Blue Note fade-out

[Milestones]

I guess this would be the place to discuss this.

At one time (the prime time) Blue Note seemed to have a certain renown for the fade-out or fade. A lot of records would feature tracks that lowered in volume and faded out. For me, this is a rather odd and ineffective way to end a jazz performance.

I'm curious to know if some people enjoy this, and on what tracks in particular.

I'm more curious to know why this became a rather common technique during Blue Note's prime. It seems to me that fade-outs are very rare on other labels.

[JSngry]

Good for DJs to talk over and/or cue up the nest record w/o having to handle it from the board. Still gotta make the transition, but it's one less step.This stuff used to get played on the radio!

Jukeboxes too, a fade out on a 45 sets up the next record nicely there too.

Boogaloo cuts, in particular, if you're in that zone as either dancer or listener, do you really WANT it end sudden-cold, or would you rather is just ebb on outta there?

As to do I like it, don't have an opinion one way or the other, really. It's a record. What I do like are the fade outs that take, like, forever to fade completely out. Those are fun to listen to, becuase it was all board fades, right? So to listen to how slow they were pulling down the faders and NOT breaking rhtyhm is neat in a sports kind of athletic way. YMMV, of course.

Brian Wilson, otoh, was the master of the sudden fade, like first there is some music, oops, where'd it go? An art unto itself, the fadeout is, but it's an art specific to records. In real life, yeah, you gotta end it somehow, over, fine, finito. But on a record you don't.

Hell, they do it in movies all the damn time!

Interestingly, in house music, a single cut will often loop out forever and then come to a cold end. But that's because the loop at the end is being put there to give the DJ a canvas on which to paint their transition to the next cut. Some cats can get really creative with that stuff. That's like film, the fade out superimposed over a fade in.

[Milestones]

I'm not sure about the film analogy. I would say fade-outs and fade-ins are done for very different reasons (and effects) there.

I can certainly see the thing about DJs. Seems to me fades were often found on tracks by Grant Green, Stanley Turrentine, and organ players in general...stuff that did get radio play (I assume) back in the day.

[JSngry]

I'm not sure about the film analogy. I would say fade-outs and fade-ins are done for very different reasons (and effects) there.

Not on jazz/pop/etc records, no. But a good house DJ will keep a non-stop set going for hours on end, and their transitions between cuts are a point of pride, craft, and art (and a good mix creatively handled is indeed an act of art, I think). They'll be fading in and out like nobody's business. I think there is a parallel to film there. But with on the other stuff, no.

[Milestones]

Any idea when Blue Note started to use fades?

[danasgoodstuff]

The earliest I've found (so far) is HH's "Watermellon Man" in '62. After that they become rather common - not just Billy Higgins-fueled boogaloos, but other drummers and other grooves as well. I found some earlier things that might have benefited from a good fade...

[xybert]

The title track to Montara has an epicly long/slow fade-in.

[Chuck Nessa]

Fades started earlier but I can't find a starting point.

From my experience, fades are called for by the artist. Maybe they haven't written the end of the arrangement or maybe the fade is the effect they want.

[David Ayers]

Jazz musicians can be lazy writers. How is it with a two horn line-up they so often don't write a descant? Two voice writing is hardly rocket science. OT, sorry.

[jcam_44]

Fading is also an effective way to limit track time to fit on a side cassette or LP. Instead of cutting the last chorus abruptly, fade it out to sound cleaner and make room for another track.

[.:.impossible]

The earliest I've found (so far) is HH's "Watermellon Man" in '62. After that they become rather common - not just Billy Higgins-fueled boogaloos, but other drummers and other grooves as well. I found some earlier things that might have benefited from a good fade...

I was listening to this record the other night. This is a fade that works perfectly, imo.

[JSngry]

Jazz musicians can be lazy writers. How is it with a two horn line-up they so often don't write a descant? Two voice writing is hardly rocket science. OT, sorry.

If I want M&Ms, I buy M&Ms. If I want a Snickers, I buy a Snickers. But never do I complain that pigs have hooves and monkeys have toes.

[Michael Weiss]

Putting aside a producer's reasons for a fade out, I think there's an artistic justification for a fade out if the composer/arranger hears it that way. It's not a matter of laziness. All the tracks on Wayne Shorter's High Life (except Black Swan) being a good case in point. There ain't nothing lazy about Wayne Shorter's writing on there!

[JSngry]

You know what's lazy? The notion that music should always present you with a series of clear, unambiguous, and easily registered beginnings, middles, and endings. Like, you know, hey music, life is hard that way, make it easier for me, ok? I think I'm entitled to that much.

No. Music ain't your bitch, lazy humans.

[.:.impossible]

Music ain't your bitch.

[JSngry]

Indeed.

[Mark Stryker]

I always enjoyed turning up the volume as the fade continues to try and hear every last second of what's going on, especially if cats are improvising or embellishing rather than just repeating the vamp. Please don't end. Please don't end. Please ... oh, shit, it's gone ...

[danasgoodstuff]

So I found some earlier fadeouts on BN, but the're not 'BN fades' if you know what I mean - they just fade away while repeating the head instead of having anything interesting, it sounds like they weren'y planning to fade "Sow Belly Blues" on LD's Natural Soul or the two cuts on side two of his Here Tis but just decided to fade 'em after the fact.

[.:.impossible]

I always enjoyed turning up the volume as the fade continues to try and hear every last second of what's going on, especially if cats are improvising or embellishing rather than just repeating the vamp. Please don't end. Please don't end. Please ... oh, shit, it's gone ...

Evocative description there. Reminds me of those early morning dreams that I can never quite get back to. Sleep steadily disappears, a speck of a memory too distant to make out. I can almost remember what it was. Gone.

[xybert]

I always enjoyed turning up the volume as the fade continues to try and hear every last second of what's going on, especially if cats are improvising or embellishing rather than just repeating the vamp. Please don't end. Please don't end. Please ... oh, shit, it's gone ...

Evocative description there. Reminds me of those early morning dreams that I can never quite get back to. Sleep steadily disappears, a speck of a memory too distant to make out. I can almost remember what it was. Gone.

Yeah i thought that was pretty cool. Just need to be careful to turn it back down before you get blasted by the next song!

[Ken Dryden]

Sometimes fadeouts are used to cover sloppy endings.

[clifford_thornton]

yeah that was actually my assumption, especially if the take was otherwise superior. Although I suppose one could edit takes together at that time.

[David Ayers]

Some fadeouts, if you turn them up and listen, do lead to a bum note, dull phrase, or other loss of momentum. Little hobby for us all there.

[Milestones]

This thread kind of took off. There seems to be a lot of speculation.

Was this usually an artist decision? Usually a producer decision? We may never know, unless the answer is in one of the books on Blue Note.

It seemed to be of a particular time. I can't think of tracks on modern Blue Notes fading out.

[.:.impossible]

I can imagine Charlie Hunter Pound For Pound tracks fading out, but it has been so long that I listened to that album, I have no idea.