was possible to play one track and record the other simultaneously. By consequence, a previously recorded track could be heard as the second track recorded

to the same tape simultaneously. As this innovative use of audiotape became more 54

common, tape machines of greater magnitude—4-track, 8-track, 16-track—were developed to improve the fidelity and ease of its use.

Before the introduction of magnetic tape, “overdubs” were possible, but the fidelity of the recording diminished significantly with each successive “track.” Multi- instrumentalist Sidney Bechet provided one of the earliest examples during a 1941

RCA Victor recording session. Performing “The Sheik of Araby” on six different instruments successively, Bechet listened to the playback of the last recording while a

new disc recorded both the previous record and his addition: “I by playing ‘The

Sheik’ on piano, and played the drums while listening to …[then] grabbed

my , then the bass, then the , and finally finished up with the

.”75 Because six successive discs were cut for each instrument, the instruments

recorded first suffered greatly in terms of sound quality and volume, especially the piano and drums. Nevertheless, the record was literally Bechet as a six-man jazz band.

While it became standard practice in early rock ‘n’ roll, overdubs were not

often embraced in jazz recording. In fact, there was significant resistance to the

concept among musicians. Jazz was celebrated as a collaborative art that valued

improvisation and interaction between musicians. “Purists” of the music believed

recording should simply capture a live performance. Overdubbing was akin to

cheating: it allowed artists to improvise and record outside of an on-the- group

performance. It was also viewed as inauthentic because it allowed artists to record

performances that they may be unable to recreate in a live setting. Yet in the face of

75 George Hoeffer, liner notes to Sidney Bechet, Bechet of New Orleans (United States: RCA, 1965), 1. 55

such criticism, musicians employed this recording technique to create some of the most enduring works of the mid-twentieth century.

Upon release of his eponymous album on Atlantic, pianist faced “strong objections in some quarters” for his use of overdubbing and tape speed manipulation to create his works (in the days before stereo). Tristano addressed his critics directly in a 1956 Down Beat interview titled, “Multitaping Isn’t Phony,” defending his use of overdubbing as an artistic decision to achieve a specific sound instead of a cowardly attempt to circumvent live performance. On his recording of

“Turkish Mambo,” Tristano said, “There is no other way I could do it so that I could get the rhythms to go together the way I feel them.” Discussing “East Thirty-Second” and “Line Up,” he justifies altering the speed of the taped piano tracks because their higher pitch improved the acoustic balance, ending his point with, “…it’s the music that matters.” He then explained his indifference to “the ‘stigma’ of multi-track recording…because there are some things I do that others are not capable of doing with me.” Throughout the article, Tristano criticized musicians who viewed jazz

as a competition instead of focusing on their own work and progress.76

Tristano’s remarks are indicative of a shift in jazz that was occurring at the

time towards an increased professionalism in recording. The studio could be used as

an instrument itself, and both musicians and producers were growing increasingly

aware of its possibilities. Some of the greatest jazz recordings of the late 1950s and

1960s were not the result of a miraculous in-house but a unified musical

76 Nat Hentoff, “Multitaping Isn’t Phony: Tristano,” Down Beat, May 16, 1956, 11. 56

statement assembled from previously recorded pieces. Overdubbing offered even greater editorial control to musicians; individual instruments and voices could be recorded, isolated, and brought together as necessary. While live group performance was not precluded, it was quickly losing its place as the most effective arrangement in the studio.

Even though it offered greater options in the studio, overdubbing did not become an integral part of recording sessions. Many albums were recorded without any tracking at all. Even those musicians and producers who did turn to overdubbing were not always considering the artistic possibilities. The motivations behind overdubs

varied greatly. From financial restraints to live performance difficulties, technology

was treated as a means to an end, and that end was not always clear to the participants

until it was reached.

