Another reason to strive for excellence, or, How does ECM do that?

Being the detail-oriented person that I am, I have always taken the time to read the liner notes to recordings. Going back to the days when LPs were the industry standard, my SOP after a trip to the record store would be to park myself in front of my stereo, slice through the shrink-wrap with a fingernail (unlike some who just opened the edge allowing the vinyl to escape, I always completely removed the wrapping), and look at the inner sleeve. Sometimes it would be plain white, sometimes there would be advertisements of other offerings from the record company, but sometimes – and this was always a bonus - there would be mysteries revealed. Most common was to have lyrics and composer information, but there could also be photos, other artistic images, band personnel (I would feel somehow cheated if the band members weren’t listed somewhere on the cover or the inner sleeve), tour dates, personal notes from the artists, weird stories, band lore, thank-yous, or assorted other arcana.

Somewhere in there, usually, was information about the recording itself. The producer was most often listed first (before I learned better I used to think this was because the producer was always the Most Important Person behind the scenes), followed by the engineer, and sometimes even the tape operator, the tech personnel for the various instruments or band members, or the roadies who set up the gear for performances. If the recording studio itself was listed, it often had a generic name associated with the label (Atlantic, ABC, CBS, A & M) or some sort of more interesting appellation evoking a sense of quality or uniqueness (Mountain, Power Station, Mad Hatter, Electric Lady, Caribou, Air, Abbey Road, Talent, Avatar, Trident, and Rainbow are a few that come to mind, along with location-based recording venues such as Motown, Stax, and Rudy Van Gelder’s New Jersey home studio) that would lead the listener to wonder if the quality of the studio had anything to do with whatever was special about the sound of a particular album.

But it wasn’t until the early 80’s, when I began to study music seriously, that I really identified any one studio or record label with a particular sound. The album was “Standards, Vol. I” by the newly-formed Keith Jarrett Trio (recorded at Power Station Studio in NYC, by Jan-Erik Kongshaug, and released on the ECM label). I wouldn’t have identified it as such then, but going back now, there’s a transparency to the recording that is truly stunning and unique. Every note from the piano and bass can not only be heard, but identified. Each drum is discrete, and each cymbal clearly distinct from the others. Yet, with all this definition, there is still a wholeness to the sound which is compelling. There is reverb, but not at the expense of clarity; the sound of a performance in a cathedral, but with precision. This was my first exposure to the piano trio genre, and I was spoiled. As I expanded my palette to include Bill Evans, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Oscar Peterson, Thelonius Monk, McCoy Tyner, Red Garland, Hank Jones and others, I was rewarded with musical excellence and even transcendence, but there was, more often than not, something missing from the quality of the recordings. As a bassist, I noticed the lack of clarity most when I tried to transcribe bass lines; not only were the notes themselves lacking clarity, but the piano and drums seemed to cover the sound of the bass like a blanket, no matter how sparingly they were played. Lifting Gary Peacock’s lines from the Jarrett recordings, on the other hand, was like child’s play, as each note fairly leapt out from the soundscape, waiting to be plucked like so much ripe fruit.

[This recording style has lent itself quite successfully to other artists and instrumentations, including Pat Metheny, Gary Burton, Jan Garbarek, Dave Holland, John Abercrombie, Peter Erskine, and Kenny Wheeler. Also represented in the catalog are contemporary classical recordings (the ECM New Series) and more experimental crossover music such as the excellent Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin. All are examples of the same attention to detail and clarity evinced by the Jarrett Trio recordings.]

Fast forward to the present day, and to my current focus as a piano technician. I have been going back to my record collection (now including CDs; I still read the liner notes while listening for the first time) and listening to the piano in a different way, now trying to focus on the sound of the instrument in order to isolate issues of tone and tuning, hoping to glean insight that will help me to become a better technician. The first thing that occurred to me was to learn exactly how the piano was recorded, thinking that made the largest difference. What microphone(s) were used? Where are they placed? What type of post-production trickery is used to get the best possible sound? There turned out to be as many answers to these questions as there were recordings, with every engineer and pianist having their opinion on the “right” way to record a piano. As I continued to listen, I kept coming back to the ECM recordings from Talent Studio and Rainbow in Oslo, and Power Station in New York, which seem to stand head and shoulders above the rest. They seemed to have found a way to make the piano sound better than other pianos; ein Überklavier. The reverb used is significant, but there was something more than that. A spectacular instrument? More than likely, but how then to explain the sound being consistent over a period of years, and across oceans to different recording studios? I would think about this, then let it go for a time, always shrugging and saying “I don’t know what they do, but I sure like it”.

I recently came across an interview with Jan-Erik Kongshaug, aforementioned recording engineer for ECM and credited as such on many of the label’s recordings that I hold in highest regard. The entire interview, conducted by John Kelman for the website All About Jazz, is very informative and can be found here. The part that caught my eye, though, was this:

One of the aspects to recording that has made Kongshaug's name has been his attention to piano sound, though he has a surprising opinion as to why he achieves such a rich sound, while so many others do not. "I always get this question," Kongshaug says, 'what kinds of microphones do you use, where do you put them?' I don't think it's that important at all; you have to have a good condenser mike—I usually use a Schoeps or a Neumann—but that's not important. You have to have a good tuner; you have to keep the piano in shape. Every session it's tuned. I have one very good tuner, and one backup; if not, it's not the same instrument. [emphasis in original]

Keep in mind: this is the Engineer talking, the person who is almost universally acknowledged as The Guy Responsible For How The Recording Sounds. And he is stating in no uncertain terms that the piano technician/tuner has more to do with how the piano sounds on the recording than does he. Going back to my liner-note-perusal habit, it bears mention that rarely, if ever, is the piano technician credited, even while those responsible for guitar, drums, or even electronic keyboards (!) are given a shout-out.

Musical myopia can be a terrible thing. All this time I had been assuming there must be something of the magnitude of a top-level-national-security-type protocol which was known to only the elite at ECM and other recording studios which enabled them to take the sound of the piano in the studio and improve on it electronically, when what’s actually going on is that the piano is well taken-care-of and masterfully tuned before each recording session. This is both inspiring and frightening. It means: not only do I as a technician have the ability (theoretically) to make a piano sound like that, but also the obligation, if I’m to be truly honest with myself, to shoot for that level as often as possible.

Kongshaug goes on to say that the amount of attention paid to the piano depends on the type of music, the touch of the pianist, and the order in which the music will be recorded. He also says that when the musician requests that the piano be tuned to A-440 (Hz, or cycles per second, 442 being the default pitch level at Rainbow) it is tuned twice: once the day before the session and again the day of. One must assume that any issues of voicing, action regulation, or touchweight/friction which the artist points out would be taken care of with the same attention to detail, for as technicians are aware, a truly exceptional-sounding instrument is not just well in tune, but also superbly voiced and regulated.

We don’t all get to work for recording studios or in situations where the piano will be recorded out in the field, but those of us who do need to keep all of this in mind as we work. And there can be nothing lost by putting oneself in the mindset that the piano may be used in a recording, and should be made to sound its absolute best – just in case. For my part, I have even more ammunition for my continued enjoyment of the recordings from the ECM library, as I have a better idea now than before of why those instruments sound so incredibly good, and it relates directly to what I do. Expressed syllogistically: It’s the Technician. I’m a Technician. Therefore, I could potentially do that.