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| Tom Dowd and Director Mark Moormann against a New York City skyline in September 1997. |
This fascinating film documents Dowd?s career through the golden years of jazz, R&B and rock. He worked with luminaries of every era, including John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers Band. Several of them sat for interviews with filmmaker Mark Moormann, as did members of Dowd?s family and Dowd himself prior to his death in 2002 at the age of 77.
The film?s appeal goes well beyond the nuts and bolts of recording, although there?s plenty of that for those who are interested. It chronicles Dowd?s role in some of the most significant scientific and cultural developments of the last century. Lauded by critics following its premiere at Sundance 2003, Tom Dowd and The Language of Music was also screened at SXSW 2003 and the Toronto International Film Festival 2003. In addition, it was nominated for a 2005 Grammy Award for Best Long Form Video. After a limited theatrical release, it was issued late last year on DVD.
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| DVD cover |
A math and science prodigy, 16-year-old Dowd enrolled at Columbia University in 1942, but was soon pulled away by the Army to work on the Manhattan Project (because he was still pre-draft age, he says). When he turned 18, he was drafted, put through basic training and assigned right back to the same physics lab at Columbia University to continue his work. In a wistful scene, Dowd returns to the Pupin Laboratory at Columbia for the first time in 51 years, discovering that it's hardly changed since he was last there.
The wartime chapter of Dowd?s life came to a close in 1946, after he led a team of monitors during atomic test blasts on the Bikini Atoll. He had expected to return to Columbia to get a degree in nuclear physics, but providence intervened when he was unable to get college credit for the top secret work he had been doing. Frustrated at the prospect of four years of undergraduate physics courses that were elementary stuff to him at that point, he left physics behind.
In hindsight, Dowd?s technological talent and interest in music were a natural background for a recording engineer. A trained musician who played piano, bass, trombone and tuba, he took a summer job at a studio during an extremely busy period when all the labels were trying to complete projects before a musician?s strike started. After the strike was over, he never looked back. The first hit he engineered was ?If I Knew You Were Coming, I'd Have Baked A Cake? by Eileen Barton in 1949 for the National label. After freelancing for several more years, Dowd became the staff engineer at Atlantic Records in 1954.
These were not only the pre-stereo days, they were pre-tape. When Dowd started out, recordings were being cut direct to 78 RPM discs. In a fascinating interview with Atlantic founder Ahmet Ertegun, he describes how Dowd had to talk him into using the new medium of tape. Ertegun consented, but only on the condition that a disc cutter had to be used as a backup. As a result of its early conversion to tape, Atlantic was able to record simultaneously to stereo and mono, building up a library of stereo recordings before stereo discs had been invented. Later on, the company was able to issue true stereophonic LPs at a time when many competitors had to resort to simulated stereo.
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| Film crew with legendary guitarist Les Paul, center. Left to right, Assistant Cameraman Andres Sanchez, Director of Photography Patrick Longman, Les Paul, Director Mark Moormann, Soundman Dean Gudmundson and Production Associate Keith Shantz |
Dowd?s technical and musical skills were put to good use in countless ways during his career. He describes how the 60?s supergroup Cream was having a difficult time with one of their songs in the studio. During a break, he suggested a new ?Indian-style? tom-tom beat, and the song ?Sunshine of Your Love? suddenly came together. The late Ray Charles says in another interview that among the things he learned from Dowd was an understanding of EQ. ?What does it mean, 400 cycles? What does 1,200 cycles sound like? What does 5,000 cycles actually sound like? How do you get there? Should you use this, or what is your voice range? Stuff like that. This is back in the early 60s, ?60 or ?61.?
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