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I at the Vanguard of Vinyl: a Cultural History of the Long-‐‑Playing

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I at the Vanguard of Vinyl: a Cultural History of the Long-‐‑Playing At the Vanguard of Vinyl: A Cultural History of the Long-Playing Record in Jazz by Darren Mueller Department of Music Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Louise Meintjes, Supervisor ___________________________ Paul F. Berliner ___________________________ Mark Anthony Neal ___________________________ Philip Rupprecht ___________________________ Jacqueline Waeber Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Music in The Graduate School of Duke University 2015 i v ABSTRACT At the Vanguard of Vinyl: A Cultural History of the Long-Playing Record in Jazz by Darren Mueller Department of Music Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Louise Meintjes, Supervisor ___________________________ Paul F. Berliner ___________________________ Mark Anthony Neal ___________________________ Philip Rupprecht ___________________________ Jacqueline Waeber An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Music in The Graduate School of Duke University 2015 Copyright by Darren Mueller 2015 Abstract At the Vanguard of Vinyl investigates the jazz industry’s adoption of the long-playing record (LP), 1948–1960. The technological advancements of the LP, along with the incipient use of magnetic tape recording, made it feasible to commercially issue recordings running beyond the three-minute restrictions of the 78-rpm record. LPs began to feature extended improvisations, musical mistakes, musicians’ voices, and other moments of informal music making, revolutionizing the standard recording and production methods of the previous recording era. As the visual and sonic modes of representation shifted, so too did jazz’s relationship to white mainstream culture, Western European musical aesthetics, US political structures, and streams of Afro-modernism. Jazz, as an African American social and musical practice, became a form of resistance against the violent structures of institutional racism within the United States in the 1950s. Using the records of Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, and Cannonball Adderley, this study outlines the diverse approaches to record making that characterized the transitional years as the LP became the standard recording format. Through archival research, close listening, and detailed discographical analyses of the era’s most influential record labels, I show how jazz practices and musical “mistakes” caught on record provided opportunities for recording experimentation. I examine choices made during the record production process, such as tape edits, microphone placement, overdubbing, and other sound processing effects, connecting such choices to the visual and tactile attributes of these discs. Drawing on scholarship that considers how sound reproduction technologies mediate constructions of race and ethnicity, I argue that the history of jazz in the 1950s is one of social engagement by means of and through technology. At the Vanguard of Vinyl is a cultural history of the jazz LP that underscores the ways in which record making is a vital process to music and its circulation. iv Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... iv List of Tables .......................................................................................................................... viii List of Figures ............................................................................................................................ ix Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... x Introduction The LP Goes Live ................................................................................................. 1 The LP Goes Live ................................................................................................................................. 5 Technology, Performance, Time ....................................................................................................... 13 The LP and Jazz in the 1950s ............................................................................................................. 21 Records and Jazz Studies ................................................................................................................... 25 On Discographies and the Archive ................................................................................................... 31 Final Cuts ........................................................................................................................................... 34 Introduction Discography ................................................................................................................ 36 Chapter 1 At the Margins of Music: The Early LPs of Miles Davis ........................................ 38 Jazz Modernism and Prestige Records ............................................................................................ 42 Theorizing Format ............................................................................................................................ 49 1951: The 10-inch LP, First Takes ....................................................................................................... 57 1953: Extended Play ........................................................................................................................... 66 1955: The 12-inch LP ........................................................................................................................... 71 1951 (Reprise): “Bluing” at the Margins of Music ............................................................................ 87 Head Out ............................................................................................................................................ 98 Chapter 1 Discography: Early LPs and Experiments with Format ................................................ 100 Chapter 2 Quest for the Moment: The Audio Production of Ellington at Newport ............ 105 v George Avakian, Columbia Records, and Jazz Respectability ....................................................... 110 Troubling the Live Record ................................................................................................................ 116 Producing Newport .......................................................................................................................... 123 Producing Gonsalves’s Solo .............................................................................................................. 133 Making Records Live, Making Live Records .................................................................................. 137 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 143 Chapter 2 Discography: Capturing and Producing Festival Stages, Studio Jam Sessions, and Lengthy Improvisations ................................................................................................................... 145 Chapter 3 Performing Jazz, Performing Democracy: The Ambassadorial LPs of Dizzy Gillespie .................................................................................................................................. 148 Performing Jazz, Performing Democracy ....................................................................................... 150 Gillespie’s Ambassadorial LPs and the Concert Tours .................................................................. 157 The Technological Moment ............................................................................................................ 177 The Political Moment ...................................................................................................................... 185 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 197 Chapter 3 Discography: Dizzy Gillespie and Other Jazz Ambassadors ........................................ 199 Chapter 4 Capturing the Scene: The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco ........ 201 Hard Bop and The Long-Playing Record ....................................................................................... 205 Recording the 1950s Jazz Club ......................................................................................................... 216 Capturing the Jazz Club, Part 1: Visual Representations ............................................................... 225 Capturing the Jazz Club, Part II: Representing Sound .................................................................. 237 Reprise: Quintet in San Francisco .................................................................................................. 248 Chapter 4 Discography: Jazz Recorded “Live” at the Club ............................................................ 251 Conclusion Jazz Cultures of Circulation .............................................................................. 255 Conclusion Discography .................................................................................................................. 271 vi Bibliography ...........................................................................................................................
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