Necessity and Invention: Examples of Jazz Overdubbing

In 1957, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross recorded Sing a Song of Basie with all

twelve vocal tracks overdubbed by the three singers. Lambert and Hendricks, then

without Ross, had fired thirteen singers hired for the recording session because,

according to , “they couldn’t swing…the way the [Count Basie] band

did it.”77 Annie Ross was hired as a third vocalist, but the session was in jeopardy as

there was neither time nor money to find replacement vocalists. The group introduced

the possibility of overdubbing every vocal part themselves to producer .

77 Jon Hendricks, interview by Arthur Cromwell, WPFW 89.3 FM, Washington, D.C., February 20, 1987. 57

Each performance, consisting of three voices, was recorded on a track. Then another track of three voices was recorded, and both were combined to one track. The process was repeated two more times to layer twelve voices.78 The session was a success as the album became one of the most critically and commercially acclaimed records of the late 1950s and Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross became the premier ensemble, setting a precedent in extensive vocal overdubbing.

In the same year Lambert, Hendricks, & Ross released Sing a Song of Basie,

Miles Davis made use of overdubbing for quite a different reason on his album Miles

Ahead. Davis and arranger gathered a nineteen-piece band led by Miles, the only soloist of the ensemble. Jazz historian Loren Schoenberg described the recording of “I Don’t Wanna Be Kissed (By Anyone But You)”:

During the taping of the orchestral track for “I Don't Wanna Be Kissed,” Davis unexpectedly played a few random portions of his solo. Months later at the overdub session, he had to tailor new passages to lead in and out of what he had already played on the prerecorded track. During five attempts, Davis used a variety of rhetorical devices (many borrowed from his mentor, Lester Young) to solve a musical problem.79

Davis’ overdubs were a product of artistic deliberation. His creation of new

musical phrases in reaction to a previous performance to created a cohesive statement.

The artist is given the opportunity to review and shape the performance, but this is not

to say his overdubs were “composed.” Miles required five attempts, indicating that

improvisation was most likely his approach to responding to his own solo.

78 Ibid. 79 Loren Schoenberg, “The Meeting of Minds in a Legendary Union,” , 15 September 1996, http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/15/arts/the-meeting-of- minds-in-a-legendary-union.html?pagewanted=all. 58

While Miles responded to his own solo, pianist Bill Evans created the most intensive exploration of an artist responding to his own performance. In the fall of

1963, Conversations With Myself was released, containing ten pieces with three playing simultaneously, all of whom were Evans. Each piece Evans played

was improvised as he responded to the past take with a fresh viewpoint while also able to anticipate his own accompaniment. To put it another way, Evans both improvised by himself and with himself as he layered three distinct piano performances.

In the liner notes to his album, Evans expounds on his creation and the relationship between each piano performance:

The argument that the same mind was involved in all three performances could be advanced, but I feel that this is not quite true. The functions of each track are different, and just as one in speech feels a different state of mind making statements than in responding to statements or commenting on the exchange involved in the first two, so I feel that the music here has more the quality of a ‘trio’ than a solo effort.80

Evans considers each performance as a conscious creation derived from

improvisation instead of preconceived notions of what came before. Yet Evans still

acknowledges that he knows his “musical techniques more thoroughly than any other

person so that, it seems , I am equipped to respond to my previous musical

statements with the most accuracy and clarity.”81

Each of these examples characterizes a new approach to the record as an

artistic work. None of these albums consisted of unaltered live performances.

However, when these musicians layered their performances on top of others once

80 Bill Evans, liner notes to Bill Evans, Conversations with Myself, (United States: Verve, 1963), 1. 81 Ibid. 59

created, they had different intentions. Lambert, Hendricks & Ross sought to compensate for a missing vocal ensemble. Davis filled the gaps of an incomplete solo backed by an orchestral arrangement. Evans built his album track by track, improvising with and against his own creations. Overdubbing was not merely augmenting a recorded piece; it presented considerable aesthetic possibilities that musicians embraced or ignored as they saw fit.

