McCoy Tyner Group
McCoy Tyner- piano
Cecil(?) Bridgewater- tenor and soprano sax
Joe Ford- alto and soprano sax and flute
Charles Fambrough- bass
Guilhermo Franco- percussion
Eric Gravatt- drums
Paul's Mall
Boston, Mass. U.S.A.
May 18, 1977
(2 sets)
performance quality: A
recording quality: B to B- (some variation, especially in beginning of 2nd set)
source: master audience tape
runtime: 146:54 (minutes/seconds)
1st set 75:49
1: tuning 1:21
2: 35:27
3: 14:32 (spliced, tape flip)
4: 23:38
5: band introductions :49
2nd set 71:04
6: tuning :42
7: 20:32
8: 15:24
9: piano solo 8:03
10: fly with the wind with sax and percussion solos 25:50
11: band introductions :30
lineage: Sony TC-48 mono cassette deck, I think with an external mike but
obviously not a very good one, no dolby > BASF Performance Series cassettes >
(I was still learning then and so was BASF) played on Naka. 125 into
soundforge 4.5 (wav) > FLAC 6 > torrent. first seeded in 2008
reseeded in 2010 with song times and a flac > wav > flac (sb's aligned)
reconversion to remove the sbe's.
A this and that, masters of jazz production.
recorded and digitized by glasnostrd19
do not sell this recording.
share freely, losslessly and gaplessly.
comments:
My first McCoy Tyner recording! One of my first recordings (of anyone) and still stands
out as a very memorable show. My favorite McCoy album, Fly like the Wind, was still fresh
in his mind (and so too my first McCoy concert sighting in Boston 1976 fresh in my mind)
and the 1st song he plays runs about 37 minutes. Gee, it would have been a good idea to flip
my tape at that point, but I was still learning about recording- and the length of McCoy's
songs. I did manage to get the whole 2 sets, with 3 quick tape flips (foolishly thinking if
I record the 1st song of set 2 after an average length 1st set it would work out great- not
quite), but even with a hand-held auto-leveling mono Sony deck and built in mike, I got a
decent recording of a very nice concert. I've seen McCoy Tyner in concert 7 times, and after
the 1st one I made sure I would never see McCoy again without a recorder in hand. The Boston
Globe Jazz Festival show was ended early due to a late start and curfew that cut off Fly with
the Wind (aw shucks, after only half an hour of it!) with the curtain closing and stage power
being cut off in midsong. A very crass move, but still, a fantastic show it was, one of my top
10 ever, and this may be the next best I've ever seen McCoy in concert. No curfew cutoff this
show, 2 hefty hot sets and the 1st of 6 McCoy recordings I made in the 70's. They're all very
nice music and at least decent quality. This isn't bad at all, but all the others are somewhat
better and a couple are pretty nice sound. The Fly with the Wind is in my opinion the
highlight number in this fine show, unfortunately the 1st 15 minutes of it are the quality lowlight
of the night- not that much difference, but noticably less clear than the rest. I only had BASF
cassettes for this show, and found out while their tape housing design was generally very good,
they had one design flaw: the cushion behind the tape had too much space between the tape and head
causing the tape to play poorly. So after remastering this show and wondering what the heck is
wrong with the side 3? It sounded muddy and muffled, and this recording doesn't. So I switched
both tapes into different housings that would hold a more traditional tape cushion in the right
position and remastered it all over again. This one did sound better than the 1st so I will up
this one. Good thing I don't play my masters very often, and if you check out this and my other
Paul's Mall show, the only difference in the lineage is the microphone (this one probably would
have been better fidelity with the built-in, but also less presence) and the tape used. I used
TDK- AD for the 78 one, which worked well for me, and a better mike, which I was afraid would
add distortion, instead it sounds alot clearer than some parts of this, and I don't think it's
entirely due to the microphone that this does not sound like a "You are There" production, but
it is still an enjoyable listen. Both times I remastered this, I noticed the side 3 was inferior
sound to the rest. Even the side 4 (last 10 + min. of a 25 + min. Fly with the Wind) sound as
clear as the first 90 minutes, and I'll bet it's because of that funky tape design of BASF.
It was the 1st and last time I ever mastered a show on BASF Performance series tapes. I've used
both Maxell and TDK cassettes often with good results most of the time ever since.