Yellowjackets
Back in 1981 The Police were in full flush, John Lennon was alive and well (and on the charts with a pair of singles (“Starting Over” and “Woman”) culled from the Double Fantasy album, and Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” was a smash hit. A quartet of young jazz musicians looking for a sound of their own was also wood shedding and getting ready to release their first album. None of them, including pianist Russ Ferrante and bass player Jimmy Haslip, dreamed that a quarter of a century later the Yellowjackets would still be recording and touring.
To commemorate their silver anniversary the group’s label, Heads Up, recently released Yellowjackets-Twenty Five, a live CD set that features the band’s current line up, which includes tenor saxophonist Bob Mintzer and the newest member of the Yellowjackets, drummer Marcus Baylor along with Ferrante and Haslip. Yellowjackets-Twenty Five is actually a package that includes a DVD’s worth of additional material and interviews that were conducted during the group’s swing through Europe earlier this year. Material culled from their entire recorded history is reworked on Yellowjackets-Twenty Five.
For starters, though, how did the group get its name? “We’d just come from the session where tracked our first demo recording,” says Russ Ferrante. “We had been called the Robben Ford band. There were a number of names thrown out, and the Yellowjackets just seemed right.”
Two time Grammy award winners (1986 Best R+B Instrumental Performance, “And You Know That,” 1988 Best Jazz Fusion Performance, “Politics”) the Yellowjackets may find their style slightly asynchronous with the Smooth Jazz format that rules the airwaves, but Ferrante is unfazed. “I wouldn’t say that we’re smooth jazz pioneers, and to tell you the truth, I’m not a fan of the genre at this time. My wife says we should call our music rough jazz!
“Our first three or four recordings, made in the early 80’s, had more of a groove, an r+b sensibility to them. As the years have gone by that element is still there, but the grooves are looser and more fluid; we’re not a “part” oriented band. Smooth jazz has become so formulaic that it’s lost any sort of originality or spark of inventiveness. You have to paint by the numbers because the radio formats are so strict. None of the guys in our band is remotely drawn to playing by those rules.”
Jimmy Haslip laughs when asked about the band’s place in the smooth jazz universe. “We hate the term now on a certain level! That terminology wasn’t in existence when we started. Quiet storm…that was a hip format, with lots of r+b and some smoothness. Don’t get me wrong, there are guys doing some cool things in smooth jazz, and I’m a fan of several artists that are cemented in that genre, but my goal is to stretch the boundaries.
“Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, the air I was breathing had Mahavishnu, Miles, Herbie and the Head Hunters, Weather Report, Gentle Giant, Soft Machine, the Tony Williams Emergency…that’s where my heart lies! Joe Zawinul brought ethnic music into a really nice place.” Today, the Yellowjackets are clearly about melding influences and exploring large forms.
Yellowjackets-Twenty Five includes an audio CD recorded at the New Morning night club in Paris, and a DVD that features over 3.5 hours of live concert footage (recorded in Florio, Italy), interviews with current and past Yellowjacket members, and a series of retro concert video clips. All of the new live material was recorded in both stereo and 5.1 by Gerald Albo. Albo, who handles live sound on the band’s European dates, has been mixing concert and club venues for the last decade.
“I started playing keyboards in a local band in the Dordogne in France. I was a big Yellowjackets fan back then, so working with the band has been like a dream come true for me.
“I mixed FOH on the equipment at each venue, so the PA, desk, and other gear were different each night. Schoeps was kind enough to lend us microphones for this tour; they also loaned me mics for a tour I did back in 1998 with the McCoy Tyner Latin All Stars.
“We used lots of microphones, including a ton of MK4g capsules on the drums along with CMC 5 and 6’s. We used this same combination to capture the audience in four channels, and on the piano.
“We brought along a Mackie Onyx 800R, eight channel mic preamp unit on this tour. I decided to use the converters in the Onyx to avoid potential clock problems, since there was no spare time on this tour At some of the concerts I had to mix FOH, monitor FOH and record, all at the same time! Sometimes we would arrive at the venue in the afternoon, just a few hours before doors opened, so having the simplest and most reliable system possible was vital.
“Another challenge was figuring out how to monitor the recording and mix FOH at the same time. I decided to feed the FOH mixing desk from the output of the Mackie SDR24/96 we were using. That way, if something went wrong, me and everyone else n the venue would hear it in real time! The Mackie set up was extremely reliable. We didn’t have a single problem during the entire tour.
“The SDR24/96 has a USB port, which I used each night to back up the evening’s performance once I got into my hotel room. It took anywhere from six to eight hours to back up one concert. Some overnight stays were too short to complete a backup, which meant that I was often busy on my ‘days off!’ When time permitted I would check the recording on my headphones for any potential issues, monitoring the digital audio through MOTU’s Digital Performer 3.11.
“I was concerned about the acoustics each venue presented; how a room plays can make the difference between good and bad track separation. Drum spill into the piano was always an issue. I don’t like to have the lid fully closed; for these recordings the lid was always on the short stick. I had to close mic the piano to maximize separation, and then add a Shure Beta 98 in one of the holes for on stage monitoring.
