Seretse Small leads 10-hour album recording

Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

There are 10 tracks on Jazz For Hope 2011, the new album produced by guitarist Seretse Small for his company Griot Music. The notes accompanying the CD say "attempting to record an entire album from beginning to end in 10 hours is challenging" and the natural assumption is that an hour was allocated to recording each track.

It was less. Small told The Gleaner that out of the 10 hours spent at Harry J's studio in mid-July, under five were devoted to recording. The rest was utilised for mixing by engineer Stephen Stewart so, "at the end of the 10 hours, we had the final thing".

The songs were taken from the suite prepared for this year's staging of the annual Jazz For Hope concert, held at the Hope United Church, Hope Road, on July 9. However, getting the musicians together to record first Silhouettes and finally Kas Kas (which, by coincidence, is also their placing on the album) was much harder than them coalescing for the show.

Small describes it as a logistical nightmare and, although the musicians had been in rehearsal for the concert, saxophonist Ian Hird had not made those rehearsals and vocalist Andrew Lawrence had missed some.

Kind of cool

Still, the musicians had learnt the songs individually and Small says heading into Harry J's without full rehearsals with everyone was "kind of cool. It gives you a sense of risk. You have not rehearsed, so you take your time. You listen to each other. You are not so cocky, so arrogant".

In between Silhouettes and Kas Kas are Love Has Found its Way, a Folk Medley, Praise the Name of Jesus, Lean on the Everlasting Arms, Love Song for Annie, One Hundred Ways, My Girl and My Favourite Things.

"I just felt 10 was manageable. I did not want to burn out the guys," Small said. "We needed to do something manageable of good quality."

Lawrence's voice leads on Love Has Found its Way, Love Song for Annie and One Hundred Ways, while Hird's horn gets prime billing on My Favourite Things and Lean on the Everlasting Arms. Small's guitar is dominant on most of the other songs.

The cover art for Jazz for Hope 2011 is an arrangement of pictures from the studio, instruments getting as much billing as the musicians. Dale Haslam (bass guitar), Aaron Vereen (percussions), Kamla Hamilton and Kenrick Lawrence (keyboards), Obed Davis (drums) all play on the album and Small describes an interactive experience.

"I think most of the tracks were one take. We might stop to balance the sound. The recording technique we used, everyone was in the same room. We did not use headphones, except for the singer. The sound is really the room, not the mix," Small said.

In that setting, the audio engineering was key and Small said "it was very important to have Stephen Stewart as the engineer. He is a musician himself and worked with Bob Marley in that same studio. He understands working with musicians and the power of the acoustic recording. I knew he had just done some acoustic recording with a mento band and figured he would be fresh".

And while the musicians were fresh in the studio - and some had not arrived at all - Jazz For Hope 2011 was started with Silhouettes, which Small said is "fairly easy. We warmed up".

Apart from the launch of posthumous collections from writer Wayne Brown in late July, when Hird and Small performed tracks from Jazz For Hope 2011, since the concert, the musicians have not yet had a chance to play together onstage. Small raises the possibility of the group doing so later this year. Touring its issues, as Small said "the group itself is not a cohesive entity. It is not a discrete group that people can say 'we want to do that. There is a lady in London who wants the group, but it is a large group and it is harder".

Still, doing the recording was very important to Griot Music. "The album is a means to an end. It is to show productivity and creativity to our audience and let them say 'go on, they deserve our loyalty. They produce music we like to hear'," he said.

"This product is a statement of what we can do."

It is also the beginning of a lengthy process, as Small said "you do the next one, so maybe by the 10th you have refined it, where it is now much more efficient". At that point, he said, "you have created a catalogue of work that makes your company more institutionalised".

"It is a step that has to be made," Small said, noting that there is no value to Griot Music driving live music in Jamaica and having no record.