Designing and Constructing Music: Enter the Producer

These new technologies extended their influence beyond the recording itself. A new figure in the studio appeared, one that changed the face of popular music, the producer. While the engineer once stood alone, setting up microphones and managing the recording equipment with strictly technical concerns in mind regarding audio quality, the producer entered as a specialist responsible for working directly with the artist and using these new technologies to create the best recording. The paramount difference between engineer and producer rested in the latter’s focus on aesthetic interests. While engineers dedicated themselves to perfect the sound recorded during the session, producers crafted the work as but especially after it had been recorded. As overdubbing, mixing, , and compression became used regularly, producers were sought after to take advantage of these tools and create records. By the 1960s, the most recognized producers were identified with a particular “sound” or sonic characteristic that defined their work. 60

Rock n’ roll music was the driving force behind this realignment in studio personnel because rock records used the new technology in its formative years. From the echoed voices of Presley and Cochran to the that ends the

Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, novel recording techniques infused the music from its inception. While jazz record producers were neither as quick nor as willing to implement all of these studio methods, those who used them most effectively became celebrated as an asset to the genre’s recorded output. Orrin

Keepnews, , Creed Taylor, and are all recognized as some of the greatest examples of this new class of musical intermediaries.

The music producers recorded was often identified with the label for which they recorded. Thiele produced artists such as , , and

Sonny Rollins on the Impulse! label. Taylor is most often associated with Verve

Records where he produced the first American bossa nova records. As a founder of

Riverside Records, Orrin Keepnews is synonymous with the label for his production work on many of their recordings including Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans.

Macero’s production work at Columbia led to some of the best-selling jazz albums of all time, most notably Kind of Blue and the ’s Time Out. These mediators were renowned for their ability to consistently produce critically and commercially successful records.

With the introduction of the producer, the musicians were no longer the only substantial creative force in shaping a recording. However, this did not mean that musicians lost any control over their work. While in some cases a domineering 61

producer has shaped the content and performance of a musical group, this was uncommon in jazz recording. Producers often gave artists to participate in the record making process and share in creative decision-making. With this collaboration,

Musicians sought new ways to explore and develop ideas, and studio techniques offered a wealth of opportunities. With the producer as a liaison between the musician and the machine, the studio served not simply as a setting in which recordings were made but potentially as an instrument itself in the creation of a work.

Miles Away: Jazz Fusion and the Studio as Instrument

The most famous instance of the relationship between musician and producer furthering the art in jazz recording is found in of Miles Davis produced by

Teo Macero after 1969. As Davis incorporated rock and rhythms and electric instruments in his ensembles, Macero worked with Miles to produce and shape these recordings. The role of the technology employed to create these works is immediately

evident. Throughout the LP’s and , recorded in 1969, the

lines between improvisation, composition, and technology vanish as artifacts of

recording become essential to their sonic texture and structure.

In a Silent Way is the Davis album of an emerging style called jazz

fusion, a genre that incorporated with rhythms derived from rock,

funk, and as well as electric instruments. On the first track, the

music flows quite gracefully through “Shhh/Peaceful,” its edits imperceptible to the

undiscerning ear, sounding like one complete take. “In a Silent Way/It’s About That 62

Time” is more evidently an invention of the studio. Like the two parts of

“Shhh/Peaceful,” the same take of “In a Silent Way” bookends “It’s About That

Time,” opening and closing the extended piece like an opening theme that is recapitulated to close the work. Of more than three hours of material, less than thirty minutes of original music composed the album. More than ten minutes of the entire recording is heard .

Though In a Silent Way provoked discussion and criticism for its musical qualities and its unorthodox use of splicing, its successor shook the jazz world and became a hit, giving Miles a hit LP and raising his status among rock fans. Bitches

Brew contains the most expansive use of the studio in jazz up to that time. In the title track, the theme is repeated several times, revisited several times, and divided by improvisations punctuated by echoing trumpet blasts. “Bitches Brew” contained fifteen edits, and “Pharaoh’s Dance” consisted of eighteen edits—a staggering number for a jazz album, not to mention a single piece.82 Echo effects, tape loops, and reverb

were all used in the creation of the album.83 Instead of a collection of performances,

Bitches Brew is a sonic assembly that is indebted to recording technology for some of

its most distinctive traits.

