Re: Recording Technology and Concert Tango

[Alan McPherron <mcph+ @PITT.EDU>]

On Mon, 26 Feb 2001, Stephen Brown wrote:

> An interesting phenomenon occurred in jazz recordings in the United States
> when the fidelity of recordings improved dramatically in the early to mid
> 1950s.  Recordings that jazz bands seemed to make a transition from playing
> more rhythmic dance music to playing concert music at exactly the same
> time.  Some jazz historians have attributed the transition to the recording
> technology itself.  They said that the subtleties of concert music could
> not be captured in the pre-1950s recordings, and consequently the
> demarcation between dance music and concert music was more sharply drawn in
> recordings than in live performances.

Possibly, but the same didn't occur in the classical music world.  The big
change there was from 78 rpm discs to LPs, in the late '40s.  That
certainly involved a change in recording techniques, now recording to tape
rather than directly to master discs.  It also meant being able to record
30 to 40 minutes at a time (the maximum on a LP side) rather than having
to break compositions, in the recording studio, into 4.5 minute segments.
I had an oratorio once on 12 shellac 78 rpm's, manual sequence.  It was a
pain to play.  The earliest LPs were remastered from 78s to LPs, and that
went on for some time.  The sound quality of LPs that didn't involve 78s
was better, but no quantum leap.   Alan McPherron, Pittsburgh Tangueros.