How Burt varies his sonorities...

[rasputin]

I was re-watching the Bacharach/Costello SESSIONS AT WEST 54TH video today...

Though I've watched it numerous times, there's something I really noticed today: the way Burt is using more synthesizer today than he's ever done in the past.

I notice that he would have his synth player play a solo pad of strings, even when Burt had a thirty-piece string section behind him...

Similarly, he'd have the synth man play a solo french horn lick... even when he had two dynamite fluegelhorn players next to him, who almost surely could have taken that lick...

Either Burt a). really likes those synth sonorities exactly as they are, or b). wanted to give his synth man more playing time, or
c). needed to give his "analogue" instrumentalists a momentary "breather"...

Whatever the case, Burt's integration of synthesizer into his instrumentation sounds really natural, really great. There are some great "ears" on the music scene who despise synthesizers and digital waveforms (I'm thinking of Keith Jarrett here), but Burt has apparently found some sounds he really digs.

Further comments?

[Guest]

David,
i think Burt after being in the biz for so many years is trying to his thing
and be contemporary...I don;t always like his i.d. orchestrally now..but
one can't argue with success...just voicing my own tastes...which may be somewhat dated.don;t dig the synth thing he's doing.