November 13th, 2009, posted by Eric
I have been absent from this blog for quite some time and I”ll chalk it up to last month being one of the busiest and most significant of my life thus far: Lauren and I were married on October 3rd and The Beast released it’s debut album on October 16th.
Today I have very special news: Zenph Studios, the music technology company for which I do instrument research and development and event production, is announcing that it has secured $10.7M in VC funding from Intersouth Partners in Durham and Capitol Broadcasting in Raleigh. Secondly, Kip Frey, one of Intersouth’s VC partners, is coming aboard as our new CEO. Thirdly, we are relocating to a research and office space in the American Tobacco Historic District in Durham (a move which thrills me). Fourth, we are changing our name to “Zenph Sound Innovations, Inc.” And lastly, our board of directors will include some Intersouth partners, as well as a former CEO from Red Hat and an IP copyright lawyer from Google.
This day has been years in the making. Everyone at Zenph is excited for this opportunity to take our company to the next level, developing a technology that will truly revolutionize the music industry. I will continue to work on gestural acquisition and mapping and physical modeling for musical instruments beyond the piano.
Here are some links to press releases on this topic:
http://www.techjournalsouth.com/news/article.html?item_id=8502
http://localtechwire.com/business/local_tech_wire/news/blogpost/6410077/
http://localtechwire.com/business/local_tech_wire/news/blogpost/6409603/
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September 14th, 2009, posted by Eric
Back in April, I introduced you to Zenph’s third project, the original works and transcriptions of Sergei Rachmaninoff. At that time we had just finished our re-performance analysis and were producing the recording session with Sony and giving a live recital at Peace College in Raleigh. One set of album art, liner notes, advance reviews, and a killer press event later, we are weeks away from the September 22nd US release of the album through Sony Masterworks. You’ll be able to find it at retailers nationwide, as well as Amazon and other online stores. As always, I strongly recommend purchasing the CD over iTunes. Our team spent days of piano and mic positioning to bring you what we believe to be the most sonically pristine piano recording yet. The reward comes in listening to uncompressed audio files on a nice system, not bit-crushed mp3s on your iPhone.
On Monday September 21st, there will be a press event at Steinway Hall in New York with a special performance by violin superstar Joshua Bell (yes, the guy who played at a DC Metro stop and no one stopped to listen). Zenph has given him the opportunity to have Rachmaninoff accompany him on a Grieg sonata, and now it’s one of his favorite things to do (I wouldn’t blame him!). In fact, this track will be released on a Joshua Bell album days later, also by Sony Masterworks. Here is the link to purchase that.
One of my favorite things about the Rachmaninoff album is that it reveals years and years of misinterpretation by classical pianists. Somehow or another, it came to be that the “right” way to play a Rachmaninoff piece was to pound the crap out of the piano in a display of athleticism. And indeed, those pieces sound “badass” when performed that way. Extreme example? The Prelude in C# minor, Op 3 No 2. Exhibit A? YouTube. But what Zenph discovered in its analysis is that Rachmaninoff’s own touch was much more dynamic and gentle than was previously thought. His own interpretation of the C# minor Prelude is ever so subtle and creepy, instantly becoming my favorite version. That’s what I love about this company: it’s honest musical archeology, truth-seeking through data analysis.
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August 26th, 2009, posted by Eric
If you are one of the 10,000 people who just saw Art Tatum play with Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band at the Hollywood Bowl and are curious as to how everything came together, welcome! This is not the official blog of Zenph Studios, the music technology company responsible for Art Tatum (and other artists) coming back to life through “re-performance,” but I am a Zenph employee, as well as a jazz pianist.
I am writing and updating this post over the course of the day of the show (this sentence is being penned in the hotel room). What show, you might ask? Well, today on a great bill of bands at the Hollywood Bowl (including the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Band), legendary jazz pianist Art Tatum (d. 1956) will be accompanied by a top-notch live big band thanks to the technological wizardry of Zenph Studios and the arranging wizardry of Gordon Goodwin. If you recall from my previous post about Zenph’s first Grammy nomination, Gordon wrote a jazz arrangement that dances around Zenph’s solo piano Tatum re-performance of “Yesterdays.” Up until now, this had been a studio project, confined to the world of multitrack recording and careful mixing. In the last few weeks, Gordon’s Big Phat Band and Zenph have been working hard to achieve a live, realtime performance of this amazing duet. That’s right, a real Yamaha Disklavier Pro on the Hollywood Bowl stage flanked by 18 of the West Coast’s best musicians. My role has been liaison between the Zenph camp and the Big Phat Band camp as well as playback engineer for the show.
