Brassplyer wrote:
Doc Severinsen is one of the big trumpet heroes. In the 60's he was recordi=
ng on the Command label and his recordings during that period are considere=
d to be a "Golden Era" of his output where he did a number of virtuosic ren=
ditions of various pop tunes.=20
Listening to them now, I hear things that weren't obvious to me as a kid. T=
his recording of "It Ain't Necessarily So" is a good example because you ca=
n hear him doing different parts on both channels. I don't think they reall=
y did that great a job of capturing his sound. His performance is so incred=
ible it shines through but it sounds kind of stuffy, buzzy and distorted. I=
gather they close-mic'd him. I have no idea what mic was used.=20
Read the liner notes, they explain the basic philosophy. Command records
were engineered by Bob Fine who did all the Mercury Living Presence stuff,
but with a totally different philosophy. Enoch Light and Command originated
the notion of the "stereo spectacular" with everything blown out of proportion
both tonally and spatially.
Everything in the Command recordings is huge, they are all in your face, and
they are all tonally very close. Everything is aggressively panpotted right
to left; there is very little room reverb so there is little sense of real
space, just a flat line with everything blaring at you.
Although Command originated it, it became very popular for a while. People
often had the philosophy that they had spent money for this stereo with two
speakers and they want to hear the stereoness. So cheesy fake stereo became
a very popular thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DG8J3U5AHQxo
This has severe mistracking due to bad record playback, also a lot of weird
youtube artifacts. This is not a good example of what Enoch's work sounded
like.
Do you think the Command recordings were just a particular sound they were =
aiming for or less than stellar engineering? He was the most visible trumpe=
t artist, recording with a prominent label, I would have thought his record=
ings would have gotten the Cadillac treatment.
Read the liner notes, they explain very well the whole Command philosophy.
Also.. check the lead-out when you get a Command album. Although the liner
notes all say the stereo ones were mastered by George Piros, only the earlier
pressings were (and some of THEM were actually mastered by his employees).
Command kept records in print for a long long time without changing the liner
notes, but recutting everything. Later on when ABC Records bought Enoch out,
they kept the same liner notes but had their staff engineers doing the
cutting. So check the lead-out and look for the initials GP. Definitely
avoid the ABC ones.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."