Monday, November 18, 2013

U DIG IT?: Joe Simmons digitizes Joe Pass's 1973 recording Virtuoso #4

The James R. and Susan Neumann Jazz Collection presents

the neUmann DIGITization project
Beginning in fall 2013, we're giving interested students the chance to choose an LP to digitize from the ca. 50,000 jazz-related recordings currently in the Neumann Jazz Collection and then to answer a few brief questions about their experience.  If you'd like to be a part of the project, you can find out more information here. Today our post is by Joe Simmons (OC '15), who chose the 1973 album Virtuoso #4 by Joe Pass (Pablo Live 2640-102.]





Why in general did you want to be a part of this project?
I have been working on archiving, cataloging, and digitizing Oberlin Alumnus Jim Neumann's immense collection of jazz recordings and artifacts for the past year and a half. This has given me direct exposure to the history of the music I study in a way that few people have the privilege to do. As such, I applaud Matt Segall's efforts to make this extraordinary collection more accessible to the students of Oberlin College and Conservatory. Although I frequently digitize vinyl records as part of my job, I decided I would like to add my voice to the conversation Matt started and comment on what these recordings mean to me.

Why did you choose this particular record?
I chose to digitize and comment on the first two sides of Joe Pass' Virtuoso #4. Although this particular recording session is available digitally, it consists of outtakes that were not included in the first three of the "Virtuoso" series. As a guitarist, it's difficult to pass up a chance to listen to a Joe Pass record on vinyl that you haven't heard.

How was this experience different from simply locating an existing digital version of the LP on YouTube or Spotify?
I think there is something really special about hearing a great record on vinyl pressed 30 years ago, still in pristine condition. People may argue on either side whether the sound quality of vinyl is noticeably better, but there's no denying that it's a different listening experience altogether. Ultimately of course, the purpose of digitization is to preserve the music in a format that never "goes bad" (vinyl slowly degrades with time and multiple listenings), and to make it more accessible to listeners on campus. Still, I highly recommend taking this opportunity to experience this collection first hand.

What musically stood out to you as you listened to the recording?
This particular recording offers an interesting view into who Joe Pass was as a musician. All but one track (“Indian Summer”) are played on acoustic guitar rather than electric arch-top (though Norman
Granz incorrectly states that every track is acoustic in his liner notes). I wasn't too sure that I liked this choice at first; the sound is much rawer and harsher than I tend to prefer for jazz guitar. The sound of the pick and the string-scratching during shifts is audible and I found it kind of distracting. In fact, the first track "Lush life" left me with the impression that Joe Pass isn't nearly as at home playing acoustic. However, as I continued to listen, I became much more engaged. Listen for his use of "guitaristic" techniques: blistering single-note lines interspersed with double stops, chordal passages, counterpoint, and slurs among others. Joe plays the guitar as a convincing solo instrument, combining sonic textures and rhythmic/harmonic effects in much the same way that a solo violinist playing a composed work would.

Still, there are moments when the illusion is broken; I occasionally noticed slightly-too-long pauses where Joe Pass searches for the right chord, a little too awkward to be construed as an artistic choice. However, in these moments, I find myself in awe at the realization that these beautiful renditions of standards are probably in fact completely improvised. These pieces are a true reflection of his talent, instincts, and immense knowledge and command of the guitar. Listen for his use of the range of the entire instrument, as well as the way he marks different sections of his improvisations to avoid monotony. Also, take note of his rubato interpretation of some pieces (particularly the first few on side a) versus others clearly rooted in the swing tradition (as in "Come Rain or Come Shine" and "My Shining Hour").

I found the last track on side b, "Someday My Prince Will Come" to be his most artful rendition of any standard on this 2 disc set. He tastefully combines the techniques heard thus far, but the transitions are flawless and the ending is satisfying and appropriate in context with the rest of the piece. After listening to Virtuoso #4 in its entirety, I still prefer Joe Pass on an electric arch-top guitar over acoustic, but this album demonstrates that a tasteful artist can shine on almost any instrument.

