The last two years have made the world smaller, remarkably smaller. The technology to record remotely has matured to the point where remote records are nearly indistinguishable from those where the musicians met up in studio, a process that has always included far more overdubs and edits than anyone cared to admit. Paired with the low cost of producing professional quality recordings from home for release online, and the free time brought by shutdowns, we have entered a golden age of small jazz projects made to fulfil only the curiosity of the participants. Musicians who in the past might meet once a year at festivals have been jamming together online, forming bonds, and encouraging each other to pursue ideas for recordings that might never have been made in the before times.
While it was always the case that certain worthy project came to fruition without any hope of profitability, they usually required a sponsor of some kind. The resource hurdles for such labors of love have been lowered, and it is to the benefit of us the initiated. You just need to know were to look for them.
My latest discovery of this type pairs two musicians in America with three in the UK. Together they record four compositions from the jazz age that never found their way to shellac. Trombonist David Sager helped Michael McQuaid uncover the copyright lead sheets from the Library of Congress. McQuaid, who
