 "Photo: Courtesy of Andreas Meyer")
Andreas Meyer, adjunct professor of music, was nominated for a Grammy Award for his engineering work with "Classic Columbia, Okeh and Vocalion: Lester Young with Count Basie (1936-1940)." The album was nominated for Best Historical Album.
Meyer has been nominated for seven Grammy Awards since 1998 and has won twice - once in 2000 for his work with Louis Armstrong's "The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings" and again in 2002 for Hilary Hahn's "Brahms/Stravinsky: Violin Concertos." The project that earned him his recent nomination was composed primarily of historical studio sessions by Count Basie and Lester Young.
Matt Cavaluzzo, who was nominated alongside Meyer for his engineering work with the project, says the album's music fell under the broad genre of jazz, and more specifically swing. He describes it as a particularly influential selection of music.
"There are elements to Basie's arrangements and Lester's playing, which pre-stage beebop, which came up in the '40s," Cavaluzzo says. "There were things that they were doing that were certainly an inspiration to the guys who came later on."
Meyer's work on the project started when he was approached by Mosaic Records, a label based in Stanford, Conn. He says he has a working relationship with the company and they usually come to him for historical reissue work from pre-tape, disc-based eras.
Meyer says working to restore historical music is a multi-faceted task and takes a long time to complete.
"These projects usually go on for months because there is so much research involved," he says.
This particular project took approximately a year, Cavaluzzo says.
The first step is to find the music, which is held in archives and vaults across the nation. Meyer says 90 percent of pre-1950s recordings can be found in catalogs in New York and Pennsylvania, with the rest in places like Nashville, Tenn., and California.
He says sometimes projects don't go as smoothly and necessary pieces of music may not have been successfully archived. When this happens, the search turns to personal collectors. Meyer says it's important to find a recording as close to the original material as possible.
When the recordings are collected, they are cleaned to remove any residue and aid in the more technical parts of the process. After the recordings are cleaned, music is transferred from the source material to a computer via equipment like turntables. When a quality digital copy is ready for use, restoration of the music can begin.
"Restoration work is basically making it sound as good as possible without making it sound as if it's been over-processed," Meyer says.
The recordings of Basie and Young were transferred, edited and restored in different places, but he says they performed most of the work at his studio and at the Sony Music Studios, a well-known music recording and broadcasting complex in New York City that closed in August 2007.
Meyer says it was a pleasant surprise to have his work nominated once again, although his album didn't win in its category. He went to the 51st Grammy Awards earlier this month, which was a two-day event hosted by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, Inc.
"First, you go to the nominee's reception party, which is the night before, where you receive your Nominee Award and they give out basically what's like a medallion," he says. "It's basically a big meet-and-greet for everyone in the industry that's been awarded a nomination that year."
The second day was a full day, Meyer says. Around 1 p.m., the untelevised portion of the Grammy Awards started.
"Probably what most people don't realize is that NARAS gives out around 110 Grammys a year and about a hundred of them are given out pre-telecast," he says.
The untelevised award ceremony goes on for several hours, Meyer says. After it finishes, those attending have one hour to relax and find their seats before the televised show begins.
Meyer teaches students at the university information and techniques he has gathered over the course of his successful career. Meyer teaches Recording Techniques (MUSC 484 and 684), where students learn how recording began and engage in hands-on studio work. He says the class touches upon the history, technique and aesthetic of recording, and how the three have intertwined throughout recording history.
Meyer says his fascination with music started at a young age. When he was a child, he played the trumpet and piano. He continued on through school, and pursued degrees in composition. The engineering aspect of his work, around which he has based his career, came about early in his life as well.
"I started when I was 15," Meyer says. "We were in a band, wanted to record and went to a studio. I started doing it and I went from there."
Follow us on Twitter
Subscribe to our feed
Contact us through email
Be the first to comment on this article!