When Noise Becomes Signal

Greetings after a long absence. From this particular stage, anyway. COVID, for me, was initially a freak out, and then pretty quickly flipped to a nearly unmanageable pace of business while still in partial freak out mode. Then I was revisited with some health issues this past fall. The combination of the two drove me a fair distance from being able to do this sort of thing. I’ve been feeling better of late and was given a gentle, but emotional kick recently by a good, long-standing customer/friend. Maybe friend/customer is more like it. He made reference to my piece about Stan Getz and my mother, urging me to get back at it and it really landed, so here we go. If still a tad wobbly.

I had a number of things in mind for my first Musing in a long while. Then I read the “My Back Pages” essay in the March Stereophile magazine wherein the author opines on inadvertent sounds captured by the recording process. He calls them “non-scored sounds” which rubs me a bit the wrong way as it implies that all music involves scores, i.e. is written prior to performance and then performed from the “score.” Much of the music I like is not scored. But I get what he means from the title of the piece, “On creaks and coughs and candy wrappers.” As soon as I read that I knew what the gist of it would be.

It’s one of the things I love about listening to recorded music- the little moments of human activity unrelated to the intentional music making. In his piece, the author posits there are two camps- those who are more drawn in when the recording captures these moments and those who are repelled by the intrusion. He comes down con. I am very pro.

I think my like is rooted in an observation of mine evolved over the time I’ve been listening to recorded music, starting when I was very young- the end of the 19th Century, I believe it was. Early on, I could put recordings, at least those of the rock music I was exclusively into back then, into one of two categories: “live” or “studio.” Then, as my tastes began to broaden, I began noting that there were some live recordings that didn’t really make me feel as though I were at a performance, and there were some studio recordings that did.

I massaged the rudimentary categories of “live” (there is an audience and you hear them responding) and “studio” (there isn’t) gradually into “documentary” and “fantasy” styles of recording. The former approach sets out to capture what was played, ideally in real time and space by a complete ensemble with as minimal technological intrusion by the recording engineers/producers as feasible, while the latter purposely utilizes technology, often both on the musical instrument side and the recording side, to create, as opposed to capture, something that could not have happened in real time and space.

I love plenty of examples of both schools, but I am particularly drawn to documentary style recordings- where the technical recording folks made it their mission to get out of the way. These are the ones that seem to find the most efficient path to my emotions, and the reason, I believe, is that they can more easily convince me that I am in the presence of the performers. When I am even entertaining the possibility that the musicians and I are sharing time and space together, my listener brain is much more willing to go along, even feels I owe it to them, to engage with the music. And that way- too-often trotted out phrase, “hear what the artists intended” actually holds water. It makes it work when I can hear what they played. Sounds simple, but it’s not. Far too many musicians and recording tech people haven’t a clue how to make recordings this way.

What does that have to do with “non-scored sounds”? Well, in my favorite documentary style recordings, these little accidentally added bits can be additional cues to the verisimilitude of the recording, make the music sound even more as if I am with the people playing it. And then there is the whole category of much more overt non-scored sounds- the musicians talking to themselves and/or the technical folks. The juiciest of these are the outtakes/blooper reels in rock/pop and jazz, and the rehearsal recordings in classical. Whether it’s an appetizer course of little, simple chirps, creaks, and hums of the first kind, or a feast of the latter, it all connects me with the human-ness of the music making.

I’ll leave you with a brief sampling of some that I have remembered recently.

Ben Webster Ben Webster and Associates – “Time After Time”. Ben’s lanyard clinking against his tenor is one of my earliest memories of these sounds of realism. The track is permanently endeared to me ever since.

Yevgeny Mravinsky/Leningrad Philharmonic – almost any of their live stereo recordings on Melodiya/BMG. I’m certain I caught a cold from the woman in the audience who coughs on the Sibelius 7th disc. I know it’s a woman because those lovely Russian tube mics capture everything. In fact, I can tell she’s wearing a long black dress and a string of pearls.

Gram Parsons Grievous Angel – “Love Hurts”. Simple, but beautiful. Emmy Lou can be heard vocalizing twice on an open mic after the band is playing, but before the singing starts. The second is her humming the opening note she is about to sing. I had listened to this record countless times before I first noticed it on initial playing of the Rhino remastered vinyl.

Igor Stravinsky/various orchestras and soloists Nine Masterpieces Conducted By The Composer – Side 10 of this five LP set is all rehearsal excerpts with Stravinsky instructing the orchestra and soloists on what he is looking for but also lots of discussion between him and the producer, much of it over the technology of recording in the ‘60’s. At one point the producer breaks in saying the trumpets are too pianissimo and he can’t hear them. The ensuing “conversation” is not so cordial.

Jerry Garcia & David Grisman Shady Grove – This is my favorite of the several Garcia/Grisman releases, most of which are merely Grisman’s recombobulation, after Jerry died, of impromptu tracks into some sort of “themed” albums, the theme here being old time American and British folk tunes. In reality, Jerry would show up at David’s house, which also happens to have a great recording studio in it, and they would jam with tape rolling. The ultimate documentary style recording setting. And Grisman left just enough of the pre- and post- song banter in to tantalize.

Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, The Making Of The Great Jazz Summit – If you just get The Great Jazz Summit, you get all the final takes, nice and spit-shined. But if you get this one, you learn how the sausage is made, and in this case, I believe you do want to know. This really is essentially a rehearsal tape, a wonderfully intoxicating one that is more charming, and, in some ways, more valuable, than the finished product.

Jethro Tull Aqualung (The Steven Wilson Remix) – Steven gets permission from Prog Rock era bands to go back and access their multi-channel master tapes and actually re-mix their works. Far beyond re-mastering, this, in the right hands, can give a whole new level of insight into the music. And Steven’s hands are the right ones. The vinyl is unbelievably great, but the CD turns one disc into two and fills the second with unused versions of songs from Aqualung and elsewhere. Worth the price of admission alone for the My God outtake, not only a more compelling version, in my opinion, but pre-loaded with Ian stopping shortly in and cursing a buzzing guitar string before restarting.

The Doors have released outtakes laden versions of both Morrison Hotel and LA Woman in which tape is left rolling as songs form, fall apart, change and reform. Perhaps for fanatics more than the casually interested, but the sound is breathtakingly natural, open and unmolested. Lots of banter among those involved.

Countless other examples exist. Why not let us know some of your favorites from off the beaten path?

See you again sooner than last time!