The cultural politics of using technology to support the aesthetic in jazz record production

This paper discusses the attitudes some contemporary jazz musicians havetoward the use of technology and the thresholds of studio ‘intervention’ theyare willing to cross in order to achieve their preferred studio recording aesthetic.The discussion draws upon personal experiences of mainly free jazzproduction, and also the returns of a pilot survey of jazz musicians, who werepolled on the subject of the use of technology in the production of jazz recordings.Grounded theory was utilised as a methodology to code the surveyresponses into two main categories of ‘idealistic’ and ‘pragmatic’ responses.This coding enabled a discussion of the themes which were evident in the responses.This limited study found that clear consensus on the extent to whichstudio techniques should be used in the production of jazz recordings was notapparent in the data. There were instances where some studio techniqueswere considered acceptable, whilst others which were as similarly technicallyinvasive as the acceptable, were not acceptable. It also appeared that it wasgenerally acceptable to edit pre-composed elements of the musical performances,but not acceptable to edit improvisations. This perhaps reinforces thenotion that for the jazz performer the ephemeral ‘moment’, which many studioproductions aim to represent, occurs when they are improvising. Finally,it appears for these participants, whether a studio intervention such as an editis audible in the final recording is irrelevant. The fact that a studio interventionwas required or occurred due to perceived deficiencies in the recordedperformance, crosses the boundary of acceptability in terms of their own interpretationof ‘authenticity’ in jazz recordings