Sparks from the Fire

Jazz, a 20th century art form, is as American as apple pie. Like rock, it started here, developed here and then spread around the world. It has evolved into a multi-cultural and multi-dimensional form of music that includes a myriad of styles and sub-genres.

It has been a great sadness to me to watch the popularity of this great tradition wane from the 50s until now. The 30s and 40s were the hey days of this music, and its rhythms, melodies and great musicians swept up the world’s imagination and became the essence of popular music in the Big Band era.

But then a funny thing happened. The jazz musicians shot themselves in the foot. Songs with melodies that the masses could follow became songs where the melody was played once and then the musicians took off and ‘out’ in their improvisations. (more…)

By the time I’m finished producing an album, I don’t ever want to hear it again – at least for a year.  It’s not that I don’t like it; it’s just that I’ve heard it – over and over and over again, way too many times for any human.

Alabado sea Dios

The process of creation demands the repetition.  Often I’ve also written the songs, or some of them anyway, and that only increases the ear and brain fatigue.  Repetition is definitely a large part of the writing, producing, engineering process, and since I do all three, that also extends the repetition.

On top of it all, by the time I’m deeply into the making of a CD, the songs go coursing through my brain all night as well, over and over while I sleep just to add to the number.

So when I listen to that last master reference copy back from my masterer and approve it as final, I always breathe a sigh of relief that the prolonged grind is finally over.  If you were to ask me to listen to a CD that I produced when it comes in from the manufacturer, I would go screaming into the night.

Last night, while testing the ecommerce end of the new Watchfire Music site, I arbitrarily decided to download El Amor from Julia Wade’s Spanish CD, Alabado sea Dios.  Thrilled by the simple and intuitive process of purchasing and downloading, (a blatant plug) I decided to check the MP3 download as well.

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