I have been listening to Rendezvous (Stereophile STPH013-2) by the Jerome Harris Quintet for several years. Six of the seven cuts on this recording were written by NY jazz luminary Jerome Harris. This recording has been widely acclaimed, as one of the best, and I always thought that it had was the best cymbal recordings that I had heard. I recently installed 8th Nerve room treatment in my listening room, and my whole perspective on this recording changed.
After the room treatment installation, I immediately played “Rendezvous.” The opening cut “Decision Point,” starts out with an impressive display of cymbals (Billy Drummond on his '50s-vintage Gretsch drum kit and K. Zildjian cymbals). I was surprised that to find that there were three different cymbals one on the right, one somewhat centered and one on the left. I had never heard that before.
Well, I immediately liked what I heard, but thought that this can’t be right because cymbals are a point source (or so I thought). So I started to research the recording. Searching on the Internet, I found Jerome Harris’s email address and sent him an email.
Subsequently, I found a Stereophile article on this recording, and eventually found the following quotation by John Atkinson:
I had to think about the drums. Multimiked drums are often spread from far stage left to far stage right, which tends to make them sound too big compared with the sizes of the other instruments. But that is exactly where I ended up placing them on Rendezvous. Billy Drummond uses his kit not only to lay down basic rhythms, but also to take the role of a melodic instrument. Narrowing the width of the drums restricted the play between his collection of very different-sounding cymbals. Letting the drums occupy the full stage width allowed them to define the aural background against which the horns and vibes make their musical statements.
Anyway, it continued to get better as I listened. Everything was clearer and sweeter. The sound stage and imaging were dramatically improved, and sound was still very lively. Track 3 is Duke Ellington’s “The Mooche” which formerly sounded harsh (I didn’t like it). All of a sudden the sound was transformed. I could hear the timbre from the different tensions on the drums, and Art Baron’s trombone has that blatting brassy sound, that is so hard to reproduce.
Throughout the recording one could listen to Jerome playing his Taylor Bass Guitar. Listen to Hand by Hand on track 7, which opens up Jerome playing a solo walking bass line. In cut Jerome takes center stage, and you can hear him develop notes that you can’t even imagine.
Surprisingly, I recently received a reply from Jerome Harris which you can read below:
I must apologize for how long it's taken me to reply; suffice to say that I've been deluged with things to attend to.
Re: the cymbals in the sound stage, no cymbals were moved once the drum kit was set up; nor was any panning of drum mikes done during the mixing or mastering. What you are hearing is Billy Drummond playing on his various cymbals, which are placed across the sound stage in a manner that's common in jazz recording (some people suggest that, when hearing a jazz group live, the drums don't take up as much actual stage width as most recordings suggest; while true from an absolutist perspective, the "lopsided" sonic character of having most of the percussive sounds coming from a relatively narrow part of the recorded sound stage can be annoying in my experience. I have no problem with separating the drums a bit across the sound stage, as long as that doesn't result in "ping-pong" drum sounds).
It's typical for drummers to use one cymbal for "ride" beats and a different one for crashes; Billy's two main cymbals follow this practice, although the specific ones he chose sound good as either ride or crash, thus allowing the variety of alternate choices (this is not uncommon in jazz drumming); he also had the usual "hi hat" cymbals, and I think he also had another crash with rivets for a "sizzle" timbre. In the opening of "Decision Point" he plays each of them.
Thanks for your listening, and for your kind words.
Jerome Harris
Suffice it to say, that I love “Rendezvous,” especially since the room treatment changes so I asked Jerome to recommend some of his work and he replied as follows:
“Musical tastes differ, of course. Here are a few recordings I'm on that I particularly like; as they say, your mileage may vary:
Jerome Harris, “Hidden In Plain View" (New World 80472-2): me leading a great seven-piece band in interpretations of compositions by the seminal, provocative multi-reedist Eric Dolphy.
Marvin Sewell Group, "The Worker's Dance" (Llewes LRCD 234): Debut recording by a guitarist who's done noted work with vocalist Cassandra Wilson and pianist Jason Moran. Unusual instrumentation, beautiful tunes; rich and yet quite accessible. Available at www.cdbaby.com.
Ned Rothenberg Sync, "Port Of Entry" (Intuition INT 3249 2); "Harbinger" (Animul ANI 104): The two recordings by Ned's "new music/world music" trio--Ned on alto sax, clarinet, bass clarinet & shakuhachi, world-class tabla player Samir Chatterjee, and yours truly on acoustic guitar and acoustic bass guitar. Influences from jazz (free and otherwise), Indian and west African musics in the compositions.
Sonny Rollins, "Falling In Love With Jazz" (Milestone MCD-9179-2): My favorite of the several recordings I was fortunate to make with the tenor sax titan. I'm on guitar on two tracks, bass guitar (solid-body) on the other five.
Best wishes,
Jerome
Jerome is not only a great musician, but he is also a nice guy. Because I was so impressed with Rendezvous, I bought all four of Jerome’s recommendations (I haven’t received the yet).
Anyway, I highly recommend Rendezvous. If it doesn’t sound good in your system, then you probably have some problems, and it might be your room. But don't take just my word for it, Rendezvous was short-listed for a 2000 Grammy nomination in the "Best Engineered Album (non-classical)" category.
