... further thoughts around Jimmy Giuffre 3 disc...

... the more I listen to this disc, the more I love it... this music, the mood it produces in me, the listener, and in the whole house is superbly enriching and seldom found everywhere...

Seems the air, like a beautiful woman, is wearing a summer dress...

"Afternoon" on "Fusion" - first disc, second side - and the following "Trudging" are my VERY beloved tracks ever: it's geometrical, yet melodic music and these tunes are masterfully composed and played as a perfect filigrane building.

Like Steve Lake quoted in disc liner notes leaflet, as Giuffre himself wrote in his '56 "The Jimmy Giuffre Clarinet": "It has been said that when jazz gets soft it looses its gusto and funkiness. It is my feeling that soft jazz can retain the basic flavour and intensity that it has at a louder volume abd at the same time perhaps reveal some new dimensions of feeling that loudness obscures".

Almost a manifesto, the same which formed and hinted a young Manfred Eicher in his bald twenties, as a music lover and a double-bass player.

Something which - possibly - shaped ECM, as well, as he followed and broadened and broadened this trio form to an infinite musical delta of duos, trios and their countless variations in instrumentation and sounds, like a composer with his orchestral palette...

... and always Jimmy Giuffre, taken from original Verve's "Fusion" liner notes: "... searching for a free sense of tonality and form. Often dissonance is thrown against consonance and throughout there is a curious vacillation between "the simple" and "the complex"."

This is the case... the music is - sometimes - a sort of Debussy-like jazz, but a 20 years old, swinging, braveless Steve Swallow brings eliteness down to earth with his... down to earth, yet heavenly deep, young, joyful and wise sounds and growlings and the whole owns a balance, like a wedding, more and better, a perfect menage-a-trois.

Sound-wise... Swallow sings, hums - Jarret-like - while playing, while Giuffre, in some "Thesis" tunes, "plays cymbals" with his clarinet: masterfully blowing-only in his instrument, without playing any note... surprising, at first liste, yet so appropriate and "organic".

Also, the soundstage is, someway, fluctuating in room space: this is happening as a difference in trio members positioning, different from track to track AND also during the same track.

Would try to better explain this... at better looking to the superb sessions shot, the AKG C-24 isn't centered with musicians at same distance from mike itself: they are spread in a semi-circle - i.e. Jimmy Giuffre is slightly nearer to microphone, afar stands Paul Bley's piano and with a couple of large baffles, almost centered between the latter two, Steve Swallow's double bass...

It's quite audible the moving, breathing and assuming a different position of clarinet, which blends more or less toward the centerstage.

A very transparent, living recording... a masterpiece!

... and the Music... ahhhhh... the above mentioned "Afternoon" is among the very music I'd wish to be played at my...

Nahhhhhhh!

TACET Records: a well kept musical secret from Germany

There is a small, great record label in Germany called Tacet, which still produces records with utmost care, both vinyls and disks, but also SACD and DVD, in small quantities, using ALL TUBE gears, from microphones to analog tape recorder to mastering: gorgeous, lovingly restored and well kept Telefunken M5 recorders, Neumann U-47 mikes, and several Telefunken sought-after studio gears, from mixing down to mastering.

Their catalogue is absolutely worth a careful look, so full of masterpieces and seldom seen and heard treasures.

Tacet Records

The sonic of VIRTUALLY ALL the issues is A-W-E-S-O-M-E!

Give'em a try... you won't blame me.

Pumajaw - Favourites

Offering a retrospective of the duo's first four albums, Favourites revisits some of the key recordings by Pinkie Maclure and John Wills, made between the years of 2000 and 2006. This release helps put into perspective the band's acclaimed Curiosity Box full-length, charting Pumajaw's development from the From Memorial Crossing era (which encompasses the stripped trip-hop and dub tinted sounds of 'Sorcery' as well as the echoing folk dreamscape of 'Buttons'), right up to the more traditional fare of 2006's Becoming Pumajaw. The band's songwriting retains a sturdy and steadfast resolve throughout, suggesting a gloomy yet progressive creative mindset that doesn't shy away from technology or the avant-garde. On 'We Spin' (also from the band's 2000 debut) the group are at the height of their powers, sounding almost no-wave in their embrace of machinated rhythms, thorny sax lines and wild vocals, finding themselves some distance away from the fingerpicked gothic and concertina of more conventionally folk-oriented material like the no less impressive 'The Bending Wood'. Recommended.

... indeed... HIGHLY recommended: like a mellower, smoother Dead Can Dance.

