Flim and the BBs Digital Recording Jazz Pioneers Awesome Music!

#213

December 9, 2017

Gentle reader,

I have only written about my music collections a few times. The articles were quite popular and well received. I humbly thank you for reading my blog and your words of encouragement are truly heart warming.

Years ago, I came across a Washington, D.C. FM radio station with the called letters WJZE at 100.3 MHZ on the dial. They were playing a format called "Smooth Jazz". I and many others found the music to be very listenable and fun. In fact, where I worked every radio in this huge shop was tuned to "JZE". One could call up and talk with the DJs and make requests and talk about the music. In fact, one day, I heard, "This tune is going out to the hard working men at the Metrorail Brentwood shop." A cheer went up in the shop. I became friends with one of the DJs and we talked often. Try that today.

I became a fan of Jazz years earlier and had gone to see RETURN TO FOREVER and GEORGE BENSON as well as others at a venue called then, THE MOSQUE. It is an opera house and is still used for concerts of all kinds to this day. The name has changed, it was an odd choice for a name anyway. It is in Richmond, Virginia and in fact the Richmond Symphony Orchestra held their performances there. At least they did when I lived in Richmond.

So, Jazz was familiar to me, at least the few groups I had heard at that point in time. Yet, this Smooth Jazz was different, more lively and tuneful. One did not have to concentrate, or think about the theme or any such "serious" listening technique. One could whistle along, if one could whistle.

A couple of years went by and as happens, some radio company bought the station and changed the format to Golden Oldies! I called my DJ friend up at home that night and asked what the hell happened. "Yeah, we weren't allowed to say anything. As the last Jazz tune ended, they had security guys escort me from the building! I don't know what is happening to all the recordings." As Dear Leader is fond of tweeting, "Sad!"

Many of us were delighted a few year later when another station, this one at 105.9 MHZ called WJZW began playing Smooth Jazz. It lasted longer, then it's format changed to Classic Rock. But, there was a silver lining. HD Radio had come along and their HD2 band continued playing Smooth Jazz! For a while, anyway. As a result, I bought HD Radio capable car stereos and a SONY HD Radio for in the house. Smooth Jazz lives! Or it did for a few years. On your computer or device, you can listen to this:
SmoothJazz.com Global Radio : The Global Home for Smooth Jazz . Trad Jazz . Nu Jazz . Chill Jazz : 24/7 - KJAZ.DB 

I admit, there are many new artists that I am not familiar with these days. But I did amass a large collection of LPs and CDs of my favorite Smooth Jazz artists which co-mingle with traditional Jazz artists in my collection.

The point of this long winded introduction is to set the stage for my introducing you to a band that was on the cutting edge of Digital Recording: FLIM AND THE BBs. Before I go further, let me insert this link so that you can hear them for yourself:
Flim and the BBs - YouTube

I had heard their tune which was written for a daytime American TV show which were coined by the odd descriptor: Soap Opera. The show is or was, called ALL MY CHILDREN. This to my limited knowledge is the only tune of theirs that was a "hit". 

The only CD that I had come across in my usual thrift store browsing was titled BIG NOTES. Once I saw the name of the band, it took me back to the joyful years of Smooth Jazz on the radio.

I Googled the band and Wikipedia had a wonderful article about them, here is the link: OK, for some reason,  Mozilla Firefox is not letting me bookmark that page, so here is a quote from the heading HISTORY:

