A Special Recording, It Started With A Jam….
It started with a spontaneous jam at Splendor in Amsterdam, to which Oene van Geel had invited me. We both brought different compositions to the table, but also improvised freely. From the first moment it felt familiar and special. I felt that I had found a musical friend. When we play together we make music from sound and space. Intuition and curiosity are our characteristics.
On the first day of the recording Changing Landscapes, I walked through the doors of the MCO Studio 1 in Hilversum. A beautifully large room with great acoustics. There was a fantastic Steinway Concert Wing piano that had just been overhauled. The keys have a light touch with a tight control over the hammer. The feeling of the contact between your fingertip and the sound you make with it is unbelievable.
Piano and Quintone
I knew immediately that this would be a special recording. We played without amplification and without headphones. Oene was positioned to the left of me, behind the open wing flap. After a few takes we gradually turned to the positioning and the sound between Piano and Quintone.
With Jared Sacks, we made a plan to play much more than to listen, and that we were not going to make choices on the day in terms of takes. For me this was a surprise because I am used to making certain choices in the studio based on listening to the recorded takes in the moment. I trusted Jared and we took the rest of the day and the day that followed, without really listening back.
A few weeks later Jared forwarded the DSD recordings and I was positively surprised! This is a very special sound. I hear every little detail of what I played. The combination with Oene comes across beautifully. The space of the MCO carries the sound. I am very impressed with Jared’s way of recording – and you, the listener – will be too.
— Philipp Rüttgers
Tracklist
Please note that the below previews are loaded as 44.1 kHz / 16 bit.Total time: 00:57:19
Additional information
| Label | |
|---|---|
| SKU | JL011 |
| Qualities | |
| Channels | |
| Artists | |
| Composers | |
| Genres | |
| Amplifiers | Van Medevoort, Holland |
| Cables | Van den Hul |
| Digital Converters | Horus, Merging Technologies, DSD 256 |
| Editing Software | Pyramix, Merging Technologies |
| Mastering Engineer | Jared Sacks & Tom Caulfield |
| Mastering Room | Grimm LS1 Speakers |
| Microphones | Bruel & Kjaer 4006, Schoeps, AKG |
| Mixing Board | Rens Heijnis, custom design |
| Original Recording Format | |
| Piano Tuner | Charles Rademaker |
| Producer | Jared Sacks, Jonas Sacks, Philipp Rüttgers, Oene van Geel; Co-Producer: Cyriel Pluimakers |
| Recording Engineer | Jared Sacks |
| Recording Location | MCO Studio 1, Hilversum, The Netherlands, September 2018 |
| Recording Software | Pyramix |
| Recording Type & Bit Rate | DSD 256 |
| Speakers | Audiolab, Holland |
| Special Thanks | Floor van der Holst, Ted Brady, Brian Moura, Bill Dodd |
| Release Date | March 29, 2019 |
Press reviews
Positive Feedback
I am a diehard devotee of the work Jared Sacks is doing with his jazz and world music recordings on Just Listen Records. I’ve let escape any earlier mention of this album by pianist/composer Philipp Ruttgers (1981) and composer/viola/quintone player Oene van Geel (1973). Shame on me! Because here we have some nicely innovative music very much in the jazz genre, with flecks of world music influences, and a soupcon of classical, but all very unique in sound quality overall.
The various pieces are musically engaging and innovative, with excellent playing on both piano and quintone, and with subtle complementary effects added by Ruttger to the piano on various cuts. Ruttger applies muted strings, percussion on the cast iron frame, paper vibrations on the string, and ambient sounds created with the “Microphonic Soundbox” which employs contact microphones and can yield different sound elements that you can play with your hand but also with a bow. All very interesting in combination.
And the recorded sound quality is classic Jared Sacks. Very natural, lovely balance between direct sound from the instruments and reverberant sound from the room, piano nicely spaced from the microphones to allow the sound to bloom, both instruments nicely balanced one to the other in this nice acoustic space, beautifully open and transparent.
Most enjoyable and recommended.
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