From Tape to the Fairlight CMI & MIDI (Feature)
Plus: Spotify Playlists, Let My Children Hear Music, and News
Electronic music is an amalgam of a variety of musical styles as well as an assortment of techniques, including studio cut-and-paste, digital sampling, remixing, reconstructing, turntablism, and more.
Obviously, the use of technology to create, produce or manipulate sounds is common to all forms of electronic music. The electronic artist generally works alone (sometimes as part of a duo), creating his work in a studio that is, as often as not, his own. Sampling sounds and remixing them into a new context allows the artist to become an arranger, really, creating a setting for the words, rapping, melody, or whatever is placed over the beat and the other sounds. But whereas an arranger like Gil Evans had to rely on a group of musicians to recreate and properly interpret the sounds he notated painstakingly on paper, the electronic artist has complete control over the sounds on his palette. Once the proper sound is achieved, that sound can be dropped anywhere in the “arrangement” or mix desired, without any chance that the string section will miss its cue or the bass player won’t drop out at the right spot.
The promise of complete control over one’s music has been the siren call of technology for some time. Synthesizers placed an almost unlimited number of sounds at the disposal of the musician. Coupled with modern overdubbing techniques, it became possible for a single musician to create an entire musical work of orchestral complexity. This possibility led to the music of performers like Jean Michel Jarre and Vangelis, to name but two.
As synthesizers became more advanced, adding polyphony to their arsenal, they allowed still greater control by composers, arrangers, and performers. In 1976, Fairlight developed the first digital synthesizer, the QASAR M8, which, although much too complex, expensive, and heavy to be an actual product, was a major breakthrough. In 1979 the Fairlight CMI, considered to be the grandfather of the modern sampler, was born. It was still massively expensive and complex, but it was essentially the first synthesizer/sampler workstation.
Several different models were introduced between 1979 and 1985, by which time the CMI was rendered obsolete by a plethora of cheaper and easier to use synthesizers, samplers, and sequencers. Still, the Fairlight offered the ability to create samples, modify them, loop, mix, and resample them as well as a state-of-the-art synthesizer and 80-track polyphonic sequencer. Many artists used it including Mike Oldfield, Trevor Horn, Vince Clarke of Yaz, Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Prince, Jan Hammer, and (not surprisingly) Herbie Hancock. For anyone who can afford a vintage CMI, it can still be used to create electronic music of great complexity.
By 1985-86, less expensive samplers and sequencers were available, and they allowed a great deal more manipulation with a fraction of the operational complexity of the Fairlight. In 1983 the first keyboards to conform to the National Association of Music Merchandisers’ MIDI standard were produced.
MIDI, which stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, is a standard to allow inter-connectivity between digital musical instruments as well as between digital musical instruments and other digital devices, such as sequencers, samplers, and computers. MIDI provides the ability for a number of keyboards, drum machines, and other devices to be controlled by one person. Using MIDI and the modern recording studio, it is possible for a performer or producer to have complete control over the music recorded. For those a little more old-fashioned, however, many of the same effects available through modern samplers and studio techniques can be created by a talented turntablist with two turntables, fast hands, and a mixer.
Spotify Playlists:
Featured album:
Charles Mingus/Let My Children Hear Music Amazon | Spotify
Charles Mingus considered this 1972 album to be his best yet it doesn't seem to be that much discussed among jazz listeners. Perhaps that is because it's a large band recording, not the smaller ensembles that populated such Mingus favorites as Ah Um, Oh Yeah or Tijuana Moods. It's closest cousin is probably Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, which has its champions and detractors.
Mingus is on fire here with regard to composition. His thematic development is clear and sharp. He freely mixes blues, gospel, free jazz, and European classical sounds, with influences from Ravel and Debussy to Ellington and Tatum. The results are not a hodge-podge but rather serious music that is deeply personal and quintessentially American.
It's a misnomer to say that Mingus (or Ellington, for that matter) are great jazz composers or great African American composers. They are great composers, period. You can put the music this album next to pretty much anything and it stands on its own.
As usual, Mingus is surrounded by fantastic musicians. Soloists here include Charles McPherson, James Moody, Snooky Young and Roland Hanna--and that barely scratches the surface.
Let My Children Hear Music is a stunning record that really stands out even in a discography as varied and top notch as that of Charles Mingus.
It was also the only time Mingus was nominated for a Grammy Award—not for the album itself, but for his essay What Is a Jazz Composer?, which served as the album’s liner notes. The memorable ending to that essay reads:
Let my children have music! Let them hear live music. Not noise. My children! You do what you want with your own! —Charles Mingus, 1971—
Bonus Tracks:
Art Neville, keyboard player with The Neville Brothers and The Meters, has died at the age of 81.
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