Two real good ones

[Larry Kart]

1) Gary Smulyan/Bob Belden "Biues Suite" (Criss Cross) Finally I'm all aboard the Smulyan train. Accompanied by nine brass and rhythm playing heady Belden originals, Smulyan sounds great here.

BTW, what a loss Belden was. In addition to all his other good work and good deeds, he did me a great favor when he asked me to write the liner notes for the reissue of "Filles de Kilimanjaro.'

2) Bob Cooper/Conte Candoli Quintet (VSOP) Cooper just kept getting better and better until the end, which came only 41 days after this 1993 live date. He's strong like bull on the mostly boppish program ("Confirmation, "Tin Tin Deo," "Hackensack" "Ow," "Con Alma," and "Airegin") and is heartfelt on the two ballads, "We'll Be Together Again" and "Come Sunday." Also this may be the best Conte Candoli I've ever heard.

 

 

 

 

[Teasing the Korean]

16 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

1) Gary Smulyan/Bob Belden "Biues Suite" (Criss Cross) Finally I'm all aboard the Smulyan train. Accompanied by nine brass and rhythm playing heady Belden originals, Smulyan sounds great here.

BTW, what a loss Belden was. In addition to all his other good work and good deeds, he did me a great favor when he asked me to write the liner notes for the reissue of "Filles de Kilimanjaro.'

Have you revisited that Gary Smulyan album with Bob Belden's string arrangements?  I wrote about that here when I misfiled the promo I had and couldn't remember the artist.

I also love Belden's Black Dahlia and Three Days of Rain, the latter of which @JSngry hipped me to.  Do you know these albums?

[Larry Kart]

I tried the Strings album and didn't care for it. It was like  trying to put a petticoat around a tank. Don't know if I have the other two.

[Teasing the Korean]

1 hour ago, Larry Kart said:

I tried the Strings album and didn't care for it. It was like  trying to put a petticoat around a tank. Don't know if I have the other two.

I highly recommend Black Dahlia.  

[Teasing the Korean]

Just watch out for that first chord in Black Dahlia.  It is LOUD!

[Larry Kart]

got it. will listen.

[Larry Kart]

Black Dahlia. Listened to it. It's something else.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

11 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

Black Dahlia. Listened to it. It's something else.

I've said it elsewhere on these forums but it's important to mention it again. Bob Belden told me that he made "Black Dahlia" to be listened to in 5.1 sound. Bob was very big into multichannel audio near the end of his life as he felt it was the future of music. I think he did a really good job creating the surround mix for "Black Dahlia". It's one of the best multichannel music discs I own.

[Teasing the Korean]

1 hour ago, bresna said:

I've said it elsewhere on these forums but it's important to mention it again. Bob Belden told me that he made "Black Dahlia" to be listened to in 5.1 sound. Bob was very big into multichannel audio near the end of his life as he felt it was the future of music. I think he did a really good job creating the surround mix for "Black Dahlia". It's one of the best multichannel music discs I own.

I have never heard a surround mix.  I'm curious, are these systems used primarily for watching films?

[Kevin Bresnahan]

5 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

I have never heard a surround mix.  I'm curious, are these systems used primarily for watching films?

Surround sound was originally meant for watching movies, with small speakers in the back mainly for sound effects and a subwoofer for loud noises.

When the DVD-Audio & SACD multichannel standards were created, they were meant more for music, which required those rear speakers to be full range, with equal sound reproduction capabilities to those of the front L, R & C speakers. With a good surround set up and a well done multichannel DVD-A/SACD disc, it can be very immersive. You get the feeling that you are in the band, not so much as in front of it. It's more of a feeling that the musicians are playing all around you. Therefore the "stereo mixing console" becomes your ears, which allows for the artist to push forward many more instruments than they would be able to in a stereo mix.

Edited July 5, 2023 by bresna

[Teasing the Korean]

1 hour ago, bresna said:

Surround sound was originally meant for watching movies, with small speakers in the back mainly for sound effects and a subwoofer for loud noises.

When the DVD-Audio & SACD multichannel standards were created, they were meant more for music, which required those rear speakers to be full range, with equal sound reproduction capabilities to those of the front L, R & C speakers. With a good surround set up and a well done multichannel DVD-A/SACD disc, it can be very immersive. You get the feeling that you are in the band, not so much as in front of it. It's more of a feeling that the musicians are playing all around you. Therefore the "stereo mixing console" becomes your ears, which allows for the artist to push forward many more instruments than they would be able to in a stereo mix.

