He worked for producer Carl Davis, head of the Chicago branch of New York-based Brunswick Records. In the late '60s, Swedien became a freelance recording engineer so that he could do more album projects and film soundtracks. In time, the record labels contacted him about buying his one of a kind stereo master tapes. With his own money, Swedien bought stereo tapes and recorded some of music's greatest performers in stereo: Oscar Peterson, Duke Ellington, and other top artists. It could also be used to create and capture imagined soundscapes the recording studio could be used to sculpt a "sonic vision." His best example of this is the title track from Quincy Jones' Back on the Block album.ĭuring the late '50s and early '60s, record labels wouldn't invest in the more costly tapes necessary to record performances in stereo, believing that the two-speaker format would never overtake the then-dominant mono (one-speaker) sound format of record players. Swedien was inspired by Les Paul & Mary Ford's "How High the Moon," one of the first multi-tracked singles, to see that recording could do more than simply document a live concert. While recording a couple of albums with Duke Ellington, the jazz legend made him realize that the music business was a fun way to make a living.
As a show of belief in the young engineer, Putnam let Swedien finish a recording session for jazz great Stan Kenton. Under the tutelage of Putnam, Swedien's engineering skills grew. Moving to Bill Putnam's new Universal Recording Studios, he engineered sessions for the top jazz acts of the day. In 1957, Swedien and his family moved to Chicago and the engineer worked at the city's RCA Victor studio recording the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Bruce swedien movie#
Buying out the business, he moved it to an old movie theater, renovating it into a state of the art studio. Swedien worked at a studio where he recorded such artists as Tommy Dorsey. His first break was engineering Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons' million-selling single "Big Girls Don't Cry," which peaked at number one R&B for three weeks and number one pop for five weeks in late 1962 for Vee-Jay Records.
When not in school, he recorded jazz groups, choirs, polka bands, and radio commercials. He majored in electrical engineering and minored in music while attending the University of Minnesota.
Bruce swedien professional#
When he was 14, he got a job at a small basement studio, and after high school, he bought a professional tape recorder. As a child, Swedien would listen to the soulful sounds emanating from a black church in his neighborhood. He won 13 Grammy Awards including those for his engineering of Michael Jackson's Thriller, Bad, and Dangerous albums, and two for Quincy Jones, Back on the Block and Q's Jook Joint.īorn of Scandinavian descent in Minneapolis in 1934, Swedien's father gave him a disc recording machine when he was ten years old. The highly esteemed engineer recorded just about every type of music and worked on numerous movie scores such as Running Scared and The Color Purple. He worked with everyone, from Mick Jagger, Muddy Waters, and Duke Ellington to Barbra Streisand, Donna Summer, Missing Persons, Stan Kenton, and Paul McCartney, among others. All you have to do is listen to Bruce Swedien’s records, and you have something to aim for.Engineer Bruce Swedien's résumé listed such names as Dinah Washington, Michael Jackson (the 30-million-selling Thriller LP, co-writing "Jam" on Dangerous and co-producing the album).
I think that alone is a great learning process. “You’ll get an idea of balance, how an instrument should sound. “Get a bunch of Bruce’s albums and start listening,” he urges. To Schmitt, Swedien’s discography contains invaluable lessons for young engineers today. That’s the right kind of marriage, when you have someone you admire and can make great records with. He didn’t tell him what to make things sound like-that was left up by Quincy to Bruce. “He knew where everything was, and what he was doing. “He was the engineer that had total control,” states Schmitt. Everything was right there, in-your-face, and perfect.”Īccording to Schmitt, Swedien’s sonic mastery started with his studio demeanor.
“When I first heard it, I said, ‘I have to call Bruce!’ It blew me away. “It’s amazing,” Schmitt said of Thriller.
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