Members Bruce Swedien Posted December 27, 2007 Members Share Posted December 27, 2007 I was most fortunate to have worked with Oscar Peterson a great deal in my early years at Universal in Chicago. (1959 - ) When I started my work at Universal Recording in Chicago, one of my first assignments was to record the Oscar Peterson Trio in big, beautiful, Studio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Singin' Dave Posted December 27, 2007 Members Share Posted December 27, 2007 Great story Brice!! Oscar was a true legend and one of those special souls who could express so much in but a small musical passage. One of my favorite pianists of all time and he will truly be missed. Fortunately, thanks to you and others, his music lives on forever! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted December 27, 2007 Members Share Posted December 27, 2007 I'm listening to The Cole Porter Songbook now... It's extraordinary how graceful and assured this is... the gentle probing in "In the Still of the Night" followed by the hard swinging, bop "It's Alright with Me." Great chops, great feel. All around. And well captured... for a 22 year old kid from the sticks... Thanks, once again, Bruce, for your extaordinary generosity in sharing the musical history you've witnessed. PS... "Love for Sale"... yeah! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted December 27, 2007 Members Share Posted December 27, 2007 RIP, O.P. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted December 27, 2007 Share Posted December 27, 2007 I'm working on the picture now Bruce... hang on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members spokenward Posted December 27, 2007 Members Share Posted December 27, 2007 The long gone London House was in the PICTURE - London Guarantee Bldg - (if you are ever on the walking tour of Chicago). The building was also home to at least a couple of radio stations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted December 27, 2007 Share Posted December 27, 2007 Here's the picture Bruce sent to me - pretty cool! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bruce Swedien Posted December 27, 2007 Author Members Share Posted December 27, 2007 Thanks Philla-Dilla....... What a great musician.... And a true gentleman... Of course I treasure that picture..... Bruce Swedien Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Scafeets Posted December 27, 2007 Members Share Posted December 27, 2007 RIP, OPOne of THE great players of all time.Thanks for the memories on Universal's Studio A, Bruce.I was working on a recording at Universal in 1980 and had the pleasure of observing a James Cleveland gospel session in Studio A. A great room with a tremendous history. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted December 27, 2007 Share Posted December 27, 2007 "To Bruce - the man who knows how to record the trio." Coming from Oscar Peterson? - how cool is that?!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Extreme Mixing Posted December 27, 2007 Members Share Posted December 27, 2007 Only to be surpassed by "Sincere Regards to an Artist"!!! That must be the first time that mentality became clear to Bruce. In the 50's recording engineers were mostly thought of as technicians. Clearly, Bruce set himself apart. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted December 27, 2007 Members Share Posted December 27, 2007 "To Bruce - the man who knows how to record the trio." Coming from Oscar Peterson? - how cool is that?!! Way, way cool! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted December 27, 2007 Share Posted December 27, 2007 It IS an art, whether or not that has always been recognized by people or not. What we do, as engineers, can definitely contribute to, or detract from, the artistic and emotional content of the music. Of course, working with great artists like Oscar Peterson makes the engineer's life and work a lot easier... but it doesn't change the fact that the engineer is also an artist, and they'd best bring their "A Game" to the table if they're working with other artists of that caliber, lest they prove to be the weak link in the chain / worst player on the team. Obviously, Bruce is a star player and a strong link. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted December 28, 2007 Members Share Posted December 28, 2007 Bruce-Thanks to you, we have many musical moments to be thankful for and enjoy. My condolescences to you and the Peterson family. Great photo of a great musician. Thanks for sharing.EB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rasputin1963 Posted December 28, 2007 Members Share Posted December 28, 2007 Bruce, your records with Oscar are the ones of I his I love the most. He taught me so much about jazz piano.... I'd listen on end to grasp what I could of what he was doing. Most of it I couldn't grasp, as it was part of his magical style. I always think of his style as being so "gentlemanly", always, and it was a mood that I tried to emulate in my own live performances (in front of considerably humbler audiences). RIP, Oscar! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Chucksweet Posted December 28, 2007 Members Share Posted December 28, 2007 Bruce,it is nice to hear from you. Oscar was one of the greatest, what a loss. He was also a good friend of Sweetwater. Bruce, like our relationship, it is one of those I will always cherish. Believe it or not Oscar was a big gear junkie...but it didn't matter he could make anything sound great. Even after his stroke he played really well. Chuck SurackSweetwater Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dahkter Posted December 28, 2007 Members Share Posted December 28, 2007 Thanks for the post Bruce, definitely puts you there.My condolences to the friends and family.We can all be thankful that his music is documented, artists do live on through their recordings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted December 28, 2007 Members Share Posted December 28, 2007 It IS an art, whether or not that has always been recognized by people or not. Yes, I think it's part art, part science. That's one