DESCRIPTION:
The New York Chapter of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections presents its December 2015 program:

THE ART OF RECORDING THE BIG BAND
Presented by Robert Auld

The jazz big band was born in the twenties, came of age in the thirties, enjoyed its greatest popularity in the forties, and went into popular decline in the fifties. In the sixties the big band enjoyed a comeback of sorts, but was displaced from the front pages by The Beatles and other things. In the seventies it looked like the big band would either expire or be transformed out of recognition. And yet it persists; people still play in big bands, still dance to them, still record them. It has proved a most durable ensemble.

My interest in the big band dates from childhood. My father was a Benny Goodman fan, so I grew up with his music in the house. I became a musician myself, and so I got to play in big bands. I was interested in audio recording, and I tried recording big bands. I was not very satisfied with the results, so I paid attention to how others were doing it.

In 1997 I wrote an article for my web site titled "The Art of Recording The Big Band", which surveyed the history of how jazz big bands had been recorded over the decades and made some recommendations for best practices. This presentation grew out of that initial article, and includes both audio and visual samples to illustrate my observations. Starting with the dance bands of the twenties, I work my way up to about 1960 and then pause to consider a modern big band recording session, which I engineered, that sought to re-create the recording techniques current at that time. Finally, I consider modern studio multi-tracking and the practical and aesthetic challenges such methods pose for big band recording."

ROBERT AULD is a freelance audio engineer who has worked around the New York area for the last quarter century or so. He has experience in digital transfers of historical disks and tapes, remote recording of both large and small projects, studio music recording, and recording of voice-over work for broadcast and the internet. He is a member of the Audio Engineering Society and a past chairman of the New York Section of the AES. He has given presentations on historical subjects at several AES conventions, and at AES section meetings. He has also written on audio-related technical subjects for Recording Magazine. Mr. Auld was educated as a musician at the Mannes College of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, and worked as a professional trumpeter from the mid-seventies until the year 2000. He notes that in this respect he is in good company; some other audio engineers who were trumpet players include Bob Ludwig, Jack Renner and the late Doug Sax.

THE ASSOCIATION FOR RECORDED SOUND COLLECTIONS (www.arsc-audio.org) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and study of sound recordings, in all genres of music and speech, in all formats, and from all periods. ARSC is unique in bringing together private individuals and institutional professionals—everyone with a serious interest in recorded sound.

Videographer: Leah Biel