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Book 60 - Greg Milner "Perfect Sound Forever"

Greg Milner "Perfect Sound Forever" (Granta Books)





An informative, fascinating history featuring the inventors, scientists and musicians behind the development of recording technologies from Thomas Edison to MP3's. With Les Paul and Leadbelly, Nazi broadcasters and King Tubby’s Kingston studio, the Pixies, and Shellac, this is a story of the search for fidelity, authenticity, and the perfect sound.

However, this account is not a history of music recording; primarily it's a survey of the developments over the past fifty years in the recording of American pop music.
It's the omissions that irk me. Although he acknowledges recording's initial start in France, Milner really examines only American advances in equipment and recording techniques. Surely the British, the French, or the Germans (at least) contributed something to the challenges of transferring sound waves to a persistent medium. There's an interesting story in British Decca's development during World War II of anti-submarine hydrophone technology that subsequently became the basis for their revolutionary ffrr (or full frequency range recording) technique, an important impetus to high fidelity music recording in the 1950s; but you'll learn nothing of that from this book. Milner can also spend several pages on the Beatles' innovative recordings without ever mentioning George Martin; Ricky is the only Martin who makes it into the book's index. What's with that?


Edison's goal, according to Milner, was to make an objectively accurate record of an individual performance. The through-line of Perfecting Sound Forever follows the wandering path from that ideal to recent decades when a CD produces sounds that may never have had any prior physical existence at all. Organising the book around such a notion requires Milner to virtually ignore classical music after Stokowski's recording of Fantasia (on page 71 of 371) and almost all of acoustic jazz. Fidelity may have vanished in the 1990's from certain types of pop music, but it's grossly over-simplified, even in the era of MP3's, to imply that fidelity has ceased to be a goal of digital recording in general.


Despite the flaws that I have outlined I found some interesting content in most chapters.

Wire Top 100 Of 20th Century Music #9

And now the ninth selection -

Albania: Kaba Me Violi (Instrumental)

Folk Music of the Mediterranean LP / CD
Smithsonian Folkways Recordings / 1952 Folkways Records
The anthology was assembled by Henry Cowell in 1952.

Elvis Presley - Thats Alright (Mama)

Julie London - I Should Care

Making jazz sexy and intimate,

Chuck Berry - School Day

Albert Ayler Trio - Ghosts (First Variation)

Enjoy

Sheepish

Discus The Music

Back in the nineties, I use to support a Sheffield based improv and experimental label called Discus run by Martin Archer, who ran a jazz band in the eighties called The Hornweb Trio. Anyway if you bought directly from him you would get a mention on his CD booklets or LPs. I was listening to the 1999 CD "Winter Pilgrim Arriving" and yes I am mentioned. (my middle name is Peter, hence D P).




Front cover of booklet                                                    Back cover



My claim to fame lol!

Archer

And so from that CD with my name in it.


Martin Archer - Winter Pilgrims Arriving

Acoustic Guitar – Benjamin Bartholomew (tracks: 3, 5, 8, 9)
Bass Clarinet – Martin Archer (tracks: 9, 10)
Bassoon – Mick Beck (tracks: 7, 8)
Composed By – Martin Archer (tracks: 1 to 4, 6 to 10)
Cornet – Derek Saw (tracks: 2, 4, 7, 8)
Double Bass – Simon H. Fell (tracks: 2, 4)
Effects [Amplified Objects] – James Archer (2) (tracks: 4)
Effects [Sonic Dp], Synthesizer – Martin Archer
Electric Guitar – Benjamin Bartholomew (tracks: 1, 6, 9)
Electronics [Violectronics] – Martin Archer (tracks: 4)
Flute – Charlie Collins (tracks: 4)
Percussion – Gino Robair (tracks: 4)
Recorder [Consort Of Recorders] – Martin Archer (tracks: 3, 6, 9)
Sampler [Sampling] – Charlie Collins (tracks: 6 to 9)
Saxophone [Sopranino Sax] – Martin Archer (tracks: 1, 4, 5, 7, 8)
Strings [Crwth] – Sedayne (tracks: 8)

Enjoy

Wednesday Jazz

On a jazz tip -

Martin Archer / Graham Clark / Stephen Grew / Johnny Hunter - Jane's Ruin

Sonny Rollins - St. Thomas

Henry Threadgill Very Very Circus - Paper Toilet

From the 1993 release Too Much Sugar For A Dime

Enjoy

Just Wondering

What always takes too long?

What happens too fast?

Which would you change of the two?

Good night