Down by the Riverside

I finally managed to haul out my camera to get some pictures of Wanda and the boys at Riverside, on what was the third evening of our current recording project.

This was the night where we recorded a couple of the most challenging tunes. It was a lot of work, and I'm still not sure that we won't need another night with all of us to get some better takes. A lot can be done with the odd judicious fix, and expert mixing and mastering, something that Rick and Dwayne are great at. So I will hold back on my judgment on the results so far.

As ever, I am rarely satisfied with my own playing in the studio. I am my own worst critic, and I will probably ask for a retake or two, for my sake. One of the things that was different last night was that I stood in the control room while laying down the tracks with the band. I knew that there was a certain amount of leakage on the previous nights when I played in the main room with the rest of them. I agreed with Dwayne that it may be best to isolate me in order to have a cleaner sound with the bass and piano. Drums were already in a booth, so it was the control booth for me.

An unexpected experience for me was when we did Hi-Fly, where the rhythm section was grooving really nicely. When we rehearsed in my living room, we were all together in a fairly cozy room and I could really feel the groove in my gut, standing between the bass and drums.

I had no problems with the other tunes we did last night, and with the isolation being so effective, I had to rely on the headphone mix. I had an Aebersold moment, feeling like I wasn't playing live with a band, just playing along with some disembodied music over the phones. I can't recall having a similar experience before. I was also OK for the previous tunes, but on Hi-Fly, I wanted to feel that visceral groove thing going on.

I felt my bari solo in that tune was not up to par with the energy that the rest of the band was putting out. I want to be as good as possible because it's going to be a a standout track on the cd. I wish I were a first take good sort of player, but that just ain't the case.

We were very pleased to have Tom Foster back with us on drums for the night. He has been our drummer of choice since our last recording project together, and he is our go-to guy whenever we have gigs at places where we can utilize a drummer. The next time will be at the Jazz Festival, June 24 at Victory Square, to put in a shameless plug. As I mentioned, a couple of the tunes were pretty challenging and it was a hell of a lot easier with Tom in the driver's seat.

One of those tunes was Jeanette Lindstrom's Leaf, which sounds deceptively easy on her cd. You may recall that I mentioned doing a lift of this tune a couple of months back and being surprised to find out that it was mostly in 5/4. It just flows so nicely. I don't know if we quite got that same flow, but it will sound pretty darn good.

Last week, Jeanette sent me her original chart for it. There were some chords on my transcription that were different, but very close in sound. We decided to go with my chords. Jeanette asked me to send her our version when we finished. I don't know about that - that's a bit scary. Her entire cd is so damn impeccable and her singing is absolutely great. You can hear what I mean when she returns to town for Festival Vancouver in August.

We did try two takes with acoustic piano and two with Rhodes. The inimitable Mr. Cliff Piffling was most anxious to get his mitts on the Rhodes. It sounded pretty good, but so did the piano. Somebody will have to make a choice.

Mark was as solid as ever on bass, always bringing his A game when we play. And when you're at a studio run by Rick Kilburn, you know the bass is going to have to sound good. I think this is the fifth project we've done at Riverside so everyone is pretty relaxed about things.

Wanda did great, and took care of us with some nice snacks and beer. She had a challenge with the timing in Leaf. There are 4 single bars of 6/4 sprinkled through the tune, just to keep everyone of their toes. It certainly kept us alert.













With the bulk of the recording done, next week Wanda and I will head back to Riverside for the final touches, then the mixing and mastering.