Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Number 9 September 16, 2009

We are mixing our new band recording, The Valence Project. Duke Ellington defined success as “Doing the right thing, at the right time, with the right people”. All the musicians are world class. They are excited about working together. There were no pre-conceived notions of what it should sound like, and a very refreshing willingness to do new things. And they are lovely people, one and all. In life, in art, in love, the effortless is also often the most magical. (Although there were plenty of technical and musical challenges, it was emotionally always very positive and smooth). I have an almost superstitious idea that the order in which tunes are written (if they are written in the studio, which these were) and recorded is often the best order sequence for the finished recording. We recorded to 2” tape, and are mastering to ½” tape, so the sound is huge, and warm. We feel the tunes will lend themselves to multiple remixes; there are so many good performances on each take that one would be happy with five or more versions of each tune.

Among the players are Brain (Primus/Tom Waites/Guns N’ Roses) Kai Eckhardt (John McLaughlin/Wayne Shorter/Clarence Clemmons/Garage Mahal) Jonathan Herrera (Zigaboo Modeliste/Miguel Megs)

Deborah Charles, Melissa Reese, Enrique Padilla, Baron Shul (Indigo Swing ) and the mysterious Blu Cube.

Gregory James

No comments:

Post a Comment