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Just Jazz
As the Owen Hall Recording Studio (OHRS) manager and chief engineer from its opening in  January 2008 to the Spring of 2025 upon my retirement, I had the wonderful opportunity of recording a variety of music ensembles. From pop-rock to classical performances , to acapella and instrumental soloists, the OHRS provided an incredible studio space for capturing live acoustic music. Of all the many artists and musicians recorded in the Owen Studio, the acoustics of the Owen studio magically responded to jazz music. To paraphrase the famous Atlantic Records Producer, Tom Dowd, the Owen studio’s acoustics fit jazz like a hand in a glove. Here you will read about, and listen to a few of the incredible jazz sessions that came out of the Owen Studio’s jazz-inspiring acoustic space.

Please Note: Many of the performers on the “Just Jazz” track page are unknown to ProfJeff. If you know or might have known any of  these talented student musicians, contact Professor Jeff at: www.jcrawford@pacific.edu">www.jcrawford@pacific.edu so he can give them proper credit.
Nick’s Tune (Haiku)  - A Recording Workshop
In March of 2010, Producer Nick Phillips from Nick Phillips Music and I, taught and recorded the Brubeck Fellows in the OHRS. The fellows were part of the Brubeck Institute, a two-year student jazz studies program. From across the United States, five top students in jazz performance were selected to be granted a chair in the Brubeck Institute. Chair positions were available for drummers, upright bass players, jazz pianists, trumpet players, and saxophonists. As a member of the Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet (BIJQ) the students would perform throughout California while studying with a variety of jazz faculty at the University of the Pacific.

 
The Brubeck Institute focused on jazz studies however the process of in-studio recording was not part of the Institute curriculum. With coordination by the Director of the music management department, Keith Hatschek, the Studio Manager & Recording Arts Instructor ProfJeff, and Grammy award-winning guest lecturer Nick Phillips, worked to create a recording curriculum and then co-taught a four-week workshop in the OHRS. The recording studio provided a C/24-mixing control surface with Avid HD192 audio interface, and the Pro Tools multi-track software system. In the acoustic sound studio, there was a Steinway 6.1ft grand piano, an eight-channel Hearback headphones system, and a wide variety of dynamic, ribbon, and condenser microphones. The OHRS gave Institute members a four-week intensive recording studio educational experience.
 
The workshop presented a series of academic learning sessions, teaching fundamental concepts on microphone technology, multitrack recording, and audio production. Over the four week period, the Brubeck fellows learned about sound and acoustics, mic placement, how to use the Pro Tools recording application and mixing control surface, professional studio etiquette, and then finishing with a live recording session directed by composer and producer Nick Phillips.
The Recording Session (the story)
After I set up the microphones in the studio to record a four piece jazz drum set, stereo grand piano, an upright acoustic bass, and a tenor sax (the trumpet player was unavailable), the session began with Nick presenting a newly composed piece never before performed. Nick, an incredible jazz composer and trumpet player, wrote out the chart for the Brubeck fellows to read and record. With Nic’s guidance and instruction, the Brubeck fellows had 15-minutes to review the piece and ask questions about the composition. After the review, there would be no rehearsal.
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“These are the steps taken when professional studio musicians are asked to perform in a paid recording studio session,” said Nick to the group.

 
1) Review the chart
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2) Get clarification on phrasing and dynamics from the composer
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3) Record the track

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When the review by the musicians was completed, Nick entered the control room and said to me, “Ok, now let’s record.” I turned to the mixing desk and pressed the record button.
 
This was the only performance captured.
Nick's Tune (Haiku)NicK Phillips
00:00 / 09:17
Of all the jazz tracks recorded in the OHRS. Nick’s Tune, or Haiku, is one of the best jazz music performances and Owen studio recordings during my tenure. When teaching the class Sound Recording Fundamentals, Nick’s Tune was played every semester during the studio orientation lab session. It was played for students with little or no recording experience. Listening to Nick’s Tune demonstrated how fine jazz musicians within an ensemble listen closely to one another, playing the piece as if they were all one musician. It was also used to demonstrate the importance of acoustic instrument definition and volume dynamics. Through listening, the students were shown how the changes of sound pressure levels pulls the ear in at low volume and then pushes the ear back at a high volume, creating a musically emotional impact.