Can other students listen to the LP now that it’s been digitized?
Yes, just click here and, when prompted, enter your ObieID and password.  If you’re off campus, you’ll need to authenticate using Oberlin’s VPN.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

New in Our Collections This Fall

Take a look at what we have added to our collections during September and October.

Monday, November 11, 2013

U DIG IT?: Steve Becker digitizes Miles Davis's 1965 recording At Plugged Nickel, Chicago Vol. 2

The James R. and Susan Neumann Jazz Collection presents

the neUmann DIGITization project
Beginning in fall 2013, we're giving interested students the chance to choose an LP to digitize from the ca. 50,000 jazz-related recordings currently in the Neumann Jazz Collection and then to answer a few brief questions about their experience.  If you'd like to be a part of the project, you can find out more information. Today our post is by Steve Becker (OC '15), who chose the 1976 Japanese release [At Plugged Nickel, Chicago Vol. 2 (CBS Sony 25AP 291)] of Miles Davis's famous 1965 live recording.

Why in general did you want to take part in this project?
As a musician, CD collector, record enthusiast, and student-employee of the Neumann collection, I’ve grown to care more and more about the process of record digitization, especially when it comes to the preservation of 1950s and 60s jazz records that are rare or seemingly headed towards extinction. This music, in vinyl format, is timelessly important, and so is the act of maintaining it.

Why did you choose this particular record?
I chose the Plugged Nickel recordings because, to me, they epitomize the art of spontaneous composition as executed with masterful fluidity and grace. You can hear the band members pushing themselves beyond what’s comfortable, taking creative risks with harmony, melody, time and form in every solo. The group functions as an open-minded unit whose music echoes a variety of styles, ranging from the soulful aesthetics of blues and swing music to the modern aesthetics of abstract improvisation and non-vernacular language. The result is an epic frenzy of improvisation that turns standard ‘American Songbook’ tunes into wide-open landscapes of sound, shaped both by head-turning harmonic imposition and cathartic lyricism.


How was this experience different from simply locating an existing digital version of the LP on YouTube or Spotify?
Digitizing this collection of the Plugged Nickel recordings allowed me to hear and feel the music in a new way. I specifically chose to digitize the second volume of a Japanese reissue released in 1976 (more than 20 years before the box set came out) with only a handful of the recordings from the actual concert. This slightly limited version of the record offered me a new presentation of the music that resulted from the natural sound of wax as well as the different track order, spliced recordings (on the last track, “Yesterdays – The Theme”), and those sweet vinyl hissing noises and pops.

What musically stood out to you as you listened to the recording? 
Listening to the Plugged Nickel on vinyl was far different from my first listening experience to the sprawling 7-disc box set. Event though these recordings are a bootleg in both formats, the vinyl offers a noticeably fuller sound that accentuates everything from instrumental clarity to audience interaction. I could more clearly hear the low-range frequencies of Ron Carter’s bass, the high to mid-range frequencies of Tony Williams's cymbals, and the quiet humming of “Stella by Starlight” by whoever happened to be sitting close enough to the recording device.

Can other students listen to the LP now that it's been digitized? 
Yes, just click here and, when prompted, enter your ObieID and password. If you're off campus, you'll need to authenticate using Oberlin's VPN.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

MUSICAL AMERICA ANNOUNCES 2014 AWARDS

MUSICAL AMERICA ANNOUNCES 2014 AWARDS
Audra McDonald Named Musician of the Year
  
George Benjamin, Pablo Heras-Casado, Jeremy Denk,
and International Contemporary Ensemble
Recognized as Composer, Conductor, Instrumentalist, and Ensemble of the Year

NEW YORK, N.Y. Nov. 5 -- Musical America, now in its third century as the indispensable resource for the performing arts, today announced the winners of the annual Musical America Awards, recognizing artistic excellence and achievement in the arts.

The announcement precedes the December publication of the 2014 Musical America International Directory of the Performing Arts, which, in addition to its comprehensive industry listings, pays homage to each of these artists in its editorial pages.

