Jul 28, 2009 1:40 PM, By Matt Gallagher

So Quincy was up all night working on this thing, and at about 4 in the morning I woke up and noticed the light blasting in under my door, so I crack open my door and looked at Quincy, and there he is at the dining room table, [which is] covered with manuscript paper, and he’s working like a dog. There were no musical instruments in our apartment—no piano, no guitar—nothing but the instrument between Quincy’s ears. Quincy didn’t sleep at all that night; he was writing, he was up the whole night and got it. We get in a cab and go to the studio—big, beautiful studio. We get there, Quincy’s carrying sheets of music with him and we had an army of copyists ready to go. Quincy did not conduct the orchestra; he hired a conductor because he wanted to be in the control room with me listening to the mix. So we’re working away on this overture to The Wiz and Quincy had never heard it in actuality. The orchestra played it down, it was about five or six minutes long—not one note put of place! Now to me that’s unique. This piece of music went to tape moments after it went on paper. True story. It’s part of working with Quincy Jones.

Then your collaboration with Quincy and Michael began in earnest the following year with Off the Wall.
I think that was Michael’s coming-of-age musical statement because it is much more mature and musically very deep.

In 2007, Mix senior editor Blair Jackson interviewed Quincy (see “Mix Interview: Quincy Jones” from the October 2007 issue) and talked about the experimentation that took place on albums like Thriller.
I have a technique that I’ve been using for many years where I have a plywood drum platform that I use to get the drums up off the floor. The reason for wanting to get the drums up off the floor is to minimize what you call secondary pickup. If you don’t get the drums off the floor, the low sounds—from the kick drum and toms and so on—will couple to the floor and they’ll spread, and end up having a huge impact in the other microphones in the studio. So by building a heavy-duty drum platform eight-feet-square and about 8 inches off the floor—heavily braced and with the surface not painted or varnished in any way, so that it’s porous and there’s a little bit of sonic absorbency to that—really works.

And after I used that platform for the drums, I got to thinking about it, and I used that same platform to record Michael on, because he dances when he sings, and I didn’t want to lose those sounds and lose the impact of his dancing sounds. And I’m not a purist; I’m not the kind of a guy that, with an artist like Michael Jackson, wants to have his vocals pristine and pure. I think that would be rather boring because there’s a lot of “street” in what Michael does, and I figured it would be best to use this drum platform and reflect those dancing sounds back to the microphone, and it works out really well. Then I hooked up with my pal Arthur Knox of Acoustic Sciences, who introduced me to TubeTraps, which I use then to go on that platform around not only the drums, but later when Michael was singing, I’d put the TubeTraps around Michael on the drum platform.

I have never recorded Michael Jackson where he sang a lead vocal with the lyrics in front of him. He always stayed up the night before and had the lyrics committed to memory, which is kind of interesting, and I challenge the young pop stars today to duplicate that. I don’t think so. But Michael could.

Your book offers a valuable historical document and interesting stories to the music industry.
I don’t think people have realized how serious Michael was about the musical part of it, and he was indeed. “Serious” is a mild expression—he had a passion for the music. I’ve worked with major forces in the music industry and I think Michael was perhaps the top of the heap there, and I just figured I’d be remiss if I didn’t say something about it in detail. How could you not? To be in such an important place as that was, at that point in music, I had to tell this story.

Matt Gallagher is Mix’s assistant editor.

For more on Swedien’s work with Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson, read Swedien’s essay “Ribbon Mics in Action”  and “Q&A: Bruce Swedien,” and listen to Electronic Musician’s July 2009 EM Cast.

In the Studio with Michael Jackson is available now from music retailers and wherever fine books are sold, as well as online and direct from Hal Leonard (800/554-0626; sales@halleonard.com) or Music Dispatch (800/637-2852).

Additionally, Mix readers can receive a 25-percent discount on the book plus free shipping. To receive the discount, go to Music Dispatch’s Website and enter promo code NY9 when checking out.

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