The structure of the album itself is what is most notable about the use of

recording methods. Each piece was edited together from the recording sessions, and

the results contained no standard or mode. Davis and Macero

82 Paul Tingen, Miles Beyond: the Electric Explorations of Miles Davis, 1967-1991 (New York: Billboard Books, 2001), 67-68. 83 Ibid. 63

essentially created new works from previous recordings. Instead of a planned performance edited and “perfected,” the recording itself is the intended performance.

The sessions from which the source material came were not intended to be cohesive musical statements. Indeed, Macero described the post-production process as a

“search-and-find routine…it’s just a matter of putting it all together.”84 The LP

consisted of editing, effects, and compiled fragments of music formed as a sonic

, a 94-minute statement forged from more than nine hours of studio time.85 No

jazz record had ever been made with the same intent: an album conceived from

improvised performances, sections removed from takes and rearranged as an original

work, granted its own internal by the composer and the producer working

together.

Music in the Age of Mechanical (Re-)Production: Assembled Art

The practice of overdubbing presents the greatest implications in regard to

Benjamin’s relationship between art and mechanical reproduction. Discussing film

and its assembly, he explains how shots which we will be sequenced which may be

shot weeks between each other, such as “a jump from a scaffold and the ensuing

flight,” due to the demands of filming indoors as opposed to outdoors. Overdubbing

creates a similar temporal continuity not derived from reality. Complete performances,

recorded hours or even days apart from each other, can be spliced together to create a

84 Jack Chambers, Milestones II: the Music and Times of Miles Davis since 1960 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 151. 85 Ibid., 173 64

continuous, uninterrupted piece of music. Musicians may have never encountered one another, but each can be heard playing as a group on a record. Bechet’s “Sheik of

Araby” and Evans’ Conversations with Myself illustrate this point as each recording consists of an artist who performs both alone and together, the individual’s presence multiplied on the record.

With techniques that became standard practice in the 1960s, the sophistication of audio recording and editing techniques were comparable to those of film, and the became an intermediary analogous to the cameraman. Both created works “consisting of multiple fragments which are assembled under a new law.” Both presented an “aspect of reality which is free of all equipment.” 86 Benjamin

the painter and the cameraman, describing the cameraman’s work as a more

significant representation of reality because the painter’s work maintains a distance

from reality. If this comparison is applied to recorded sound, the relationship between

the performer and the producer parallel that of the painter and the cameraman.

The musician is akin to the painter; both are artists who strive to recreate

the image they see in their minds, aural and visual, respectively. The musician

plays using the sounds of her instrument to create a piece of music; the painter

uses the materials that provide his work with to create a piece of visual art.

Both use their skills to create works derived from the mind, a work of imagination

and invention. Yet the result of these attempts to materialize art from the mind is

always imperfect. Just as a live performance cannot be played in exactly the same

86 Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” 626-627. 65

way as one that preceded it, the musician cannot perfectly replicate the music heard in one’s mind.

On the other hand, the cameraman and the record producer are exempt

from these limitations. Their works are derived from what has existed in reality,

the recordings that serve as the basis for their work. The process of assembly

removes art from the domain of tradition. The editorial role of the producer

becomes the decisive factor in the creation of the work, with previous performances serving as the raw materials instead of abstract ideas of sound from the mind. Even if the composer and producer decide that the raw materials are insufficient, more recordings can be made.