of the things I like about recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted December 28, 2007 Share Posted December 28, 2007 Me too Ken. It is one of the few careers I can think of that demands extensive use of both sides of the brain if you want to excel at it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fantasticsound Posted December 28, 2007 Members Share Posted December 28, 2007 It's a wonderful resource to have someone like you to relate your experiences from a time I'll never know about people I only hear about in magazines, on radio or tv. Oscar will be sorely missed musically by many, but more so by you and other personal acquaintances, friends and family. It's always great to hear something new about extraordinary people from those who knew them well. Thanks... and RIP Oscar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted December 28, 2007 Members Share Posted December 28, 2007 Me too Ken. It is one of the few careers I can think of that demands extensive use of both sides of the brain if you want to excel at it. This might sound sort of strange...but one of the things I've noticed is that I seem to like "documenting" things. Whether it's recording, photography, or creating my website with all the travelogues on it, it's a form of documentation. Maybe others feel this way too? And all of these forms of documentation seem to require some technical expertise. Well, okay, not so much the website because someone could pretty much do what I do on Shutterfly. At any rate, I like the confluence of the artistic and the technical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted December 29, 2007 Share Posted December 29, 2007 At any rate, I like the confluence of the artistic and the technical. And you do very well at it Ken. I was just checking out the Nectarphonic CD again last night - good stuff. And for the first time, I noticed the credits for the engineer vs. the guitarist... Photography is another of the disciplines that require both technical and creative chops. Back to engineering, I think part of it can be documentary in nature, but that to me is just one "approach"... some folks just want to capture what the band or artist is doing, and that can be great, if that's what's called for. OTOH, you can take a more active approach and modify, add to / subtract from, and sculpt the sound in various ways, creating the illusion of a performance that never actually happened. I think both approaches have merit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted December 29, 2007 Members Share Posted December 29, 2007 Back to engineering, I think part of it can be documentary in nature, but that to me is just one "approach"... some folks just want to capture what the band or artist is doing, and that can be great, if that's what's called for. OTOH, you can take a more active approach and modify, add to / subtract from, and sculpt the sound in various ways, creating the illusion of a performance that never actually happened. I think both approaches have merit. Definitely. When I mean "documentary", I mean it in the broad sense that you are capturing something. As you can tell by the Nectarphonic CD (or any of my own stuff), capturing "reality" is not really one of the main goals. IOW, I'm not trying to capture a live performance, even though a lot of it is of course live. I'm interested in "documenting" things too, but both things interest me. Sculpting, modifying, subtracting, creating sonic tapestries - that's fun. But so is capturing a great live act for posterity. I've seen people argue this back and forth, and never understood the argument: don't we like and appreciate all of it, as appreciators of music, as engineers, as artists? Photography is similar. Obviously, I'm especially into travel photography, which is more "documentary" in nature. But although I don't have a lot of it on my website, I'll eff up, distort, PhotoShop, etc. a photo. I'll shoot through fantastic lenses, put odd filters on my camera, shoot through water, or PhotoShop my photos to look surreal, psychedelic, or dreamy. I do this with band photos and more artistic photos all the time. It's all good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fantasticsound Posted December 31, 2007 Members Share Posted December 31, 2007 At any rate, I like the confluence of the artistic and the technical.... ...Back to engineering, I think part of it can be documentary in nature, but that to me is just one "approach"... some folks just want to capture what the band or artist is doing, and that can be great, if that's what's called for. OTOH, you can take a more active approach and modify, add to / subtract from, and sculpt the sound in various ways, creating the illusion of a performance that never actually happened. I think both approaches have merit. The key is understanding where your priority lies. You're not the artist or ultimate client. Once you know what their goal is you can adjust accordingly. Even at it's most transparent the recording process is inherently false. No microphone hears the way we do, so everything is up to interpretation. But there's a not so fine line between creating a recording that infers the reality of a live performance sans amplification and one that actively paints a surreal aural picture that may simply be a hyped version of inferred reality or could be a complete fabrication that in no way resembles the parts that were used to create the sum. I participated in one of the online Tsunami relief songs recorded at MP. I recorded myself on dulcimer, acoustic guitar, electric guitar with a clean, slow attack, "swell" sound, a slightly distorted electric and more. The scratch tracks I recorded to were not exactly the acoustic guitar, bass and drum tracks that were eventually used and the mixer took great liberties moving around some of what I played. I was especially happy with the outro he constructed using some percussion and one or two parts of my tracks. Creative and interesting. It's all about the client's objectives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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