Recording with Big Beat

Just coming off a huge career high as Big Beat recorded our first full length album last month. It was an exhausting but thoroughly enjoyable experience. 

The session was in mid-February and we recorded at Lucky Penny Studios in Caldwell, NJ. Even though the studio didn't have a lot of big band experience, we were in good hands with "The Young Jedi" Cooper Davis, who was the lead engineer for the session. I've been really impressed by his work, and he also recorded our live EP2 a little over a year ago. He's currently on tour, but will be engineering our overdub sessions. 

Another saving grace of the session was our producer Pete McGuinness. Pete is an incredibly versatile musician, a great trombonist, vocalist, and arranger. And add to that an AMAZING producer! He was able to just jump in and help us with any questions we had. He challenged us in just the right places. He extended a few choruses, made us restart any takes that went sour, and really kept us on top of it to make the music GREAT! 

We also had a drop-in from another one of Big Beat's mentors, Cecil Bridgewater. Both Cecil and Pete have taught every big beat leader arranging and composing lessons, so their styles are really a part of the band. 

About three (?) years ago when I was completing my master's degree, I was taking lessons with Cecil Bridgewater that would end with a half hour before another class that we had together. A lot of the times we just ended up talking and going overtime, and my at the time girlfriend, now wife Allison McKenzie would drop in and join the conversations.

Allison mustered up the courage to ask Cecil to arrange one of her songs, and he gladly agreed! He arranged Allison's song "Miss America" which will be on the album!