"Flim and the BB's consisted of Jimmy Johnson, nicknamed Flim, on Alembic 5-string bass and the two BBs, Bill Berg on percussion and Billy Barber on piano, keyboard, and synthesizer. Woodwind-player Dick Oatts was a featured guest on their first album before becoming a full member of the band.^[1]
The band was a side project, as they worked as studio musicians for a living. Their early days in the late 1970s included studio work in Minneapolis and playing as a band at the Longhorn Bar. They became acquainted with Tom Jung, chief engineer at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis. It was around this time that Minneapolis-based 3M began experimenting with digital recording, and Flim & the BB's were hired to provide music to test this new equipment at Jung's studio.
The group's self-titled debut album was recorded in 1978 at Sound 80 and was ostensibly going to be a direct to disc recording. Nevertheless, 3M placed an experimental 50.4 kHz digital recorder in the control room as a backup to the direct-to-disc lathe. The band was required to play the entire LP side without stopping and without any editing afterward. When the resulting acetate disc was deemed inferior to the digital master tape, the record was pressed from that digital backup tape, making it the second-ever U.S. commercially available digital recording. Since the machine used was an early experimental prototype, built before any digital recording standards were established, and dismantled before 1979, there is currently no way to reissue that first album on either LP or CD.^[2]
Flim and the BB's recorded its second album, Tricycle, for DMP Digital Music Products, an audiophile record label started by Tom Jung. The album was the first non-classical recording to be released in compact disc format. It was recorded on the Mitsubishi X-80 digital audio recorder at Sound 80. The disc displayed the full dynamic range available in CDs, becoming a popular test disc for this reason. It was also the first jazz album to be recorded, mastered, and delivered in the digital domain. The recording chain, after the first few feet of microphone cable from the musicians' instruments, remained in the digital domain until it was decoded by the consumer's CD player. DMP's releases were for the most part recorded directly to two-tracks as opposed to the more common multi-track method. This means that there was minimal use of overdubs and the majority of the music was performed, recorded, and mixed "live" to the digital recorder.^[3] The cover art for Tricycle was drawn by Bill Berg's son Jacob.
Flim & the BB's released four more albums for DMP, with each winning Digital Audio's "Jazz CD of the Year" award. After the release of The Further Adventures of Flim & The BB's they parted ways with DMP and signed to Warner Bros. Records. They released the album New Pants in 1990 and followed with This Is a Recording in 1992. Billy Barber composed the theme song for the TV soap opera All My Children. A version of the song appears on This Is a Recording. DMP released two of their albums, Tricycle and Big Notes, on limited edition Gold CDs, and Tricycle on Super Audio CD (SACD)."

I was truly intrigued, so to eBay I went and sure enough there was a seller with a mint copy of their debut album! I'm not going to say what I paid for it, but I've never paid so much for any recording. BUT, it is worth it! The music is incredible! Remember, they had to play the entire side through, only pausing for a few seconds between tunes. As the article states, they were recording it "Direct-to-Disc". From microphones, through the mixer right to the cutting lathe! As a backup, they were making an experimental DIGITAL recording too. But, then you just read that.

An aside, if you are a regular reader, thank you! You are well aware of my being a budget audiophile. That being said, here is a photo of my system:

The only difference from a month ago is that large dragon now resides upon the unused Dynaco A25 speakers and a smaller all-metal dragon sits where the large dragon is in this photo. So, it is a really good system with incredible lifelike sound.

That being said, since I have not looked/listened to see/hear whether any tunes from their first album are one YouTube, I can only pass on my impressions. Firstly, here is the front cover. 

Oh, if you are reading this on a "device", you will not be able to read any of the album's notes unless you do that spreading thing with your fingers.

Remember, this was 1978, if one said digital to someone else in 1978, the only thing that might have been digital to the average person was maybe a wristwatch with a digital LED face. They used so much battery power, that one had to press a button to see the time display for a few seconds. But I digress. Here, read once again: "Since the machine used was an early experimental prototype, built before any digital recording standards were established, and dismantled before 1979, there is currently no way to reissue that first album on either LP or CD."

Now do you see why I had to find and buy this album? In fact in the booklet in one of their later CDs, one of the artists reminds his mother to not get rid of that first album. 

The seller was correct in listing this album as mint. There are no ticks or pops or skips or any surface noise. Remember this was a digital recording, so no background tape his either. I absolutely LOVE the music. So clear, the bass notes can be felt. I am so happy!

As I have done SO many times in the past, being the type of collector called a "completist" I strive to get one of everything that author, music group, label, camera company, what have you made or produced. Last music group I did that with was The Rippingtons. Another fantastic Smooth Jazz group.

Thanks to eBay and especially Amazon, I was able to buy the complete works of Flim and the BBs. Sellers prices on both sites are ALL OVER THE PLACE! I of course picked the least expensive that were described as very good or better. 

And below, here they are.  

Starting front row, left, TRICYCLE 1983, TUNNEL 1984, BIG NOTES 1985, NEON 1987, THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF 1988, all on dmp DIGITAL MUSIC PRODUCTIONS.  Their final CDs are on WARNER BROTHERS: NEW PANTS 1990, AND THIS IS A RECORDING 1992. Their last CD has ALL MY CHILDREN on it, which coincides when I was working at Brentwood.

So, there you have it, their entire catalog of recorded music. I hope your listening to them on YouTube will encourage you to buy some for yourself. On, another thing, if you stream with your Bluray player of Smart TV and have a surround sound/home theater system, watching music videos this way sounds AMAZING! At least it does in our living room. 

Thanks once again for looking, enjoy music!

Scott