Pianist Alexander Bryson seized the chance to make a live recording of his band in “glorious analogue” in a “good-sounding room with relatively few mics”….. and then take the tape and have it cut straight to vinyl on a 1967 Haeco Scully lathe at Gearbox Records. Now…having loved the process of creation of his new album ‘LIVE AT MIKE’S!’…he is excited by the prospect of the album launch: the Alexander Bryson Trio with Jeremy Brown on bass and Matt Fishwick on drums – Dave Gelly has written that “their combination of strength and delicacy is faultless” – will release the new record at Pizza Express Dean St. on 28 January.
UK Jazz News: First of all, who, what or where is ‘Mike’s?’
Alexander Bryson: Mike Willis is a musician friend of mine who ran a shop in St Leonards-on-Sea and turned it into a cosy live music venue. Mike and I had been playing together in there for a while, and eventually, I played a gig in there with my trio and I just loved the way the room sounded. There’s a lot of wood in there, and it’s also just a place that had a good vibe and made the musicians feel good, which is a really important and special quality that you don’t find every day. For a long time I’ve wanted to record my band all in one good-sounding room with relatively few mics. Today, records are made in quite artificial conditions with all the elements acoustically separated from each other and then put back together in the mixing process. It’s very difficult (and expensive!) to make this process truly succeed. It’s long been an ambition of mine to try and record all together with minimal separation and try to capture naturalistically the way the sounds mix in the room. This is the way all my favourite records were made.
UKJN: Why a live record?
AB: I’ve always loved live records, I have some real favourites like Errol Garner’s ‘Concert By The Sea’, Professor Longhair ‘Live in London’, Aretha Franklin’s ‘Amazing Grace’, were all big records for me growing up. I love the energy that an audience adds, and the way that it grounds the recording in a place and in a moment in time. I also like the portrait of a band in the live setting–it always shows a different side to them than what you see from their work in the studio. Also, recording in the studio can be incredibly arduous, attempting take after take, not sure if you’re getting better or worse! I was attracted to the idea of it being a gig and getting to be buoyed up by the people–it was the funnest recording session I’ve ever done.
UKJN: What made you particularly drawn to recording on tape?
AB: Tape is a really interesting aspect of this. It’s possible it will divide opinion… for me, tape imposes a sound quality on the recording which is incredibly rich and beautiful, though slightly less accurate than digital. For me the goal of a recording is to make something beautiful first, and something accurate or ‘true’ second. We recorded everything straight to tape and cut the tape straight to vinyl for a full analogue process. We also have a digital recording of the album which will be available for download and which some listeners may prefer since it does capture certain kinds of audio information from the night in slightly more detail. For me, the changes and forms of ‘distortion’ that tape exerts on live sound are beautiful and fascinating and a deep part of the sound of jazz, and many other kinds of music. I invite the listener to make their own comparison and see what they think–digital downloads are free with every purchase of the LP!
UKJN: What were some of the challenges of this approach?
AB: Well we were forever repairing the tape machine for one thing! The price of doing things this way was that there was no second chance to get the sound right or fix anything that was wrong, since the live mix was the final one. But in a way this created its own excitement, and Pascal Smart did a great job of making it all sound good. Next there was the task of editing the tape itself, since I wanted to play the tape straight into the lathe cutting the master disks at Gearbox Records. They have a 1967 Haeco Scully lathe, and a lot of other incredible vintage equipment, and are really doing amazing work keeping the art of analogue processes alive for the future. This meant physically editing the tape reel itself–with a stanley knife and cutting block.
UKJN: Will you record this way again?
AB: Definitely! And in fact we have a lot of material left from the ‘Mike’s’ sessions which we didn’t have room to include on the record, so I’m hoping to release a ‘volume 2’ of some kind later in the year or in 2026. I’d also like to take some of the other artists that I play with in and around London down to Mike’s and record them this way too. There’s so many great musicians playing gigs week in, week out and their live vibe and personality never gets captured on record or properly celebrated. I’d love to make more of these and present some more folks from this scene, live, and in glorious analogue!