The annual Musical America Awards will be presented in a special ceremony at Lincoln Center on Tuesday, December 17.

Photo: © Jennifer Taylor

MUSICIAN OF THE YEAR: AUDRA MCDONALD
 
Audra McDonald  is unparalleled in the breadth and versatility of her artistry as both singer and actress. She is fearless, vocally and physically. Her immediately recognizable soprano is rich, flexible, and incandescent, with a huge dynamic range, equally persuasive as silk or gravel, belt or whisper. It's also genre-bending, since she can sing across the spectrum, from opera to blues, pop to gospel. She is what Barbara Cook  calls "the whole package."

Among numerous accolades, she has received five Tony Awards, the first of which she won at only 23 for her performance as Carrie Pipperidge in Nicholas Hytner's legendary production of Carousel (1994) at Lincoln Center. Other musicals were Ragtime (1998) and The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess (2012). Two of her Tonys are for performances in dramatic productions: Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (2004) and Terrence McNally's Masterclass (1996), where her role as a vocal student required her to sing a Verdi aria in every performance. This Juilliard School graduate relishes acting without the support of music and she approaches every role, musical or non-musical, even every song, precisely the same way. It's all about character, she tells Katrine Ames in Musical America's tribute, and something she can connect to: "Who is this person? What does she want? What truth am I trying to convey?"

Truth is the theme of her latest, and most personal, Nonesuch album, Go Back Home. Released earlier this year, it marks her first solo disc in seven years, with many of its songs figuring in her current 22-city North American concert tour. She also continues in her second season as official host of Live from Lincoln Center on PBS. On December 5th, she will appear as the Mother Abbess in a live television broadcast of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music on NBC.

COMPOSER OF THE YEAR: GEORGE BENJAMIN
 
George Benjamin began studies at age 15 with Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire. His first orchestral work, Ringed by the Flat Horizon, was written at 20 and conducted by Pierre Boulez. A spectacular career ensued, with works for varied instrumental combinations creating rich textures and harmonic beauty. His sharp ear for poetry and precision was thrillingly revealed in his 2012 opera, Written on Skin, premiered at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, and available on a Nimbus CD set and DVD. In nearly 40 international performances, it has received universal praise. The piece tells one of the oldest stories in the world, a triangular tale of sexual curiosity, rhapsodic love, and violent jealousy. But it does so in a language all its own, at once exquisitely wrought and devastatingly raw. When Written on Skin received its U.S. premiere in concert at Tanglewood's Festival of Contemporary Music in August, Jeremy Eichler in the Boston Globe called it a "complexly beautiful 21st-century score, one that carries forward the worlds of Debussy and Berg without surrendering to either one." That performance was recorded by the Festival and will receive its world webcast premiere on New York's Q2 Music--WQXR's online music station devoted to new music--on Tuesday, November 5, at 8 p.m. ET. A music stream will be available at www.wqxr.org/q2music for six months following the initial webcast.

Photo: © Steve J. Sherman

CONDUCTOR OF THE YEAR: PABLO HERAS-CASADO

Pablo Heras-Casado, only 36, has made first appearances with nearly 40 orchestras, opera companies, and festivals. The charismatic Spaniard makes his Metropolitan Opera debut this month, conducting Verdi's Rigoletto, and appears this season for the first time with the leading orchestras of New York, Philadelphia, London, and Leipzig. In addition to his subscription-concert debut in New York, he will lead a pair of concerts largely devoted to music by Pierre Boulez and George Benjamin in the orchestra's new "biennial" contemporary series. His repertory is vast, embracing the very new as well as the very old, and as principal conductor of New York's Orchestra of St. Luke's he concentrates on such standard composers as Schubert and Mendelssohn, whose music he leads on his first Harmonia Mundi recordings.
  
