After 8 hours, 9 tunes, 21 takes and 1 Indian buffet the Jason Parker Quartet recording session is complete! It was an exhausting and exhilarating day, and all-in-all I couldn’t be happier. Recording is a strange process and no matter how much you prepare it’s always different than you expect. It’s hard to get used to a new room, an unfamiliar headphone mix, no audience to draw energy from, etc. And it’s hard to forget that tape is rolling and every missed note and dropped beat is captured forever. But that’s all part of making jazz music. And with a band of professionals and a top-notch studio and engineer it’s a joyful experience.
Josh, Evan, D’Vonne and I had a dress rehearsal at the studio yesterday and worked out some of the room details, and I’m glad we did. I really wanted us all in the live room so it would be as close to our normal playing experience as possible. But our engineer, PJ Newman, wanted to put Evan in an isolation booth to capture a clean bass sound. I asserted myself as the leader and had him set Evan up in the room with us, but after listening back to the recording I had to admit that PJ was right. From then on, I deferred to him as the expert! We got all of the placement issues out of the way, set all the levels of the various microphones, and ran a couple of the tunes. It was great to have the opportunity to get used to the room before the actual recording session.
On the way to the studio this morning, I told myself that all the hard work was done and that today was about playing music with my beautiful friends and enjoying the experience. I’m so fortunate to have this incredible band and I’m inspired and excited each and every time I get to make music with them. And my fiance Darrah sent me some perfect inspiration this morning by way of this quote:
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will. – George Bernard Shaw
With that in mind, I was ready to dive in and fully appreciate the experience.
So this morning we all rolled in about 11am, had a cup of coffee together and leisurely got ready to go. It was relaxed and slow, and set a good pace for the rest of the day. When we got to playing, it took a while to dial in the headphone mix. I always find it hard to get used to hearing myself through headphones, and was fiddling with them all day. The first couple takes of “Bashert” I was distracted by this, but by the third take we had all settled into our groove. I was determined not to do too many takes of any given song, and we did pretty well. Two tunes we got in one take, one tune we tried four takes, and the rest were two or three each. By the time we had gotten through “Bashert”, “Love For Sale”, “Beatrice” and “Dos Gardenias” I was starving and called a break for lunch.
After lunch we were joined by the wonderful tenor saxophonist Cynthia Mullis. I have long admired Cynthia’s playing and was thrilled when she agreed to participate in the recording. We had her come out to our last couple shows to play with us and it’s been a real treat. And I must say, she got us all excited with her playing today. After our first take of “Mance’s Dance” PJ told us we should always eat Indian food before we play, but I’m pretty sure it was Cynthia that got us all hyped and took our playing to a new level. We did a few more takes of Tatum’s tune, nailed “Idle Moments” in one, and then took a couple passes at our mash-up of George Gershwin’s “Summertime” & Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints”. Cynthia was tearing it up, and after listening back we were all pleased with what we got. It was sad to say goodbye to her at that point but we had a few more tunes to get through before the day was over.
So we cut Cynthia loose and took two shots at “The Rainbow Connection” and got “Three Hours” is one take. We decide to try one more take of “Bashert” for kicks, and then my chops were done. Trumpet playing is such a physical endeavor, and when they go, they go! I would have loved to take another pass at one or two of the tunes, and we never got to my composition “Contact”, but that’s the way it goes.
After we were done we headed to Lucid for a celebratory drink, where the owner David bought the first round! He’s been super supportive of the band and the recording project and it was nice to end the day in the warm confines of his club. We even got to hear a bit of a new band called Chemical Clock, who were great!
I got home in a state that is all too familiar after playing – tired and wired. I slept for a couple hours but woke up with thoughts of the session in my head and deep gratitude for all my good fortune in my heart. PJ is going to get me the rough mixes tomorrow night, and I can’t wait to hear what we got. The band was absolutely killin’ all day long, and I look forward to getting into the mixing and mastering phase of the project.
Big thanks to Ashwin Rao for bringing his camera and documenting the session. Click here to see a slideshow of his photos.
