*Ten tracks at 86 years old

Joe McQueenTen at 86*and friends

BiographyJoe McQueen has been a professional jazz musician for over seventy years, turning ‘Pro’ at the tender age of sixteen. He was introduced to the saxophone a few years earlier by his cousin, Herschel Evans, who played in Count Basie’s band in the mid -1930s. Born in 1919 in Dallas, Texas, Joe was raised in Ardmore, Oklahoma, where he played tuba and then saxophone in the Ardmore High School band.

Fast forward to 1945, when Joe and his wife, Thelma, were on the road as he was touring in a jazz band. While en-route from Las Vegas, the bandleader gambled away the troupe’s earnings, stranding them in Ogden, Utah. Joe and Thelma decided to stay in Ogden and McQueen reformed the band there. This turned out to be a serendipitous move because just after WWII, Ogden, a major stop on the railroad between San Francisco and Kansas City, had become a hotspot for jazz music. Since settling in Ogden, McQueen has performed there with such jazz luminaries as Charlie Parker, Chet Baker (a fellow Oklahoman), Paul Gonzalez, Lester Young, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie. Joe continued to tour in the region, playing in Idaho Falls with Hoagy Carmichael.

Outside of his musical life, McQueen has worked as a truck mechanic and auto-motive technology instructor at Ogden’s Weber State University. Through 2005 and beyond, Joe continues as a full-time volunteer elder-care worker for human services in Weber County, Utah, where he assists infirmed senior citizens.

At the age of eighty-six, Joe McQueen continues to perform and record in the Ogden area. Recently the subject of a documentary film called “King of O-Town,” Joe was also featured in a July 2005 article by The Associated Press.

IsoMike™ (“Isolated Microphones”) is an experimental acoustic baffle system, to address the interference of intrachannel sounds that results in compromised fidelity. For these 4-channel recordings, the microphones were suspended on four arms, separated by IsoMike™ baffles.

Most baffles absorb sound from mid- to high-range frequencies; lower frequencies are more difficult to absorb. Here, the unique shapes of the IsoMike™ baffles are advantageous. As lower frequencies flow around the heart- or egg-shaped baffles, they are scattered, effectively dissipating their energy.

Eliminating line-of-sight between the microphones seems to lower some fidelity robbing cancellations, this reveals a layer of extreme detail and a sense of increased sensitivity. We took great care, therefore, to reduce the noise level within the auditorium during the recordings.

Recorded Summer 2005 at Weber State University, Ogden Utah

All recordings were made at a low enough level to assure that no clipping occurred, therefore you may need to raise your volume control more than when playing some commercially available CDs where the volume has been “normalized” and/or compressed.

Since there is NO limiting or compression the dynamic range might surprise you.

The microphones were never in a “close––miked” configuration. Except we did try some “spot” microphones on the bass and for Joe’s voice. (Hint: Just keep listening at the end of track 10)

All recordings were made at Weber State University (pronounced weeber), Ogden, Utah, in the Val. A. Browning Center for the Performing Arts, the Austad Auditorium.

www.weber.edu

Equipment Credits

DPA 3529A Sennheiser MKH-800 & HD-650

B.L.U.E “The Bottle” Millennia Media HV-3D custom EMM Labs ADC8 MkIV & DAC8 MkIV

Tascam DV-RA1000 Genex GX9000Pyramix DSD Workstation

Pass Labs X350.5 Lipinski Sound L707 Magnepan 20.1

Grace Design M906 & M902 KIMBER KABLE Select Series

www.dpamicrophones.comwww.sennheiserusa.com

www.bluemic.comwww.mil-media.comwww.emmlabs.com

www.tascam.comwww.genexaudio.comwww.merging.com

www.passlabs.comwww.lipinskisound.comwww.magnepan.com

www.gracedesign.comwww.kimber.com

Engineers — Ray Kimber & Graemme BrownAssistants — Brett Terry & Aaron Hubbard

Special Thanks:Greg ThilmontBrad WheelerMike Palumbo

Luke Larsen

Editing and MasteringGraemme Brown, Zen Mastering

www.zenmastering.net

www.joemcqueen.com

Joe McQueen - SaxEvan Coombs - BassClayton Furch - Piano

Don Keipp - DrumsSkip Musgrave - TrumpetBrad Wheeler - Harmonica