Recording Blues
7.40: I’m awake and out of bed … and it’s a Sunday morning. Damn. Forty minutes later I’ve showered, had breakfast, and am swinging out of my street on the road to London to record Tomorrow’s Warriors. It’ll be our first proper concert recording session.
9.30: A knock on a Milton Keynes door brings out my colleague, ethnomusicologist Byron Dueck. He jumps in the car and we start talking about the day ahead. I’m a little nervous because while Byron is experienced with camera and mic, I know next to nothing.
10.50: We sail down Gower Street and the nightmare that is the West End of London in a car begins. All the streets are one-way, all the junctions have restrictions on turning, all the lights are against us. We get within a block of Cambridge Circus twice, do a little tour of Bloomsbury and end up circumnavigating Trafalgar Square in the bus lane before we finally reach The Spice of Life.
11.15: By the time I’ve parked the car, Byron and project Research Fellow Mark Doffman (who we meet outside the pub) have already humped the gear downstairs. There’s plenty of it. But Byron and Mark give the strong impression they know what they’re doing. I get instructions to set up the mic stands, and forty minutes later I’ve managed to do just that. Now I wait for the smallest task while the other two complete preparations.
12.45: The first musicians arrive, and we’re ready to put the mics in place and start testing the audio gear. There’s a glitch … . Fear strikes, but Mark has it covered and soon we’re getting a signal on all channels.
1.10: The band start playing. Eddie Hicks on drums, Adrian Acolatse on bass, Alex Ho on piano and Binker Golding on tenor sax. They make a glorious noise: late bop with plenty of references to Coltrane and Tyner, but also an ineffable lyricism mixed with dry humour that can only be – well – British.
1.20: I look round at the audience as discretely as I can. Mainly white, mainly male, mainly middle-aged. A jazz gig in other words.
1.50: But more people are arriving now. More black and young people too. What’s happening? The band stops and Binker announces the jam session. I’d completely forgotten about it. It’s a Gary Crosby inspired idea - a way of enabling young musicians, out of town jazzers, or just anyone who’s got the urge to play with top flight instrumentalists in a ‘real’ jazz setting, to do their thing.
2.00: Gary arrives and we chat for a few minutes. There’s been a death in the family which is why he hasn’t been playing bass. But he’s keen to get stuck in on the jam session and very soon he’s helping a 14 year old prodigy on piano with a yen for Thelonious Monk sync up with an older drummer who has a vigorous swing style and an idiomatic sense of time.
3.25: The jam session is over. There’ve been more combinations, more sublime moments, more crush collisions. Altogether this is a great institution. It’s been especially rewarding to watch younger player grow in confidence before your eyes and ears.
4.02: The band finish their second set and Mark is smiling. It’s all in the can, or more accurately, it’s all in the zeroes and ones because this is a digital recording. Byron has managed to get footage on two cameras, and juggled putting in replacement tapes with keeping a steady focus. We’re all beaming because it’s a difficult job done – though god knows I can’t claim any credit.
7.23: I swing back into my road in Coventry starving, but still with happy thoughts. We’re not only going to have some great material to analyse, but we’re producing an important archive of audio-visual recordings of black British jazz: flights of the imagination frozen in time for posterity - as long as those zeroes and ones shall live.
Jason Toynbee
9.30: A knock on a Milton Keynes door brings out my colleague, ethnomusicologist Byron Dueck. He jumps in the car and we start talking about the day ahead. I’m a little nervous because while Byron is experienced with camera and mic, I know next to nothing.
10.50: We sail down Gower Street and the nightmare that is the West End of London in a car begins. All the streets are one-way, all the junctions have restrictions on turning, all the lights are against us. We get within a block of Cambridge Circus twice, do a little tour of Bloomsbury and end up circumnavigating Trafalgar Square in the bus lane before we finally reach The Spice of Life.
11.15: By the time I’ve parked the car, Byron and project Research Fellow Mark Doffman (who we meet outside the pub) have already humped the gear downstairs. There’s plenty of it. But Byron and Mark give the strong impression they know what they’re doing. I get instructions to set up the mic stands, and forty minutes later I’ve managed to do just that. Now I wait for the smallest task while the other two complete preparations.
12.45: The first musicians arrive, and we’re ready to put the mics in place and start testing the audio gear. There’s a glitch … . Fear strikes, but Mark has it covered and soon we’re getting a signal on all channels.
1.10: The band start playing. Eddie Hicks on drums, Adrian Acolatse on bass, Alex Ho on piano and Binker Golding on tenor sax. They make a glorious noise: late bop with plenty of references to Coltrane and Tyner, but also an ineffable lyricism mixed with dry humour that can only be – well – British.
1.20: I look round at the audience as discretely as I can. Mainly white, mainly male, mainly middle-aged. A jazz gig in other words.
1.50: But more people are arriving now. More black and young people too. What’s happening? The band stops and Binker announces the jam session. I’d completely forgotten about it. It’s a Gary Crosby inspired idea - a way of enabling young musicians, out of town jazzers, or just anyone who’s got the urge to play with top flight instrumentalists in a ‘real’ jazz setting, to do their thing.
2.00: Gary arrives and we chat for a few minutes. There’s been a death in the family which is why he hasn’t been playing bass. But he’s keen to get stuck in on the jam session and very soon he’s helping a 14 year old prodigy on piano with a yen for Thelonious Monk sync up with an older drummer who has a vigorous swing style and an idiomatic sense of time.
3.25: The jam session is over. There’ve been more combinations, more sublime moments, more crush collisions. Altogether this is a great institution. It’s been especially rewarding to watch younger player grow in confidence before your eyes and ears.
4.02: The band finish their second set and Mark is smiling. It’s all in the can, or more accurately, it’s all in the zeroes and ones because this is a digital recording. Byron has managed to get footage on two cameras, and juggled putting in replacement tapes with keeping a steady focus. We’re all beaming because it’s a difficult job done – though god knows I can’t claim any credit.
7.23: I swing back into my road in Coventry starving, but still with happy thoughts. We’re not only going to have some great material to analyse, but we’re producing an important archive of audio-visual recordings of black British jazz: flights of the imagination frozen in time for posterity - as long as those zeroes and ones shall live.
Jason Toynbee
posted by Jason Toynbee at
11:35 AM
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