Olmstead wandered around the studio arranging his microphones. It houses the engineer’s panel, and will accommodate several visitors. Olmstead’s is also probably the world’s only split-level recording studio the glass-enclosed control booth is set about 20 feet above the studio floor, at one end of the room. “It belonged to William Randolph Hearst.” “It’s half of the old penthouse living room,” says proprietor Dick Olmstead.
A high-ceilinged room painted in pale blue, it displays several irrelevantly ornate Ionic columns on one wall. Giuffre had asked Taylor for this particular one, which tops a ten-story building on 40th street in mid-town Manhattan. He had chosen Olmstead’s studio himself Verve, like several other companies, does not maintain its own recording facilities but leases them for individual sessions. “It’s like an instrument, this room,” said Giuffre, warming up his clarinet. Giuffre felt that after such nightly experience at improvising they were ready to record, and he asked Verve’s artist and repertory man Creed Taylor to set up a session. The Giuffre trio had just ended a week at Trudi Heller’s Downtown Versailles club in New York. In fact, they seem to anticipate each other even in the most unexpected turns.
BREAKING THE QUIET 3 WITH SOUND FREE
The soloist is free to shift his tempo or his key as he wishes, and the others must follow him. The players ad lib their melodies, sometimes without reference to chorus lengths, chord patterns or any other pre-set structures. ‘I heard an element in his music – a way of stating things with conviction that was clear and sure’įast ears are what a player needs in Giuffre’s music, for it is often almost totally improvised, except for a memorized statement of the theme. I like peaceful moods.’ But then he began listening to Thelonious Monk. (“Olmstead, get that sound on the record!” a visitor suggested.) And there was bassist Steve Swallow, barely dry behind the ears professionally – but it is said those young ears are already among the fastest in jazz. Besides the leader and his clarinet, there was pianist Paul Bley, a decidedly inner-directed man whose heavy sandals clacked noisily on the steel ladder connecting the studio and the control booth.
on a quiet Friday afternoon this fall, a group gathered at the Olmstead Recording Studio to record Jimmy Giuffre’s new trio.
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