Placing musical instruments in stereo Jazz recordings to create a transparent and intimate sound image

Throughout time, Jazz has embraced a transparent sound ideal where individual instruments can be heard clearly, while in classical and pop music, the goal is often to fuse musical instruments into a more holistic soundscape. In the late 1950s, Jazz and classical music started to embrace stereo recordings for transparency (Jazz) and spaciousness (classical) reasons, while pop music focused on mono sound into the 1960s. This presentation focuses on best microphone placement practices to support the transparent jazz sound ideal from pre- and early post-WWII one-microphone mono recordings to elaborate multichannel recordings. The 1950s were an interesting transition period because multiple soloist microphones had to be shared on three available tape tracks. This often resulted in excellent recordings (e.g., Miles Davis's Kind of Blue) because microphone placement and levels had to be balanced carefully. Later on, this was no longer necessary because each microphone was recorded on a separate track. Sometimes, limited technology leads to interesting solutions. For example, the reverberation chamber at Columbia Records was still wired up for mono during the early stereo recordings, and spaciousness was provided by leakage between microphones.