I normally have a trio with me in the vineyards each year. Last week I decided to move my electric bass player over to 2nd Keys as an experiment. Then bring in the elec. guitar player from my Billy Joel “VintageBilly.com” show and put him on Upright Bass.
Live Recordings are usually “not really live”. They are recorded and then re-recorded, edited, pitch corrrected, overdubbed and sent out as “live”. I’ve done it myself. Yes the taping was live but the audio was cleaned up:).
This recording is live. A combination of stereo audio from my Mevo video cam to capture room noise and Organ (since it was not mic’d :/), along with stereo drum overheads and a mono signal on the rest of the instruments. I did add a room verb to the dry mix.
What I want you to listen for here is “use of space”. I play 90% alone on gigs. Therefore i have to play “everything” all the time. As you add players you play less and less. You look to divide the music up into spaces for dialog around the vocal. Well, this arrangement I worked out from listening to Sinatra’s original. Since I use different players all the time, things change. Feel changes, solos change, space changes. Last year “Willard Peterson” (Billy), did an octave divider on his upright ,and played a low A two octave slide to the B, on the A-9 chord in the intro. That began an interesting feel change in the tune with my intro. I like giving the open chords to intros and footballs to allow the band to settle into “space” and begin listening to “it”.
This recording (for me) defines great interplay of (Space, Time, Notes, Volumes, Tones and the interplay up and down that is never written on paper). Forget any improv notes that might not be perfect or pitches that are 3 cents off. It is the part of live that is beautiful and human.
Special thanks to this group for making 3hours of great memories in the vineyards.
Tim Zhorne: Drums, ~ Matt MacIntyre: Bass ~ Joe Elliott: Guitar ~ Jordan Hedlund: Keyboards.