ganharva

Beaver and Krause
"Gandharva"
(CD & LP)

gandharvalp
  1. Gandharva
  2. By Your Gracenotes
  3. Good Places
  4. Short Film For David
  5. Bright Shadowsnotes

Paul Beaver, Bernard L. Krause, Gail Laughton, Gerry Mulligan, Howard Roberts, Bud Shank

January and February 10-11, 1971

 LINER NOTES

Thoughts About Gandharva
I suppose that it's no accident that Gerry Mulligan and Mike Bloomfield find themselves on opposite sides of the same disc, as it were. Paul and I put them there - distilled and 90 proof-just like us. Paul Beaver's talent comes from more nightclub-Hammond B3-jazz jam-1940-50 gigs than he's willing to talk about. He even remembers the music of Japanese-American war games on Okinawa a quarter of a century ago. Paul is a Leo. My Sagittarian chart has a Leo rising. I was weaned on the Weaver's music (later joined them). Scratch the surface a little deeper and you'll see Gandharva take shape from the thousands of hours we've spent in the studio with cats like The Beech Boys, The Byrds, The Doors, Jerry Goldsmith, George Harrison, Mick Jagger, Quincy Jones, Harry Nilsson, Jack Nitzsche, Van Dyke Parks, The Rolling Stones, Leon Russell, Lalo Schifrin, Bud Shank, Simon and Garfunkel, Phil Spector, Jimmy Webb, Andy Williams, Mason Williams and Neil Young, to mention three or four. To all of these folks our album says thank you.

The Evolution of the Album
A discussion with Jac Holzman urged us out of friendly concern to jump headlong into the unknowns of four-channel quadraphonic and gave us the courage to do it. Charles Swisher, a San Francisco acoustical engineering consultant, suggested we record our quad material live in Grace Cathedral, using the pipe organ there. In January, 1971, we recorded the first notes of Gandharva.

The whole of Side Two (CD tracks 15-19) was recorded live in Grace Cathedral the evenings of February 10 and 11, 1971. It's an unbelievable cavern about 150 feet long and over 90 feet high with a 7-second decay time. It allows you to use the whole space as an instrument, which was our intent. We set up mikes in the hall in such a way as to have the musicians walk through the four-channel space as part of the performance.

Grace Cathedral lends itself to many things, but not to strong, punctuated rhythms ... mostly because of the very long echo time. This fit perfectly with our concept of Gandharva in that it begins on Side One at a point of dynamically tense energy with the "Saga Of The Blue Beaver,' and diminishes through the end of the second side with nothing in the ending of the last cut ('Bright Shadows') but the ambient sound of the Cathedral itself.

Recording Details
We recorded the Grace Cathedral dates on a 3-M 16-track recorder using Dolby and Sony condenser mikes... 12 in all. The thousands of feet of cable for the recording equipment were virtually doubled by that of the crew which we hired to film the event in 16 mm sound for TV documentary purposes. Robert Orban was Chief Engineer and indispensable in getting the whole thing together. The musicians on the date were Gerry Mulligan on baritone, Bud Shank on flute and tenor, Gail Laughton playing two magnificent harps (at the some time), Howard Roberts on guitar, Paul on pipe organ, and me on Moog Syntkesizer.

"Soft/White" is all Moog. "Saga Of The Blue Beaver' was a San Francisco studio date which included, at various times in its development, Mike Bloomfield and Ronnie Montrose on lead guitar, Rik Elswit on rhythm guitar, Rod Ellicott on bass, George Marsh and Lee Charlton on drums, Paul and me on Moog. "Nine Moons In Alaska" as an outgrowth of some work we did for Jack Nitzsche in the Mick Jagger movie, Performance. It's all Moog. "Walkin'" is an a cappella performance by Patrice Holloway. She came into the studio in Los Angeles and sang the track in one take. So perfect was her pitch that Paul was able to lay a piano track in Satie fashion some weeks later without altering the speed of the tape to change the pitch. The voice was then processed with Moog, VSO and Echoplex on 16-track. "Walkin' By The River" features the voices of cydie King, Evangeline Carmichael, Vanetta Fields, Ron Lee Hicklin, Bill King, Lewis Morford, Edna Wright and me. Mike Lang played piano.Ray Brown bass. The group is called the Beaver/Krause Celestial Choir.

What It All Means
Gandharva (from Hindu mythology) means the celestial musician. And it's a score from a non-existent film.

- Bernard Krause, 1971