I like'em.

Eyvind Kang - The Yelm Sessions

First heard of this nice musician of South Korean origin but American born when I saw and listened him and his inspired progressive viola playing alive in concert with Laurie Anderson, a couple of years ago or so...

I recently found and purchased this recording... a much worth listening, indeed.

Eyvind Kang
Booklet languages: English
Time: 42:52
Release Date: 2007
Review
After listening to the first few tracks of Eyvind Kang's The Yelm Sessions, fans of his, especially of his previous album Athlantis, might be thinking, "Aw man, Eyvind's gone all soft on us." The pastel-colored title track, The Yelm Sessions, and the pop-sounding Latin dance Enter the Garden are lovely, but are a far cry from the dark power characteristic of his most exciting work. The fourth track, though, Fire in Wind, for orchestra, keyboards, guitar, electric bass, and percussion, inhabits the fearsome soundworld of Kang's more unsettling work, and most of the remaining pieces lead the listener through a number of dark, disturbing places. Locus Iste, Sulpicia Variation, and Hawk's Prairie are chillingly ominous; they conjure up images of immense power, and not a very nice power. Like much of Kang's best work, they evoke a distant past that's been drawn very spookily into the present moment, creating a sense of imminent danger. Several of the pieces, such as Mistress Mine, a Renaissance-sounding song based on Shakespeare, and Hiemarmene, call on the past with less overt threat, but still with some measure of mysterious twistedness. Epoché for Strings, the final track, is based on a work of J.S. Bach and is curiously inert, following the vitality of much of the rest of the album. The amazingly versatile Kang performs on most of the tracks, playing violin, viola, cello, guitars, keyboard, bass, sitar, recorder, and manipulating the electronics. The various orchestras, conductors, singers, and instrumentalists who perform on the album are too numerous to list here, but they all contribute to Kang's vision with passion and commitment. The many engineers involved deserve substantial credit for the album's atmospheric and evocative sound quality. ~ Stephen Eddins, All Music Guide
Performances
Composer Title Time
Eyvind Kang The Clown's Song 2:35
Eyvind Kang Enter the Garden 4:31
Eyvind Kang The Yelm Sessions 2:47
Eyvind Kang Fire in Wind 3:46
Eyvind Kang Locus iste, for chamber ensemble & electronics (after Bruckner) 0:52
Eyvind Kang Sulpicia Variation 2:34
Eyvind Kang Hawks Prairie, for chamber ensemble & electronics 6:59
Eyvind Kang Hiemarmene, for chamber ensemble 2:45
Eyvind Kang Mistress Mine, for voice & chamber ensemble 2:11
Eyvind Kang Asa Tru, for violin & orchestra 7:41
Eyvind Kang Epoché for strings (after Bach)

Ears and hearing: some Jean Hiraga's thoughts and the miracle of Western Electric 15A

Whether the amplifier is 20 Watts or 500 Watts, we always remain faced with an impossibility: that is to try to reproduce the real level of the signal. Table 1, which gives the lowest and highest levels of various instruments of an orchestra, indicates to us that a loudspeaker of 3 % output efficiency should be rated at 2200 Watts (the problem of the neighbours is not tackled) to reproduce the dynamics of an orchestra of 75 artists. We are thus far from the truth, in the maximum level as well as the minimum, by the great insufficiency of the signal-to-noise ratio. This same table shows the obvious loss of definition, if the scale of these levels is reduced to a level "in apartment", which is actually an effect of sound compression and limits in the signal-to-noise ratio of the recorded signal.







Table 1 : Acoustic level of various instruments and theoretical power of the amplifier required for a loudspeaker of 3 % output efficiency for the restitution of these levels. Notice that the acoustic level for an instrument can be as low as 0.005 microwatt, as the piano has the greatest dynamic ratio (80 dB) and that, for an orchestra of 120 musicians plus a choir of 200 people; the dynami­cs can exceed 120 dB.

N.o.B. (Note of Blogger;-)) - also come to mind this efficiency calculator
and the IMPRESSIVE efficiency ratio of, say, Western Electric 15A horn with WE 555 driver - i.e. about 70 %!!! Hey, I'm talking about the capability, the strenght to do not loose "energy" but for a (negligible) 30 %! Amazing!



P.S. - did you notice in "Table 1" about the "Cymbals" power?
... mmmmhhhh...

Ears and hearing: "natural", acoustic watts vs. "man-made" watts or the weight of real instruments: why they sound so... true?