Ironically, in creating a work that did not and in some cases could not occur in real-time, the finished product can achieve artistic perfection due to its conception apart from reality. Instead of music forced to conform to the errors, imbalances, and slight variations that arise in collective performance, each element of the recording can be isolated, examined, and edited. Music then becomes a pure product of mechanical reproduction, incapable of existing in reality as it is heard from the record. This is the of aura: modern recording practices detach recorded music from its unique time and place of existence, divorced from the traditions that once produced it. Yet the art is most representative of the artists’ vision, mediated by technology. Benjamin ends his analysis of the relationship between the painter and the cameraman with this observation: 66

Thus, for contemporary man the representation of reality by the film is incomparably more significant than that of the painter, since it offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoing permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality which is free of all equipment. And that is what one is entitled to ask from a work of art.87

Multi-track recording ushered in a new era of music production with stereo, overdubbing, and the countless audio processing tools that followed producers into the studio. The boundaries and definition of jazz expanded with these changes in commercial music creation. Musicians did not react against these technologies as anathema to the spirit of the music; instead, some techniques were embraced to advance musical ideas and their own compositions. It was the choice of a musician to emulate a live performance in the studio or eschew it completely, depending on the music and the intent of its creator(s). A spirit of experimentation infused the music called jazz during this time as new approaches to recording and music production flourished.

87 Ibid., 627. 67

Conclusion

When examining the past developments of jazz, it is evident that without the record, the collective understanding of the sounds and styles of its greatest examples may be lost forever. The record is not simply a tool to reproduce performances of popular musicians; it preserves sounds that would otherwise be lost, inspires and

educates young musicians, and offers a glimpse of past, present, and even future

cultural progressions. Whereas other musical forms that preceded the phonograph

once existed independently of it, jazz may never have been as influential and

pervasive as it became. The record transmitted rhythms, tones, and timbres of an

American to people across the country and the world.

Disc recording created records that reproduced music as it was performed.

Like a sonic snapshot, recording was a medium that reproduced a moment in the past.

Performances on record were based in a traditional approach; a group of musicians

assembled in a common area and performed for a recording apparatus. This work

could then be repeated as it was played through the record. Instead of a stage or club,

the music came from the phonograph, but the intent was still the same; the music was

“re-performed” by the musicians an audience demanded, whether for one or

one thousand listeners.

The recording technology that captured the first performances of jazz forced

the music into a format that could not contain the music as it was heard live. Yet this

format ironically became a kind of distillation of jazz as artists adapted to its temporal 68

limitation. Musicians had to create with the record in mind, encouraging the creation of standard structures and forms conforming to three minutes. Yet this approach did not preclude improvisation which remained a defining aspect of the music both inside and outside of the studio from its beginning.

Magnetic tape and the LP rescued commercially recorded jazz from these limitations, and the music flourished accordingly. Furthermore, the developments of

the 1950s and 1960s saw recording technology and jazz entering new modes of

creativity. Instead of an impediment forcing musicians to be mindful of time,

recording technology became a creative enabler, allowing the artist to explore and

expand concepts once inhibited by the phonograph. In conjunction with this freedom,

an artist could judiciously excise, augment, and edit recordings previously made.

Stereo and overdubbing now allowed artists, working with producers, to direct

attention towards both the music and the sound of the music, which could be shaped as

they saw fit. Music no longer had to mimic live performance; instead, the recording

could exist as an independent document of music, born of the technology that created

it. The art of jazz reached an unprecedented peak of creativity and freedom in this era,

and its influence on the music echoes through subsequent recordings.

The story of jazz and recording technology is one of improvisation in both

senses of the word. Musicians spontaneously create, with or without preparation,

in addition to making use of the machines and methods available to them. Artists

embraced and redefined the music through the machinery’s limitations and

opportunities. With the record, musicians expanded their audience, influence, and 69

expression, making recorded performance a key element of learning within the jazz tradition. From its beginnings in a nascent industry to an age of music reproduction as a part of day-to-day life, jazz evolved and revolved on the phonographs of America and continues to engage listeners all over the world with its unique contributions to our musical history.

70

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