Thanks.  What's interesting about this is that the overall trend for music listeners is that they have downsized their systems, not expanded them.  I wonder if this technology will ultimately appeal to folks who are into both film and music.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/bob-belden-jazz-adventurer-bob-belden-by-jeff-dayton-johnson

18 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Thanks.  What's interesting about this is that the overall trend for music listeners is that they have downsized their systems, not expanded them.  I wonder if this technology will ultimately appeal to folks who are into both film and music.

Bob thought it was the future of music reproduction but time has seemingly proven him wrong. Surround music is almost as popular as 3D movies. Both have their fans but little to no market. Without a growing market, there is no way that the music industry will back it.

Shortly before he died, Bob sent me a couple of videos with surround mixes he did of mostly ambient music. I've yet to find them posted online. One was titled "Hubble" and included still shots of different parts of the galaxy. The other was titled "Transparent Heat" and it had no video content.

I found an interview he did with AllAboutJazz where he goes into his thoughts on surround music...

BB: We performed a concert at London's Tabernacle (July 3, 2012). The concert was meant to introduce a refined live presentation concept that builds on what is already going on in the pop music world but we are taking the idea to a new and different level. Joining us that night were Serafino DiRosario, a magical live audio visionary, and Brandy Alexander, a live video projection team. What we did on that night was an Ambisonic concert. Ambisonic is about using the entire aural space of a venue and making that space part of the presentation of the sound. The Ambisonic engineer becomes part of the band, mixing us in and out of the sound canvas. This live mixing allowed the band to not only improvise to the song but to the texture of the projected sound and the imagery that was being projected into the band. In some cases, the layering of the band image within the projection suggested a potential for 3-D simulated visualizations. As Ambisonic would also be considered part of an aural 3-D spectrum there is a lot of room for connected creativity and narrative.

What this opens the door to is to be able to create a live movie experience along the lines of an IMAX theater using improvised music and specifically created videos to tell as story and using the Ambisonic surround audio elements to enhance the total experience for the audience.

[Dan Gould]

I've never understood the desire among some for this sort of immersive, the-band-is-playing-around-you experience, when nobody experiences that  except those actually on stage.   

[Kevin Bresnahan]

25 minutes ago, Dan Gould said:

I've never understood the desire among some for this sort of immersive, the-band-is-playing-around-you experience, when nobody experiences that  except those actually on stage.   

Well, Bob certainly knew what that felt like so maybe he thought that the music listeners would want that experience as well?

Not all music surround mixes are like that though. For instance, one of my favorites is Aerosmith's "Toys In The Attic". For that surround mix, the engineer did some gimmicky things like sending the vocoder intro to "Sweet Emotion" around all of the speakers to give it this spinning feeling. I think it works well but I can see how some might hate it. The Doors "LA Woman" DVD-Audio disc has cool surround sound on "Riders on the Storm", where they use the 5 speakers to make you feel like you're in the thunderstorm, not simply listening to one.

Edited July 6, 2023 by bresna

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, Dan Gould said:

...nobody experiences that  except those actually on stage.   

And not always then... 

But immersive as in a next-level stoned/tripping headphone experience, yes, I can certainly understand that. 

[Teasing the Korean]

49 minutes ago, JSngry said:

And not always then... 

But immersive as in a next-level stoned/tripping headphone experience, yes, I can certainly understand that. 

Yes, I guess it depends on the listener's exceptions of music.  Do you think of music as a recorded representation of what a band is playing, or do you think of music as its own thing?  When there is no visual, I would prefer the immersive experience.  It would not make me think of being onstage with the players.  

[JSngry]

I don't really have any hard and fast expectations about the "experience". I've been disgusted, delighted, and every thing in between by every sort of whichaway. 

I will say that an enjoyable psychedelic experience can create dimensionalities quite beyond the capabilities of traditional sound reproduction. Maybe we should Rick Perry involved.

Otherwise, it ain't 1978 anymore. 

[Dub Modal]

Surround fan here and I’m not really sure why it fell out of favor overall. I’m guessing the hassle of setting up multiple speakers which could require some drilling etc to hide wires was just too much for the majority of consumers. But I don’t know for sure.