I was looking up records in the 60s produced by Teo Macero and got an idea for a forum...this one prolly won't go anywhere but I thought I'd try. Thought it would be a decent way to search for new records.

This is mostly for my education.

Who got the greatest sound on Jazz recordings?

While this choice is certainly controversial and debateable, I'll give a nod to Manfred Eicher and his whole ECM sound. Pristine, spacious, intimate, detailed. You are there. The production and engineering end of ECM is treated with the same respect that the artists are treated with. Before I ever heard an ECM recording anywhere but on the radio, I attended an unamplified Keith Jarrett Quartet performance. Subsequently, listening to ECM recordings on a decent sound system sort of recaptures that 'live' feeling. Some will dismiss ECM production as being too polished or fake, but IMO, it draws me deeper into the music. ECM maintains a high level of sound quality on every release, whether recorded live or in the studio.

It seems he also produced some films.

One I found is Journey of Hope directed by Xavier Koller.

Nothing wrong with the ECM jazz series.

I 'hate' the ECM sound.

I think there is something very very wrong with the ECM Jazz Series.

I love much of the music but hate the souless sound that has become ECMs trademark. Even when they reissued Jimmy Giuffre's classics Fusion & Thesis as the double CD 1961 they made an excellent recording sound lifeless in comparision to the lp. Eicher remixed it to the ECM sound and I hated it. I have the lp and it's a crime what he did to those recordings.

My choice for the best current engineer (maybe of all time....at the least in top 2 or 3) is Peter Pfister.

I will have to check but whomever the engineers are that put out the Blue Note TOCJ reissues as well as the Prestige/Fantasy recordings are excellent. The only thing to complain about those are the import prices.

Another engineer I am not a major fan of is Rudy Van Gelder. That includes his original recordings and the so called RVG series. I also don't understand why his Japanese reissues on the whole sound better than the U.S. versions of the same recording. I really wish he would stop compressing the hell out of the recordings to make them louder.

I really don't understand those that prostrate themselves at the altar of RVG.

I wish they would just let Malcolm Addey remaster all future Blue Note related reissues.

I agree that the music isn't the bad part of ECM, it is the recording technique that is the major problem.

It all has a very damp lifeless sound.

Actually, all the ECM stuff I have is classical...Arvo Part and Gia Kancheli. So I can't really join in the argument.

I notice a general decline in recording "quality" in recent music. Maybe clarity has improved, but the presence of the instruments is taking a backseat.

My friend was over and we were listening to his Greg Osby CD (Symbols Of Light recorded by Joseph Marciano...which I like...don't take this the wrong way!)...then I put in Miles Smiles just to be a bastard. My God, what a difference...the bass pops out at you, the drums sound like frying bacon...everything's "hot" (to risk sounding idiotic). What happened to that sound?

Any experience with Michael Cuscuna? I see him on quite a few CDs...he did a lot of reissues and has a few production credits.

He has reissue credits for Live at the Village Vanguard (Coltrane), the master takes. I like the sound on this CD a lot. Elvin Jones goes berserk on this one, too.

Sorry, I am so late to this....but Cuscuna is a producer and not an engineer.

He and Charlie Lourie started Mosiac Records.


Thanks to him a great many recordings have been recorded/reissued.


YO!




This post is dedicated to Clifford Brown.