Free: Soulful Piano Reflections

Witmer Trio

20,9926,99
(1 customer review)
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Original Recording Format: DXD
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Sound Liaison has embarked upon a series of live Jazz recordings that are tributes to some of popular music’s greatest artists and songs. This has included albums highlighting the music of The Beatles, Harry Belafonte, Louis Armstrong, and Eddie Harris, and Les McCann.

Their latest album in this series is Free: Soulful Piano Reflections by the Witmer Trio. It’s a mellow, jazzy take on a full album worth of Soul classics from the ‘70s and ‘80s. The tracks include Ain’t No Sunshine (Bill Withers), That’s The Way of the World (Earth, Wind & Fire), When A Man Loves A Woman (Percy Sledge), What’s Going On (Marvin Gaye), Feel Like Makin’ Love (Roberta Flack), The Dock of the Bay (Otis Redding), Roof Garden (Al Jarreau), Let’s Stay Together (Al Green), Knock On Wood (Eddie Floyd), and Fire (Pointer Sisters).

“The great conductor Sergiu Celibidache insisted that tempo and dynamic markings were relative, they depended on the sound of the hall.

Creating this recording was all about carefully adapting the equipment to the hall, the musicians, and the compositions. The close collaboration between artists, sound engineer, and producer has culminated in a download that pays homage to the artistry of DSD and DXD recordings.

Cajan Witmer is a sublime arranger. His first album for Sound Liaison, the critically acclaimed ‘En Azul’, shows his awareness of the strengths and characteristics of the musicians he works with. Cajan uses this knowledge to compose arrangements that capitalize on the qualities of his musicians to the maximum benefit of the music.

But this time around he goes even a step further. Cajan explains; “I love the sound of MCO’s Studio 2 and the sound that recording engineer Frans de Rond creates in that hall. So, when arranging the songs for this album, I tried to hear in my mind not only the sound of the trio but also how that sound would interact with the hall. It was initially a new way of thinking, but surprisingly easy once I got used to the idea. After all, I know how Maarten will sound when playing a certain groove, and how that will blend with Han’s bass line. Now all I had to do was to envision that sound in the hall of Studio 2. Vera turned out to be a perfect choice. She understood the sound I was after and she knew the sound of Studio 2 having recorded and rehearsed there on numerous occasions. Her sound fitted perfectly with the trio, and her musical suggestions were incredibly helpful.”

When creating the sound stage, Frans spent a great deal of time getting the balance of the Witmer Trio as optimal as possible using the ambient microphone stereo pair placed in the ”sweet spot” in Studio 2, before adding the spot microphones.

We wanted to create a sound field that was intimate but also had enough depth to reflect a visual representation of the instruments.

In a sense, we adopted the same philosophy as Cajan Witmer in his arrangements as we wanted the melodic part of each instrument to stand out without overshadowing the whole. Thus, the piano and the drums have been given a position in the sound field, instead of the more common, radio-friendly approach, with the instruments piled on top of each other with no placement. The benefit of this approach is that you can see the trio in front of you between the speakers.

In a sense we are old-fashioned, we listened to too many old jazz recordings, but on the other hand…….this is what we believe a high-resolution recording should be about.”

— Frans De Rond & Peter Bjørnild.

 

Tracklist

Please note that the below previews are loaded as 44.1 kHz / 16 bit.
1.
Ain't No Sunshine
04:54
2.
Free
04:58
3.
That's The Way Of The World
05:28
4.
When A Man Loves A Woman
05:22
5.
What's Going On
05:47
6.
Feel Like Makin' Love
05:36
7.
The Dock Of The Bay
05:13
8.
Roofgarden
02:52
9.
Let's Stay Together
03:36
10.
Knock On Wood
03:49
11.
Fire
04:22

Total time: 00:51:57

Additional information

Label

SKU

SL1031A

Qualities

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Channels

Artists

Composers

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Genres

,

Cables

AudioQuest, Mogami

Digital Converters

Horus, Merging Technologies

Headphones

Sennheiser HD-800

Mastering Engineer

Frans de Rond

Microphone Preamps

Horus, Merging Technologies

Microphones

Cajan (Pianist): Rens Heijnis RCM-402 (2x),Han (Bass Player): Josephson C700Maarten (Drummer): Josephson C617 (overhead) / Audix D6 (kick drum)Main system: Schoeps MK5 (AB)

Original Recording Format

Power Amplifier

Moon 760A

Producer

Peter Bjørnild

Recording Engineer

Frans de Rond

Recording Location

MCO Studio 2, Hilversum, The Netherlands, on September 24, 2017

Recording Software

Pyramix, Merging Technologies

Recording Type & Bit Rate

DXD

Speakers

TAD Compact Evolution One

Release DateApril 5, 2019

Press reviews

Jazzenzo

The music of the trio of pianist Cajan Witmer with violinist Vera van der Bie features a slightly romantic touch.

Under the title ‘Free’, Jazz improvisation is loosely performed on standards and pop songs on this album.

1 review for Free: Soulful Piano Reflections

    I love the arrangements on this album. The addition of the violin is a nice touch. I would have given it five stars but haven’t because of the stereo image or lack of it. It’s quite narrow when listening through speakers but ok for headphones. I would have preferred more stereo mic and less of the spots.

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Sound Liaison 56 albums

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