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OLD LYME,
CONNECTICUT: Move over, New Orleans. Step aside,
Chicago. For serious jazz aficionados, Santa Fe,
New Mexico, was the place to be from October 6th
through the 22nd. The first annual Santa Fe Jazz
and International Music Festival, sponsored by the
Open Arts Foundation of Santa Fe, kept the 400-seat
James A. Little Theater groovin' for 16 straight
days with 34 concerts by some of today's premier
contemporary jazz artists and world musicians. While
the music was provided by recording luminaries like
Gary Burton, Dave Holland and Bill Frisell, it was
Neumann microphones and True Precision 8 pre-amps
that helped bring the performances to life.
Much of the Santa Fe Jazz and International Music
Festival was recorded for airing on National Public
Radio's Jazzset series featuring Branford Marsalis.
Bruce Dunlap, executive director of the Open Arts
Foundation of Santa Fe and recording artist on Chesky
Records, handled recording duties for the festival
with bassist and film composer Dan Kolton.
Dunlap and Kolton selected the True Precision 8
pre-amps after using them for the past year in their
recording studio. "I wanted to capture the
same type of pristine signal chain at the festival
as I use in the studio," Dunlap said. The True
Audio Precision 8 provides eight channels of transformerless
mic preamps, two of which can be used as direct
instrument inputs with an impressive frequency response
of 1Hz to 500kHz for robust, tight lows and clear,
airy highs.
As for the miking applications, Dunlap and Kolton
employed an array of Neumann mics to capture the
true essence of each individual artist's performance.
For piano, a pair of Neumann 193s were used - sometimes
mounted in the instrument, sometimes on the outside.
Guitars were miked primarily with the new Neumann
KMS 105 live performance mics. "Because several
of the musicians play acoustic guitar very softy,"
Dunlap said, "we needed high feedback rejection
from the microphone. The KMS 105 with its high rejection
fit the bill perfectly and sounded great."
Neumann 184 cardioid units were also used on guitars
for their warm, rich sound.
Two Neumann TLM 103 diaphragm microphones were positioned
in a straightforward application, overhead the drum
kits to provide the warm sound Dunlap and Kolton
strive for when recording jazz percussion. Finally,
miniature omnidirectional Neumann 183s were used
to capture the ambient noise from the front of the
stage and the back of the hall.
"I've been a Neumann user for 25 years,"
Dunlap said. "Often, in a live sound situation,
you can't use the microphone you really want. You
always have to compromise between eliminating feedback
and capturing decent sound. At this event, we wanted
listeners to hear what was really happening onstage
- and that's exactly what Neumann and True Precision
delivered."
The NPR jazz sessions featuring the Santa Fe festival
will air in winter/spring 2001. Similar to the Austin
City Limits concept, planners of the Santa Fe Jazz
and International Music Festival are hopeful that
the event's success will help them draw musicians
to the area to live, record and learn with support
from the foundation. Santa Fe is already famous
for the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and the
Santa Fe Opera.
The Open Arts Foundation of Santa Fe is a non-profit,
artist-oriented organization dedicated to the development
and presentation of extraordinary musical talent
on an international scale.
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