One day Zenph will champion gestural capture and beat induction such that Art Tatum could “follow” Gordon’s live conducting. Until then we have to work with an entertainment industry staple (for better or for worse): the click track. I’ve spend the past few weeks figuring out how to use the Disklavier Pro as a synchronization master to drive a playback computer so that all 18 musicians can hear piano and click track in their earbuds to precisely follow Tatum’s timing nuances. Tatum does not play perfectly metronomically: his swing and his phrasing ebb and flow as is necessary for his virtuosity, he even adds a few beats at certain cadences just to get an idea across. Major props to Gordon for creating an arrangement and click track that wonderfully captures these ideas and hit points.
I’m headed out the door to the venue, check back for updates to this post throughout the day!
*******UPDATE 7:45pm, 15 minutes to showtime******
Tech rehearsal and soundcheck went just fine. I just went out onto the dark stage one last time to make sure the piano was OK and saw a praying mantis perched under the small piano lamp right on the keys. It was a wonderful moment of nature and solitude compared to the detail-oriented hustle and bustle of the day so far. Art Tatum’s widow, Geraldine, will be in the audience tonight, and we’ve heard that she is extraordinarily excited to hear her late husband play again in front of such a crowd. Industry and marketing aside, it’s moments like these that make me happy for what Zenph can do for people.
To the stage!
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March 31st, 2009, posted by Eric
After big success with our first two albums of Glenn Gould and Art Tatum re-performances, we here at Zenph are putting the finishing touches on our third major project, an album of originals and transcriptions by the Russian phenom, Sergei Rachmaninoff. He is the first artist which will be re-performed on our one-of-a-kind Steinway SE reproducing piano.
After doing a recording session with Sony BMG on Monday, we’ll be producing Rachmaninoff in recital (!!!) at a free concert event Tuesday, April 14th . You can come be the first public audience to hear this master play live in over 60 years. How cool is that?
Full details here: http://www.zenph.com/rachmaninoff
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December 3rd, 2008, posted by Eric
Hey all, great news! The Grammy nominations were announced about an hour ago and Zenph Studios is involved! As a present for being such a gracious emcee at the Art Tatum Shrine Auditorium concert in 2007, we let Gordon Goodwin create a big band arrangement around one of our Art Tatum re-performances. As you may know, Gordon is a very talended composer and big band arranger on the West Coast. He leads Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band, and their latest album, Act Your Age, just now got nominated for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. My hearty congratulations go to Gordon and his super-talented group of musicians.
Well, it just so happens that Gordon put his Tatum piece on this album: he chose to create a playful orchestration around Tatum’s “Yesterdays.” Think about that for a second: in 2008 a big band recorded with Art Tatum as the guest artist! This is the wonder and creative potential of re-performance. I am very pleased to announce that the Goodwin/Zenph/Tatum track “Yesterdays” has been nominated for Best Instrumental Arrangement. This is a huge milestone for music industry awareness/acceptance of this groundbreaking technology. My hope is that in a few years time we will see some Zenph albums get their own Grammy nominations (if only because Steve Epstein is such a great producer).
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June 22nd, 2008, posted by Eric
Hey everyone, I am writing you from Harlem, New York where Art Tatum: Piano Starts Here is entering its last day after an intense week of rehearsal and showcase performances. Back home (Raleigh/Durham, NC), the local paper has run a great article about Zenph’s latest work. I am quoted and featured often, both for my work on the Tatum show, and for my research into bass re-performance parameters.
Here is the link:
http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/1116398.html
Enjoy!
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June 4th, 2008, posted by Eric
Hey all, Zenph Studios has just reached another great milestone: Our second album with Sony BMG hits the streets today. This album marks the first time Zenph Studios has analyzed and re-performed a jazz artist, and not just any jazz artist. the legendary pianist Art Tatum.