Found the following articles and links while browsing around the topic in title... acoustic watts vs. reproduced/"electronic" watts from our stereo systems...
this extremely well done treatize on the matter... and an industry (illuminated) point-of-view, actually coming from a genius: Robert Moog.


For example, Bob Moog wrote in 1977:

"First, let's talk about acoustic power output. What we want out of a speaker is sound (acoustic power). As converters of electrical power, loudspeakers are generally inefficient. Most of the high-price juice going into a speaker cabinet winds up as heat instead of sound. Good, wide-range speaker systems typically have an efficiency of from 1/2 to 5%. That is, 100 watts of amplifier power may yield 1/2 to 5 acoustic watts of sound power. How loud is one acoustic watt? Well, a premium home music bookshelf speaker will generally burn out before it produces one acoustic watt continuously. A typical full-size professional studio monitor will produce three acoustic watts at rated power. And a supergroup's stadium sound reinforcement rig may produce a total of 100 to 1,000 acoustic watts, wide open. In a typical club environment, a speaker emitting one acoustic watt will produce a sound pressure of around 110dB onstage. Ten acoustic watts will produce an additional 10dB, which, as the textbooks say, is loud enough to hurt.
How about frequency response? The lowest F on a bass guitar is 42Hz, the C below that is 32Hz, and low A on an acoustic piano is 27.5Hz. Below 60Hz or so, every Hertz of response is a significant addition in speaker system size, weight, and price. One person can move a moderately efficient speaker cabinet with a low-frequency cutoff of 45Hz, but it will take two people to handle a 30Hz cabinet of the same moderate efficiency. To my ears, response to 45Hz is necessary for a good "commercial" sound, while a 30 or 32Hz low-frequency cutoff adds a fullness that is sure nice to have. At the high end, you can hear the difference between 12kHz and 15kHz. A 12kHz high-frequency cutoff (and flat response below) gives a smooth, sparkly quality to bright timbres; extending the response to 15kHz adds a touch of brilliance and tinkle that can be significant in recording, or in small clubs.


Distortion becomes important when more than one pitch is played through the sound system. If you're feeding two or more keyboard instruments through the same speakers, you will have to be concerned about distortion. Unfortunately, speaker distortion characteristics are not given on spec sheets. You'll have to listen for yourself. It's generally audible when loud, low notes are played. To test for distortion, play a loud bass note along with a midrange chord. Speaker distortion will produce a "muddiness" that arises from sum and difference frequencies generated by the distortion component. In general (but not always), high-efficiency speaker systems and large speakers distort less than low efficiency speaker systems and small speakers. The most distortion-free sound system is biamped-separate power amplifiers for low-frequency and midrange-high frequency speakers.
How do conventional musical instrument and public address amplifier-speaker systems meet our requirements for synthesizers? First, let's consider guitar amps. Without a doubt, a typical good 100-watt guitar amp has the efficiency and stamina to put out a few acoustic watts. However, its frequency response and distortion characteristics are optimized for guitar: no significant response below 100Hz, a broad spectral "hole" around 500Hz, and sharply rising response above 1kHz, with some "warm" (low order) distortion. Guitar amps, therefore, are generally not suited for synthesizer sound reproduction. Similarly, most PA. systems are designed to make the human voice sound good. The P.A. frequency response (determined largely by the speakers) generally has a broad peak in the "presence" region of the spectrum (2-3kHz) and decidedly weak bass. Professional studio monitors, on the other hand, have more-than-adequate frequency response distortion characteristics, but often lack the stamina to produce loud, sustained, steady tones without over-heating. This is doubly true for some music speaker systems (although certain compact multiple-speaker systems such as the Bose 8OO are attractive and convenient options for small-to-medium size environments).
Keyboard amplifiers come closest to meeting our power, frequency response, and distortion requirements. High-frequency response is sometimes a problem. Many keyboard amplifier-speaker systems are designed primarily for tone-wheel organs, electric pianos, and similar instruments with little harmonic content. Such systems rarely have adequate high-frequency response for synthesizers. However a keyboard amplifier-speaker system with good speaker response to 12kHz or so is likely to meet all of our requirements for synthesizer sound production. If the speaker system itself is efficient, a 50- to 100-watt power amplifier will produce 2-5 acoustic watts, which is plenty for rehearsal or club work, while a 200- to 400-watt power amplifier will produce upwards of 20-25 acoustic watts, which is adequate for 95% of indoor gigs. When selecting an amplifier-speaker system for your synthesizer, it is a good idea to pick a few speaker systems that are efficient (that is, they sound just plain loud when fed with the output of a modest power amplifier) and then select the speaker from that group that sounds the smoothest and fattest. Use spec sheets as a guide, but rely primarily on your ear."