Haiku
Nick Phillips – Composer & Producer
Brubeck Institute Jazz Quartet - Performers
Jeff Crawford – Recording & Mixing Engineer
Sound Recording Fundamentals
One of the most popular courses I taught at the University of the Pacific was Sound Recording Fundamentals. The course presented a 75-minute in class lecture with hands-on software learning of Pro Tools in the conservatory’s computer lab. The course also provided 75-minute studio labs in the conservatory’s OHRS.
 
Each semester, two teams of six students worked through a series of labs covering studio orientation, microphone application, then listening and identifying the various microphone types. Once the fundamentals of sound and recording were presented, the students needed to work the drum Lab, the bass lab, the stereo grand piano lab, a surprise instrument lab, a small ensemble lab, the jazz lab, then finishing up the semester with an all-day rock lab. (See In Studio.)

Please Note: All of the music recorded for the jazz lab was captured in the OHRS during the 75-minute evening lab sessions. As the jazz labs were extremely time intensive, getting jazz ensembles to play for the lab happened at the very last minute. Not until the musicians entered the studio did the team know what piece they were to record or the name of the ensemble and their members. For this reason, as you listen to the various jazz lab selections, if you recognize the ensembles performance and perhaps the members within the group, please pass that information along to ProfJeff so he can give proper credit to the performers on his website.
The Jazz Labs
The second to the last lab of the semester was the Jazz Lab. For the students, this lab was intense. Within a period of 75-minutes, the students had to set up and connect all the studio microphones to record a jazz ensemble including a jazz drum set, an up-right bass, a stereo grand piano, and one or two instrument stations. In the control room, headphone mixes had to be created, assigned and directed to all instruments in the sound studio with each musician having their own individual 8-channel headphone mixing system.
 
Once sound check and microphone levels were established and set in both the control room monitors, and the musicians’ headphone system, the jazz tune would be recorded.  As jazz songs tend to be lengthy, accommodating solos for each musician, only one or two takes were possible given the amount of lab time left. Add to this, the time needed for the jazz musicians to settle on song form and solo order, the pressure on all the students to complete the lab within the time limit became the focus.

When the recording of the jazz ensemble was over, the musicians would come into the control room to listen back to the track. If the musicians liked what they heard, the student team would power down the mics and begin to take down the session. In rare situations, the jazz lab ensemble that maybe playing a gig later in the week, would be well rehearsed and ready to go as soon as sound check and mike levels were completed. In this case, a second take would be possible.

Here are a few of the Jazz Lab sessions recorded in the OHRS by students enrolled in Sound Recording Fundamentals. For most of these examples, conservatory students were also the performers.
 
Jazz Lab A – "United" by Steve Ash
April 3, 2012
This Jazz lab features a 4-piece drum set, an upright bass, stereo grand piano, an alto sax and a trumpet. Opening with a base and piano parallel disconnected rhythmic phrase, which is repeated twice, then a sax and horn entrance, waking up the peace.
UnitedSteve Ash
00:00 / 07:14
Jazz Lab A - Unknown Song and Artist
11-4-2014
This Jazz Lab track is unknown. The musicians in the jazz ensemble, and even the song itself, had no identifying information as part of the student session folder or audio file. Not even a deep Internet search could reveal the name of the track. However, the track is well worth the listening time. If you recognize the music and can identify the artist please contact profjeff at: jcrawford@pacific.edu
 