From the press release:
Art Tatum’s “Piano Starts Here” album contains material that has been in print for more than 50 years. Yet the original, an incomparable jazz album that highlights the mastery of this singular musician, had been marred by nominal sound quality and other imperfections — until now.
Zenph’s unique technique turns audio recordings into live performances that precisely replicate the original recording, but offer vastly improved sound quality. Listeners are transported back to the moment of creation and experience Tatum’s playing as if they were in the room when the original recordings were made.
Last year, Sony BMG and Zenph Studios re-recorded Tatum’s 1949 concert at The Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. They placed the piano on the same stage in the same spot that Tatum played and recorded a flawless re-performance on modern equipment before a live audience.
SONY BMG’s new disc is a hybrid surround-sound SACD/CD disc, which plays on all traditional CD players and sounds magnificent on Super Audio (SACD) players. It also includes a binaural version of the re-performance that provides an immersive experience. When listened to with headphones, it replicates what Tatum would have heard while he sat on the piano bench.
The Zenph re-performance also corrects several problems with the original album. For one thing, playback speed was too slow on 12 of the 13 tracks, so after Zenph fixed the tempo, you hear that Tatum actually played faster than has been thought.
And, thanks to Tatum discographer Arnold Laubich, Zenph has restored about two minutes of lost material. The original album omits excerpts from Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess,” which Tatum performed at the concert during the track now titled “The Man I Love.”
I have had the privilege of working on this album from start to finish: it has been an intense and insightful process involving the cutting edge of both computer algorithms and musicology. My name is in the credits for the research and production team, so technically, this is my major label debut 
.
You can purchase the album at Zenph’s online store, Amazon.com. iTunes, or any major music retailer. Please comment back and let me know what you think of the new album, or if you have any questions about the Zenph re-performance process. Enjoy!
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May 20th, 2008, posted by Eric
Don’t look twice: the above photo is the real deal, not a product of Photoshop trickery! Over the past few months I have become the Supervising Producer for an exciting new show that opens at Harlem’s world famous Apollo Theater in June. The show is called Art Tatum: Piano Starts Here and it features Zenph’s jaw-dropping re-performance technology which allows Art Tatum to play live onstage before your very eyes. I’ve been working with the show from the research and writing, to the director hiring, to the casting, to the design (I am also the sound designer), to the rehearsal process, and the promotion. It has been a valuable arts management experience and I get to work with top-shelf Broadway talent along the way!
Zenph Studios is presenting the show in association with Metropolitan Talent Presents (recentclients include The Rolling Stones and The Police…) and has brought many jazz luminaries on board in support of the show including Les Paul, Page Cavanaugh, Little Anthony, and Clark Terry. Zenph is dedicated to jazz education and preservation and is showing this by working with The Jazz Museum in Harlem and donating half the profits of the show to them. Zenph has also been working with Tatum’s estate to donate his piano and other belongings to the Museum! There is a big effort behind this show, and I’m really excited to present it to you:
The show goes up June 19th, 20th, and 22nd at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Tickets are available at ticketmaster.com or through the Apollo box office (212/531-5305).
I’ve loved working with director Tre Garrett, and actor Paul Butler (who has been in original productions of many August Wilson plays). Here are some shots of us rehearsing with the Zenph piano in Raleigh last week:
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January 9th, 2008, posted by Eric
Happy New Year everybody! 2008 promises to be my most active year yet with 2 albums on the way, one for a salsa group and the other for a soul group. To kick off the year I will be presenting a session on behalf of Zenph® Studios at the annual IAJE (International Association of Jazz Educators) conference called “Art Tatum Plays Again!” Saturday the 12th at 5pm.
Imagine sitting in the same room as Art Tatum while he plays for you on a marvelous concert grand piano. Wild, right? I’ve been a Performance Analyst at Zenph for almost two years now, working closely with the research and coding of these re-performances as well as the first urtext engravings of Tatum scores. I am continually amazed by our work and the implications it has for music education and dissemination.
Here are some pics from the presentation:
Hard at work with John Q. Walker, Zenph founder.
With the Yamaha Canada team and Oliver Jones (Canada’s next legendary jazz pianist behind Oscar Peterson)!!!
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