Stephane Grapelli and the Hot Club Of London

My decision to digitise some of my family's old records has really paid dividends. I have found a double LP of Stephane Grapelli recorded live with the Hot Club Of London at the Queen Elizabeth Hall London on the 5th of November 1973. The Queen Elizabeth Hall is a great place to go and hear music. I think that the acoustics here are much better than the Royal Albert Hall.

My father loved to listen to Stephane Grapelli and I have also loved his music since I was a boy. For me the violin is the perfect jazz instrument. It has a wide range of tones and Grapelli can make the violin almost sing. The violin also plays well with acoustic jazz guitar and double bass.

Grapelli is a maestro on the violin. He has played jazz violin in concert with Yehudi Menuin. Two maestros together: it was a fabulous combination. You can certainly hear classical music intermingled within the complex melodies of Grapelli's jazz. There is folk music in there too.

http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/e/emi66830a.php

The Hot Club of London included Diz Disley and Denny Wright on guitar. These two guitarists were also great musicians and provided a most sympathetic backing. Their guitar playing is far better than anyone in the Rolling Stone 100 with perhaps the exception of Jimmy Hendrix. They were masters of their craft.

One of my favourite tracks on this recording is "Misty". I thought that  Errol Garner could not be bettered and that the piano was the best instrument to portray this sublime song. Well, Stephane and the Hot Club of London made a masterful rendition of this classic too.

Len Skeat laid down the perfect rhythmic and bass accompaniment; there was no need for a drummer.

I really like the sense of humour that comes across on this recording; at one point Grapelli and the two guitarists were mimicking one another.

I could play this type of jazz all day and like Errol Garner's music I could never tire of it.

From a technical point of view this album has been recorded, possibly by the BBC, and mastered with a deft touch that Diz Disley would have been proud of. There is a wide dynamic range and a fantastic sound stage, you can hear where the musicians are positioned. The audience reaction comes across very well and I felt that I could have been at the performance. I could hear the crowd all around me.

This 125 gm LP puts many modern recordings to shame. The PA system in the hall  does that too. Some modern sound engineers should listen to this recording and learn to show a lighter touch on the sound compression sliders. The sound of pop music could be improved too by allowing more dynamic range to show through.

All this goes to show that the original recording techniques and the mastering of the tapes are of prime importance as far as Hi-Fi is concerned and this exposes the aridity of arguments about which is better CD, Vinyl and "High Resolution". None of these media can be enjoyed if the original recordings and masters are poor.

I was really surprised at how well this double LP had survived. There were no scratches on the record and there was minimal snap, crackle and pop. However, someone had dropped record #1 and chipped the edge so great care was needed when I cued the first track on both sides. This means that I cannot allow anyone else to play this record on a deck.

I have now converted the album to digital and it sounds exactly the same. I did not need to use noise removal    but you can hear a gentle crackle in the very quiet bits but this does not spoil any of the enjoyment. The vinyl and my digital conversion both sound fantastic so there is no need to buy a new digital or analogue version, for that matter. The LP is now filed away.

What really matters, is that Stephane  Grapelli and the Hot Club of London have produced musical perfection and we are so lucky that we can get a taste of this via our recordings and Hi-Fi systems.

I urge all music lovers to buy this record.

http://www.discogs.com/St%C3%A9phane-Grappelli-I-Got-Rhythm/release/2435496

http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/1457711/a/Live+In+London.htm

Mary Coughlan - Under The Influence - Tape Conversion

I revisited a conversion that I made of Mary Coughlan - Under The Influence Compact Cassette ( see below). I had converted the music to a WAV file using Audacity. I removed all the tape hiss by using the noise removal function and chopped up the file into the individual tracks and labelled them using the add label function.

I rigged up a high quality portable cassette player which still works very well . I connected the line outputs to the line input on my PC.

Audacity made an almost perfect copy of this tape. Even though the tape deck had Dolby Noise reduction you could still hear some tape hiss between the tracks. Audacity has removed all of this hiss without affecting the quality of the music. When I playback the copied file I hear silence between the racks just as if I was playing a CD.

The music, however, still sounds as if a Cassette is playing. This highlights the resolving power of digital technology. The music sounds exactly the same from both sources. There is no doubt in my mind that multiple and sequential copies of a WAV file or a CD could be made digitally without  a deterioration in the quality of the  music. This would not be possible in analogue format with Cassettes or LP records for that matter.

It would not be possible to make multiple and sequential of MP3 files without a deterioration of sound quality either.

I can now play Mary Coughlan in our modern car or stream her music all over the house. The original cassette still plays well after all those years but when it finally gives up the ghost I can make another tape for the older car. The tape hiss will comeback, however. One of the advantages of a digital file is that I can keep a master copy. I hope my jalopy will last long enough to test out the new tape.

Compact Cassettes will probably survive for a long time into the future just like LPs as there will always be someone who wants to play them. Let us hope that manufacturers will continue to make the tapes and the players. Maybe one day there will be a Cassette Tape revival.

I went to see Mary Coughlan live in 1987 just after the Under the Influence Album was released. She is one of the best performers I have had the pleasure of listening to live. She has a powerful, sultry and husky voice which is just right for jazz singing. There was no " lip-synching". She could perform well in a small jazz club without amplification. How many modern pop singers could do that?

Her backing musicians were completely professional .The sound engineers brought out the best of her voice  even though they were using equipment primitive by today's standards. The full dynamic range of her voice could be appreciated.

She always sings great songs which are full of emotion and which tell stories. It was a musical treat listening to her. The"Under the Influence" album is a perfect example of her work; it is raunchy and sexy. "The Ice Cream Man dishes out more than ice cream. "My Land Is Too green " is a wonderful political statement that could only be delivered by a feisty  Irish woman.


 http://www.allmusic.com/album/under-the-influence-mw0000336965