Photo: © Richard Termine

INSTRUMENTALIST OF THE YEAR: JEREMY DENK

Jeremy Denk has been called "one of his generation's most eloquent and thoughtful interpreters" (New York Times). His flourishing concert schedule, the second release in his Nonesuch recording contract (Bach's Goldberg Variations), his widely read blog called "Think Denk," and articles for the New Yorker, which led to a Random House book commission, attest to his multi-faceted artistry. As music director for the 68th annual Ojai Music Festival in 2014, he will not only perform on piano but also write his first opera libretto in collaboration with composer Steven Stucky, based on the late Charles Rosen's The Classical Style. In September, Denk was named a 2013 MacArthur Fellow. Popularly known as a "genius award," it is presented to "an extraordinary group of individuals who collectively reflect the breadth and depth of American creativity" and involves a stipend of $625,000.

Photo: © Jennifer Taylor
ENSEMBLE OF THE YEAR: INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE 
The International Contemporary Ensemble, popularly known as ICE, has distinguished itself from the many excellent new-music groups in several ways. For starters, it has avoided being typecast in any particular contemporary style and performs yearly at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival. Since its founding in 2001, ICE has performed over 500 works, most of them by emerging composers. The ensemble has released albums on the Bridge, Naxos, and Nonesuch labels, among others, and launched its own label, Tundra. It has its own educational program, aimed at instructing students in the challenges of ensemble performance. ICE aspires to reaching millions of people a year, live and online. "We talk regularly about how fun it would be to play in outer space," says ICE founder Claire Chase, a MacArthur Fellow in 2012. "I am dead serious with a smile on my face."

Photo: © Armen Elliott 

Friday, November 1, 2013

U DIG IT?: Adam Hirsch digitizes Anthony Braxton's 1970 recording For Alto



The James R. and Susan Neumann Jazz Collection presents

the neUmann DIGITization project
Beginning in fall 2013, we’re giving interested students the chance to choose an LP to digitize from the ca. 50,000 jazz-related recordings currently in the Neumann Jazz Collection and then to answer a few brief questions about their experience.  If you’d like to be a part of the project, you can find out more information here. Today our post is by Adam Hirsch (OC ’14), who chose the 1970 album For Alto by Anthony Braxton (Delmark DS-420).


Why in general did you want to be a part of this project?
I personally collect a lot of vinyl recordings and convert them to a digital format at home; so having the chance to apply that love of records and knowledge of the relevant technology to a collection this comprehensive is a really special opportunity. It feels like I’m working with the materials of an entire history, and helping to preserve that history in a very small way.

Why did you choose this particular record?
I’m also a saxophone player, and I have a very specific interest in the ways in which the instrument has been used in experimental music and the avant-garde. Anthony Braxton is a hero in this field: he was one of the first players to experiment with a lot of the extended techniques you hear on For Alto, and it’s hard to find another saxophonist who so fluidly merges these new techniques and free improvisation with a refined sense of lyricism and composition. Braxton continually inspires me to listen in new ways and to find new approaches to my own playing.

How was this experience different from simply locating an existing digital version of the LP on YouTube or Spotify?
This is an original pressing of this record from 1970. That means that within months of the time Braxton played this music and recorded it onto tape, Delmark Records pressed the waveforms into a slab of vinyl, engraving the music into a physical record of history. That slab of sound is now in front of me, which is pretty incredible. I think that is something we can often lose with having such immediate access to digital files online—having the sense of the physical record of the music, and the fact that we really need to earn the experience of listening to it.

What musically stood out to you on the recording?
Despite the fact that Braxton is at all times the only musician on the record, he achieves an incredible range of dynamics. His playing is by turns mellow, chaotic, slow, anxious, organized, entropic, and melodic. He moves between these different musical feelings with a lot of patience and consideration: repeating phrases, slowly connecting ideas, throwing in sudden bursts of energy, and so on. As a solo musician, he has managed to overcome the enormous challenge of keeping the music engaging and sustaining his focus for long periods of time without the aid of other instruments or players.

Can other students listen to the LP now that it’s been digitized?
Yes, just click here and, when prompted, enter your ObieID and password. If you’re off campus, you’ll need to authenticate using Oberlin’s VPN.