Here’s a list of the artists I saw:

• Sunpie Barnes and the Louisiana Sunspots
• Steve Martin with the Steep Canyon Rangers
• Soul Rebels
• Widespread Panic
• Blues Traveler
• Buckwheat Zydeco
• The Dixie Cups
• The Subdudes
• Hadley J Castille Family and the Sharecroppers Cajun Band
• Allen Toussaint
• Earth Wind & Fire
• Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi Band
• Shamarr Allen and the Underdawgs
• New Leviathan Oriental Foxtrot Orchestra
• Rebirth Brass Band
• Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band
• Jamil Sharif
• Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band
• Pinstripe Brass Band
• Gregg Stafford and the Young Tuxedo Jazz Band
• Driskill Mountain Boys
• Sonny Landreth
• Sugarfoot’s Ohio Players
• Pearl Jam
• Jeff Beck
• Dukes of Dixieland
• Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue
• Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue
• Margie Perez
• Tim Laughlin
• Feufollet
• Van Morrison
• The Dead Weather
• Clarence Carter
• Ellis Marsalis
• Jimmy Johnson featuring the Dave Specter Band
• Luther Kent
• The Preservation Hallstar Revue
• The Radiators
• B.B. King

Pictures and more to come.

It’s been an incredible trip. We’ve heard some incredible music. Tonight, we’ll be hearing B. B. King. I actually shot an entire roll of Tri X 400. Which means I have to pick up a fresh jug of fixer when I get home. Look for pictures this weekend.

Being one of those work from anywhere freelancers is a blessing and a curse. I avoid the soul crushing drudgery of office life. The downside is, I never really get away from the office. So here in a hotel in New Orleans, I have set up a mini production suite. The Jazz Fest doesn’t really get underway until tomorrow, so I have at least a few hours to get some work done.

Tomorrow, a friend and I are setting off by car to The Big Easy for the 2010 Jazz Festival. Neither of us have been to New Orleans, but from what I hear, this should be a pretty epic trip. It is my intention to document our adventures here, but I make no promises.

Enough procrastinating, time to finish packing.

Many times, those who pine for the good old days never actually lived through them. Case in point, recording to analog tape. Analog tape recorders might as well be magical artifacts. It’s amazing that they even work at all, let alone that anybody actually used them. Let’s look at the real process of analog recording:

Before you can even begin recording, you must first clean the tape heads, rollers, capstan, and guides. Next you must demagnetize the heads, capstan, and guides. Then comes head alignment. Don’t forget to adjust the speed using test tones printed on tape. If you are very good at this process, you can get it done in about 45 minutes to an hour. The reality is, most people didn’t do this, or at least didn’t do it often enough. My mentor spent many years setting up and maintaining tape decks in the Washington D.C. area, because engineers were either too lazy or didn’t know how to do it themselves.

Oh yeah, don’t forget about record levels and such… there’s another 20-30 minutes gone.

Then there is the medium itself. Analog tape. It’s inconvenient. It’s heavy. It’s expensive. Right now, a reel of two inch tape costs $289.

And then there’s editing. I’ve never edited analog tape. However, I’ve been working on a tape restoration project, and have had to re-do a number of tape splices. So I’ve been introduced to razor blades and sticky tape. Let me say this, I’ll take Pro Tools any day over analog editing.

All this is to say, there is a reason digital recording took off, even though the early digital technology was terrible. People stuck with it because it was so much easier to work with than analog. Analog tape, when properly set up, has a certain sound that is magical. But is that sound worth the time and expense of dealing with tape? No. And with creative use of plug ins, one can recreate that analog sound quite faithfully.