The debate between tradition and innovation has always been substantial within the jazz genre and its community. Even though jazz music and audio engineering grew hand in hand, the relevance of the recording medium has often been placed at the center of this discussion with artists constantly evolving and adopting new musical or technical
innovations to fulfill their creative ambitions. Nowadays, the studio environment welcomes a new generation of audio literate improvising musicians, often influenced simultaneously by the jazz tradition, its modern sub-genres as well as the more recent genres and recorded art forms brought forth since the 1950’s. As a result, the audio production’s role has been increasingly growing in modern jazz studio projects.
From an audio engineering standpoint, this research aims to explore how producers can introduce production techniques when recording to influence, inspire or enhance themusical improvisation in a modern jazz studio performance. Furthermore, the goal is to find efficient ways to integrate this approach into the overall production process and make the various steps associated coincide to create a stronger synergy between the performance and the project’s final output.
Practical studio projects as well as interviews with the musicians involved are here used as a basis to investigate the challenges and considerations introduced when engaging with these concepts. The research demonstrates that production techniques can indeed uplift the modern jazz performance but in some cases also come in its way. When following the right methods, this process can be extremely fruitful and offer new exciting perspectives in terms of artistic collaboration and expression.
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(last entry by Brecht de Man - 09/03/2025 at 14:22)