“We carried our own drums, provided by Yamaha Europe, which Marcus tuned to perfection. He used a ‘Yamaha Elvin Jones’ snare which sounded fantastic with the Schoeps; rich, detailed, and a powerful sound. The Yellowjackets sounded and performed so well that it was easy and great fun to mix them every night.
“Recording the DVD in Forli was actually a bit of a nightmare. The venue’s acoustics were the worst of the tour, and the promoter provided the wrong backline; the piano was a baby grand and the bass amp was something made locally. Neither Russell or Jimmy was impressed! After a long ‘negotiating’ session a grand piano was delivered several hours before show time. I didn’t know the Paris show was going to be mixed in 5.1, but by pure coincidence I decided to throw up four audience mics…fortunately!”
Mixing of both the audio CD and the bonus DVD was handled by Rich Breen. Breen, (www.richbreen.com) who mixes out of Dogmatic, his home studio located in Southern California, has been working with the Yellowjackets for about 10 years. His discography includes many acoustic jazz, pop and orchestral productions.
“I know the guys had been bouncing around the idea of recording a live DVD for some time,” says Breen. “Gerald Albo is a fine sound man, and we spoke about economical ways to shoot the whole tour without bringing in trucks. We decided on the Mackie HD24 and a handful of firewire connected mic-pres.
“We used a total of 24 channels of mic-pres, and I sent over a handful drives. It was really good fortune to have Schoeps interested in the tour; they sent an entire bands worth of microphones, including the CMC 6 pre-amps with MK4 capsules that Gerald was talking to you about. That’s one of my all time favorite combinations, and they produced a superb sound.
“I’ve been mixing in a guest house behind the main house on my property for the last ten years or so and I’m extremely comfortable here. I was Technical Manager at Universal in Chicago for many years, so I tuned the room myself. I mix on a Pro Tools HD3 system with a Control 24.
“With a band like the Yellowjackets the drummer is always the issue! They’re a back beat as well as a jazz band, and on these dates the piano was sitting about ten feet from the kit, with the lid open. It’s always a challenge when you have the drums and bass pouring into the piano on an electric date. Fortunately, the Schoeps mics were in fairly close, and the lid was on the short stick.
“Still, there are always going to be spillage issues. You have to eq the piano judiciously, and live with the rest. Mostly, we ended up taking out some low mid resonance, in the 200-ish range, because of the open lid. I also added a high pass filter at around 80 or so to calm down some of the low frequency stuff coming from the stage. But we didn’t do anything radical, no more than a 5 dB cut on anything. I can’t say enough about the Schoeps microphones. They sound fantastic on the piano.
“As far as the 5.1 field, I would prefer to have had four microphones across both the front and back, but due to track count and the fact that the show was traveling daily we went with a total of four instead. To create ambience in the mix I worked with an Altiverb small club setting and an ambient setting on my TC Systems 6000. The 6000 is a four engine reverb, and it sounds beautiful. I had all four engines going: a general plate, a room for the drums, another little short thing to add some more fat to the drums, and a club going for the front ambience. The plate is for the sax, piano and keyboards. I’m a little old school in that I like plates a lot. At the end of the day, it’s all about the music, and the band sounds great.”
One rainy night in June we caught the Yellowjackets at the Iridium, on 51st and Broadway, and spoke with Geoff Gillette, who handles stateside FOH for the group. “I've been touring with the Yellowjackets going on seven years now and it's been a great experience. Apart from enjoying the company of everyone in the band-which is important when you're spending a lot of time together on the road-I really love the music and never get tired of mixing the show. They put together a different set every night which keeps the music fresh for everyone, including the audience. Every venue has its own set of challenges, but I love the variety. We play everything from small clubs, colleges, old opera houses, performing arts centers and outdoor concerts for 10,000. I want to write a book entitled See All of America with the Yellowjackets. All in all, it's been a great ride and I feel very fortunate to be along. What a great band!”
Touched-and perhaps a tad terrified at how quickly the years have gone by-Ferrante and Haslip seem humbled by their success, and the willingness their fans have shown to journey on with them. “Fun and sobering as well,” says Ferrante. “It gives pause for reflection, having this 25 year anniversary come upon us. My overwhelming feeling- all the guys feel this way-is gratitude. We’re fortunate that we happened into this situation, we appreciate it a lot, and we’re having fun. When you’re young as a musician you want to come out and play the hippest stuff, be out on the edge every moment. But, although I still enjoy that, now I’m appreciating that these songs that people have connected with are a gift. If you realize as a musician that it’s a gift you’re sharing, you enter into that joyful place when you’re making music. That awareness has transformed things for me, and taken the pressure off. I don’t think I appreciated as well early on the fact that the exchange, the sharing, isn’t just about you and your art and how hip you are. Connecting with your band mates and those people that are listening to you, and not in some phony, contrived way, is the essence of the experience.”
“I can’t believe it’s been 25 years!” says Haslip. “But when I look at it on paper it’s undeniable! To have been in an outfit that’s been ebbing and flowing, with all the ups and down, for that long, that’s awfully inspiring. I feel honored and privileged to have been part of this band.”
Appeared in Mix, August 2006