Jazz Lab A, 3-9-2012Unknown
00:00 / 10:29
Jazz Lab B - Stella by starlight
11-5-2019
The Stella by Starlight jazz Lab was simple yet supernatural. It was one of those labs where the musicians had no idea what to play until entering the sound studio. The instrumentation consisted of a drummer, upright bass player, jazz pianist, and sax player. Stella by Starlight was originally composed in 1944 as an orchestral score to the spooky movie, The Uninvited starring Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey. If you listen closely to the track you will hear one of the uninvited ghosts.
Jazz Lab B - Stella by StarlightVictor Young
00:00 / 07:52
I Want to be Close to You
4-22-2018
Sometimes, the jazz lab session would throw the students a curve by not having traditional jazz instruments to record, like in this original song “I Wanna be Close to You,” written by Christine Spencer. Still within the genre of jazz music, this electric jazz acoustic track created many challenges for the lab team. This four-piece jazz ensemble featured a female lead singer, an electric bass player, an electric keyboard player and an acoustic drum set.

Usually, all the jazz musicians would record from within the Owen sound studio room. However, because there was a real-time female vocal and an acoustic drum set, and since the Owen studio did not have a vocal booth, the vocals would need to be recorded in some other location as the drums would leak into the vocal microphone.

To remedy this issue, the team, with the encouragement of ProfJeff, relocated the electric bass, keyboards and vocalist, placing them all into the control room. The electric bass was plugged in directly into  a DI, connected to an 8-channel Millennium Media preamp, while a fully weighted 88-note MIDI keyboard was used to access Native Instruments plug-in Kontakt library.

In the control room, the electric bass, the keyboards and the drums played back through the studio monitors while a scratch vocal was recorded to assist the musicians with the song form. Once the form was established and the drum tracks were captured, the vocalist could sing the live track in the sound studio as the drums were no longer needed. A small meg-shift vocal booth was constructed out of several goboes panels, allowing the vocal to be completely isolated from any outside noise. The grand piano solo track was recorded as an overdub using a Native Instrument, grand piano preset.
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Performers
Cristen Spencer - song writer, vocalist
Dante Milano – keyboards
I Want to be Close to YouChristine Spencer
00:00 / 04:16
It Had to be You
As mentioned above, the Brubeck Institute provided back up musicians for many of the recordings in the OHRS. It was a luxury for the students in the music management department to have such a high level of student performance skills at their request. This jazz standard, “It Had to be You” is one of the examples of how Music Management students and the Brubeck Institute musicians collaborated to make music magic. This female vocal track brings back up vocal harmonies to the forefront. All vocal parts were performed by the vocalist.
It Had To Be YouIsham Jones.
00:00 / 05:33
Night & Day
Another great vocal track by a student is the performance of “Night & Day” by Cole Porter. Again, using musicians from the Brubeck Institute, this track was recorded with the entire rhythm section in the studio along with the lead trumpet and sax parts. The vocal part was recorded in the control room as a scratch vocal. Once the entire ensemble was recorded, and the desire take was selected, the vocalist overdubbed her part singing with the band under headphones in the Owen sound studio
Night & DayCole Porter
00:00 / 04:11
In a Transcendental Mood 4-6-2011
This satirical jazz classic opens with a wild, musical montage of bass, piano, sax, and flugelhorn. It’s slowly settles down and we hear the opening theme played as a sentimental melody. The song’s mood moves through the solos and then ends just as wild as the beginning. The session, featuring the BIJQ was a late night jam in the OHRS.
In a Transcendental MoodBIJQ
00:00 / 11:52
Origins
In the Spring of 2012, The Music Management Director Keith Hatschek, the Brubeck Institute Director Simon Rowe, and the OHRS Recording Engineer Jeff Crawford collaborated on a project featuring original music written by the members of the BIJQ. The project was to be submitted into a Billboard Magazine competition for original, student compose jazz music.

Origins, composed by the members of the BIJQ was recorded and mixed by Professor Jeff Crawford in the OHRS, with production assistance from the Director of the brubeck Institute Simon Rowe. The 11-track CD recording wone first place in the Billboard competition for original student composed jazz music for 2012.

Here are two tracks from the BIJQ Origins CD.
Burns BellsBIJQ
00:00 / 06:28
PoincianaBIJQ
00:00 / 07:03
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