Kirsten Edkins – Shapes & Sound

£50.00

180-gram LP, pressed at RTI. Deluxe tip-on gatefold jacket. AAA vinyl release.

4 in stock

Cohearent Logo

Kirsten Edkins – Shapes & Sound

Kirsten Edkins - Shapes & Sound

Shapes and Sound from jazz saxophonist Kirsten Edkins is the debut LP release from Cohearent Records — the new record label companion to famed mastering engineer Kevin Gray’s latest enterprise, an all-valve (vacuum tube) recording studio (Cohearent Recording) adjoining his home-based mastering facility in California.

“It’s the ‘essence of an era’ they are trying to recapture with today’s musicians, not the sound of specific spaces, engineers or recordings,” Gray told music reviewer Michael Fremer.

This album was produced all-analogue/all-tube at Gray’s Cohearent Recording on December 10 and 11, 2021.

Dave Connor produced, while Gray and Ryan Wirthlin co-engineered.

Edkins on sax was joined by Gerald Clayton (courtesy of Blue Note) on piano, Ahmet Turkmenoglu on bass, Lemar Guillary on trombone and Chris Wabich on drums.

Edkins, a composer and saxophonist from Los Angeles, graduated from Eastman School of Music on scholarship.

She studied composition and arranging with Bill Dobbins, as well as Walt Weiskopf and the legendary Ray Ricker.

Before her time at Eastman she studied with Bob Sheppard, a jazz recording artist and woodwind specialist.

Edkins is a sought-after improviser who has performed with Arturo Sandoval (Al “Tootie” Heath), Tim Hagans, Clay Jenkins, John Beasley, and Geoffrey Keezer.

She has performed with the Clare Fischer Big Band, Bill Holman Big Band, Bernie Dresel Big Band (The BBB), Sara Gazarek and others.

She’s appeard on television shows such as American Idol, Duets, Knight Rider, Glee, and Bones, plus The Tonight Show.

She’s also a music educator whose associations include Cal State Fullerton, Stanford Jazz Workshop, Saddleback College and Golden West College. She also direct the American Jazz Institute’s community outreach program and teaches saxophone at Occidental College in Eagle Rock.

The album is an excellent showcase for Gray’s new recording studio.

Cohearent Recording was born from Gray’s relentless passion to create the best sound recordings.

It was that passion that has inspired Gray’s long career cutting lacquers for such noted labels as Blue Note, Music Matters and Analogue Productions.

He spent 15 years building gear for the project. “I had a novel idea: In order to get the vintage sound we all love, (I’d) design and build an all-valve (vacuum tube) recording system from microphones through to the disc cutting head, NO transistors or IC’s anywhere in the signal path. That took much longer than anticipated but it is finally complete.”

Gray was inspired to use his own living room as the studio space when he realised it was similar in size and shape to legendary jazz recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s Hackensack N.J. parents’ home.

Many classic jazz albums were recorded there by Gelder.

Some of the same microphones used on those earlier Gelder recordings are in use in Gray’s setup.

The custom vaccum tube electronics are different and for Shapes and Sound Gray used a tube-based Studer C37 rather than an Ampex.

Gelder’s Hackensack recordings for both Blue Note and Prestige, Gray says, are “some of my favourite jazz records, and they are also exceptionally good sonically.”

Musicians:

Kirsten Edkins, saxophone
Gerald Clayton, piano
Ahmet Turkmenoglu, bass
Lemar Guillary, trombone
Chris Wabich, drums

Track List: Kirsten Edkins – Shapes & Sound

Side A
Party Slug
Bird Shapes
Dedicated To You
The Goose

Side B
Sweet Pickles
Wuhoo
Proprietary Minor
Hula Hoop

Brand

Cohearent

Cohearent Audio, LLC is a relatively new facility with vintage roots. It is the realisation of renowned mastering engineer Kevin Gray. Kevin turned 38 years of experience, and already proven equipment, into the “dream facility” he always wanted to build. No expense has been spared in putting together the gear, monitoring and acoustics. Their famous, all discrete Class-A, transformerless, all analogue disk mastering system is matched with the very best digital equipment for CDs, SACDs and the latest High Resolution Digital formats; a fine blend of old and new. Their client list is a “who’s who” of the music business. All 3 major labels (Sony, Universal and Warner), Acoustic Sounds, Concord, Impex, Mosaic, Music Matters and Sundazed, just to name a few. Reissues for the Audiophile community are a specialty, but new projects are also mastered constantly.
Cohearent Logo

You may also like…