TITLE: "Never Had It So Good"* [henceforth referred to as "WRB81"]
DATE: 11 July 1981
LOCATION: Boston, Massachusetts, USA
VENUE: Boston Opera House
RECORDING TYPE: Audience ["AR"]
FROM AN OFFICIAL "BLIND" WRB81 PROJECT TEST GROUP LISTENER -
"I could barely keep my jaw off the floor. I've simply never heard such an amazing live recording.
The things I said in the previous email about a natural sense of reverb and decay are even more in evidence in the second sample, and the sense of dynamics is spectacular, as we neither lose detail in the quiet sections or get the usual distortion in the louder ones.
Part of my response is also due to the performance--I only have 3 Weather Report CDs, but none of them prepared me for this. In some ways, it was almost more akin to the best King Crimson improvs. Fantastic.
I know I'm gushing, but I've never thought of audience recordings as providing audiophile experiences. This definitely fits that bill for me. Thanks so much for all the work you've done on this, and for sharing it. I can't wait for the release."
A FEW ADDITIONAL WORDS ON THE PERFORMANCE -
It’s Weather Report, still with Jaco Pastorius. Even so, an especially inspired delivery by one of the greatest of all ‘progressive’ jazz acts. All the elements of WR’s exciting early days are there, augmented by new blood in the rhythm section.
The band is tight and virtuosic as ever, with all the creativity and ‘tease’ elements in place putting their approach in the same general category as otherwise very different acts like Yes and Genesis. Before I previewed this recording I’d feared WR might have lost their 1970s ‘edge’, but was ecstatic to find they hadn’t. Hopefully you will be too.
LINEUP:
Joe Zawinul - keyboards
Jaco Pastorius - bass
Wayne Shorter - sax
Peter Erskine - drums
Bobby Thomas Jr. - percussion
SETLIST [for standard 80-minute CDR]:
[Vol. 1]
01V1 - Fast City
02V1 - Madagascar
03V1 - Current Affairs
04V1 - Night Passage
05V1 - Pastorius Solo
06V1 - Erskine-Thomas Jr. Duet
07V1 - Volcano for Hire
[Vol. 2]
01V2 - Speechless
02V2 - NYC
03V2 - Zawinul-Shorter Duet
04V2 - A Remark You Made
05V2 - Rockin' in Rhythm
06V2 - Birdland
07V2 - Badia
TAPER: Barry Rogoff (Balrog)
SOURCE: Nakamichi 550/CM-100/CP-1 [Dolby B encoded] > Maxell UD XLII
LINEAGE: Nak BX 300 [Dolby B out] > Digigram VXPocket V2 > CD quality wave [44.1, 16 bit] > CD-R > EAC > CEP 2.0/Izotope Ozone > FLAC
REMASTER SUMMARY: EQ work to reveal - not mix - extant AR detail, as the audience heard and felt it. No attempts to alter band-crowd-venue sound balance, except where applause volume near taper between performance numbers had to be reduced slightly - not generally a problem with higher decibel rock shows.
Absolutely no compression needed or attempted. Noise reduction was unavoidable and used reluctantly due to the artist’s frequent very quiet moments being swamped by both broadband and tonal tape noise, but thanks to an entirely new approach it was actually effective, harmless to signal and artifact-free. Further detail on the process in sections to follow.
INDEPENDENT SOUND ANALYSIS: Several trusted ‘beta testers’, including Barry, Gromek and others
ORIGINAL ART: Gromek
SOURCE AND AUDIO WORK - The source is a top shelf pre-1990s AR rivaling any other both for unbelievable sound capture - and for its own unique remastering challenges.
WRB81 offers AR detail across the spectrum comparable to many from the post-1990 DAT era. Even in its case detail was largely hidden by many layers of tape noise and related issues. Like others it required months of experimental EQ work and testing of results by multiple listeners in a wide variety of playback systems.
Every effort was made to reveal all possible detail in each tone of each instrument as far as it occurred in the band’s PA mix, and we’re pleased with the result overall [lower crash cymbal tones are one important litmus, so too even audience clapping].
PA volume was relatively low and the venue’s acoustics absorbed some things, particularly in the midrange. Some of the resulting ‘distant’ property can only be addressed with mixing - antithesis to the very nature of AR's and what they offer, so not attempted here.
Audience sound, PA system output nuances and venue ambience among many other things are paramount and should be conserved as carefully as performance sound unless something enjoys artificially high volume in the recording, as in an obnoxious, constant yeller right next to mikes.
While audience volume in WRB81’s source is accurate, proportionate and audience courteous overall, enthusiasm near the deck is reflected at a higher volume than PA output and gets overwhelming between numbers, so had to be reduced manually in those sections. It was not touched during band performance,where it wasn't sonically overwhelming in any case and in an AR has to be considered part of the event.
For example: During Jaco Pastorius' solo we have some audience members yelling, but they aren't too near the taper and they're yelling at each other. It's actually hilariously funny, very real, and very much part of the document. It's not a soundboard, nor should anyone try to make it - or any AR - seem like one.
A lower concert volume than we’d have with a Yes or an ELP on the other hand made some kind of tape noise reduction unavoidable. Despite its almost miraculous nature the recording has high levels of two noise types - broadband, or tape hiss; and tonal, in this case a hum bordering on buzz [most likely ungrounded mikes]
Normally I avoid any kind of dedicated digital noise reduction because the technology to do it effectively and still have a recording worth listening to afterward simply doesn’t exist yet.
Current [as of May 2008] NR technology uses algorithms that carve flagged noise out from around signal - it cannot identify, separate and remove noise from within it. Most applications end up carving into signal, taking important musical detail out and leaving behind awful digital artifact as added insult. To avoid signal damage and artifact, settings have to be extremely gentle - in a range I like to call the ‘safe zone’ -requiring numerous and tedious repeat passes to deliver very limited results.