While I sincerely and gratefully thanks the late Robert Moog (and Estate) for the above extract and link, and much, MUCH more, I must add the topic is quite intriguing; I yesterday appreciated a full horns (army) band: trumpets, saxes, sousaphone, tuba, slide trombone... the sound, at about 20 meters, open air, was AWESOME: precise, straight, uncoloured, powerful, true...

Maybe I was listening to an hurting 2 acoustic watts!

This thought brought me to think about the wattage in our home audio systems - typically 20 to 100 or more r.m.s. watts... often solid state, class B watts...

... but, when talking about triodes and horns... a DHT/SET 845 amp gives about 24 watts, a 211's amp 15 watts, a WE 300B 8 watts, a 45 2 watts, a VT25A 1,8 watts... all the above power horses are able to drive speakers which, sometimes, sound muddy or false with 100 watts solid-state... they seems to be MORE powerful, truer to life!

Reading nothing new, don't you?!?

Strange is that the above mentioned figures are more akin real instruments "wattage" (acoustic watts): a grand piano is between 2 and 4 acoustic watts, a full orchestra is, during FFF, about 20 acoustic watts... sounds like real sounds - also if -10db vs. reproduced sounds - have some similarities... at least numeric.;-)

Seriously: if a properly designed/installed/fine tuned horns system is reaching peaks of, say, 105-110 db = about 1 acoustic watt, we just entered in "the real sounds realm" - i.e. true, uncompressed sounds like alive, in true everyday life - i.e. - less mind fatigue to rebuild the musical event, its dynamics and dimensions, a more relaxed listening experience, while cochlea smiles;-).

A case, chance or...

P.S. - sure a lot of people will continue to like and prefere a down-scaled, transistor-radio listening as more "confortable", less problematic and "easier"...

Jimmy Giuffre: again about the noble art of jazz trio

There is a record which the beloved ECM recently reissued in a luxury, 180 grams double vinyl format, a recording which is someway a musical mistery (read here below).

Jimmy Giuffre on clarinet, Paul Bley on piano and Steve Swallow on double-bass created a masterpiece: recorded in 1961 under Creed Taylor producing and Dick Olmstead's masterful recording and engineering, it was previously issued on Verve as a two separate records titled "Fusion" and "Thesis".

The master-tapes had possibly a few hands swappings in the decades, maybe returned the property of Jimmy Giuffre's Estate or something... anyway the recordings were reissued several years ago for ECM as a two-records set...

The trio is a true supergroup, all the members are leaders; the music is angular, cool, icy in shapes and meanings, flowing under the diamond needle like lava.

Mr. Olmstead, the recordist, recorded the musicians in few hours in two sessions spanning few days in an high ceiling, large studio using the best mike ever: a stereo AKG C-24 microphone.

From the beautiful cover B/W shots you see a pipe-smoking Bley and two algid, neat looking Swallow and Giuffre on wood studio-risers and the C-24 on a mike-boom: that's it... enough for creating a timeless masterpiece... not without these stellar musicians, of course.

The music is so pure, perfect... the recording, you'd bet it, is the Best of the VERY Best!

The clarinet is right side, the double bass super centered, deeeeep and rich of over-tones and the piano... at left... the sounds come from well beyond the speakers outer boundaries, with an absolutely stunning, huge soundstage, both deep and wide.

Dynamics are simply perfect... limitless from ppp to FFF, solo and tutti...

A truly perfect record: a desert island one, the best spent EUR 30 - the cost of the 180 gr./2lps ECM reissue - of the year, period.

A quick note - when I was looking at the inner details of the B/W sessions picture on the cover, I noticed and realized the following: you see the musicians as I told you above... left/center/right... they visually are clarinet/double bass/piano, BUT you listen to piano/double bass/clarinet... I sort-of had the illumination - maybe a silly one - that the recording was taken as you - the listener - would be seating among the musicians, at the very moment of the recording, NOT like in classical music recording where you listen to the cellos and double basses on right and violin and viola at left and the mike(s) captures it this way... hope you get this: the AKG C-24 (through Creed Taylor and Dick Olmstead's taste) exactly let you hear the way the trio was placed in the studio...

I like it as a different perspective, an interpretation of reality more than a reversed speakers affaire, which isn't the case;-).

Do you a favour... buy this double vinyl record-set, while stock lasts.