Some programs at least carve with better digital precision and can be a bit more effective for it, but WRB81 needed more NR than safe zone settings by themselves in any platform could possibly deliver. So something new was needed, and it was decided to try a customized FFT filter that identifies the exact boundary between musical information and pure tape noise [in this case music tops out at 18.61 KHz]. A second FFT filter then uses the info to ‘chop off’ everything beyond the musical ‘event horizon’, so there’s simply a lot less noise around for EQ work to inadvertently boost, while entire musical signal range left completely intact.
Shelf filtering as we call it isn’t a new concept - it’s sometimes called a ‘haircut’ by engineers - but the approach developed for this recording is unique. Noise wasn’t actually reduced, a large percentage of it just wasn’t there anymore to get a lot worse after EQ sessions.
Now enter 3 passes of an actual NR module safe zone setting in a program with decent enough precision. 90% of what the shelf filter left behind was gone, with no audible signal loss and no artifact.
What’s more, the settings were at the very edge of safe and more than one pass of them would have generated artifact had there been no shelf filtering.
So in sum we now have ‘quietness’ surpassing that of many soundboard recordings, in an analog AR, and one enjoying commercial grade signal detail - still intact. As much of what the original audience really heard as the recording can possibly deliver remains revealed. Though some hiss and hum do remain they’re almost inaudible except at very high playback volume and they’re now well below signal volume, where even in the raw master they had been swamping quiet signal passages.
A few miscellaneous, untreatable annoyances include some tape stretch at leaders audible as slight rolling dropout, though the tapes have low mileage [very little playback since time of recording]. This recedes very quickly as distance from leaders increases. Jaco Pastorius is very high in the PA mix, and while not distorted the lowest bass notes might peak in some playback systems. During a few of
WR's busier moments certain mids and ultrahighs come close to distortion, but didn't generate any complaints from the test group and softening them any would suppress important midrange/lower high frequency detail already compromised by venue acoustics.
At least one for-profit factory bootlegger-issued recording of this concert has been circulated, either a different taper altogether or a generational copy of this recording provided by a dishonest trader.
WRB81 is a recent digital transfer of the original and exceptional master tapes, remastered as an AR should be and with complete lineage provided for a change.
Many thanks to Weather Report for so much incredible music over so many years!
Special thanks to Gromek for artwork so perfectly evocative of the show’s energy and this effort.
Endless, endless thanks to Barry for another miraculous AR, the expertise and bravery it required.
Please share freely but losslessly, and never, EVER even THINK of selling for any sum anywhere. If you choose to remaster it in any way, fine, but if it's then redistributed publically in any manner without this original lineage, documentation and artwork rest assured we will learn of it and be all over it publically.
Last but not least, this effort is dedicated to the memory of Joe Zawinul and Jaco Pastorious, whose gifts to us all here and elsewhere just keep on giving.
*Title inspiration -
"Weather Report have never had it so good. Night Passage brims, almost bursts with a startling freshness and a tremulous air of expectancy that the band hasn't captured on record with any regularity since 1974's Mysterious Traveller ... This band must be almost rubbing shoulders with Zawinul's ideal, one in which solo and ensemble playing become irrelevant distinctions in the awesome totality. Weather Report
have rarely been a more going or growing concern. Their complete creative renaissance is unbelievably welcome.
--Angus MacKinnon, New Musical Express, November 22, 1980."
NOTES FROM BARRY:
I don't remember much about taping this show other than knowing that the low noise level of the jazz audience would be a good test of the signal to noise ratio of the Nak 550, which was never its strongest spec. But you wouldn't know that from listening to this remaster.
Lestat has done amazing things with the digital NR technology available today.
As always, our goal in recording and remastering these shows is to recreate the experience of being at a concert without the constraints placed on label-affiliated studio engineers. We're not trying to make something that sounds good on a $200 home theatre system. Find some real hifi equipment, crank it up to concert volume, and travel back in time to the summer of 1981. Sit in my seat and hear what I heard. -Barry
NOTES FROM GROMEK:
Although I am not familiar at all with the music of WR, I do recognize the musicianship involved, and the influences they had on other bands and musicians (in some sections I can easily recognize bits that have influenced Jon Anderson (of Yes) on his Animation album, but also bits of Yes that in turn must have influenced Weather Report (Yes pieces like those from the Relayer album, and maybe even bits from the Drama album).
They are of course my personal listening experiences, but, as I was told by Lestat (of Lestat Audio Projects), this has been mentioned in the mainstream media too.
After listening to the samples sent to me by Lestat (as part of the Beta team) I envisioned a cover for this recording.
At the same time designing the cover art (in which the Yes comparisons made it easier for me to create something, but maybe not something as wild as a Yes cover), I also tried to make it a fitting tribute to the two WR members that are no longer among us, but are playing somewhere in the higher venues for the pleasure of others, as well as the rest of the band that gave an amazing performance.
The background image is by Ace Montana Designs, the further layout is done by myself.
I found that the two white doves were the fitting tribute bit for Joe Zawinul and Jaco Pastorius, and they are to be found on the back of the booklet. I found it a gentle and not too present part of the overall cover art.
That is all I can say, really, for my part in this project, except to thank all those involved in it, and for their faith in me to create the right cover art for this extraordinary recording (and show).
Hope you enjoy the show as much as I did. And for the WR fans out there: No doubt in my mind, you WILL enjoy the show!
Lestat, you did it again! Again, you have shown us the way it should be done, and could be done. All the best to all; Gromek
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