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One of the most significant innovations in recorded music took place a century ago in New York City. On Feb. 25, 1925, Art Gillham, a musician known as \u201cthe Whispering Pianist\u201d for his gentle croon, entered Columbia Phonograph Company\u2019s studio to test out a newly installed electrical system. Its totem was positioned in front of him, level with his mouth: a microphone.<\/p>\n
This was the moment when the record industry went electric. By the end of the year, a writer for the Washington, D.C. newspaper the Evening Star marveled<\/a> at \u201cthe capitulation of the world\u2019s leading musical artists to the power of the microphone.\u201d (Hollywood\u2019s sound revolution with \u201ctalkies\u201d wasn\u2019t far behind.) Today, a performer\u2019s microphone technique can help define their sound. Yet no plaque marks the spot where Gillham made history with the first commercially released electrical recording.<\/p>\n Archivists at the oldest label in the world, now owned by Sony Music, cannot confirm the studio\u2019s exact location. The best guess <\/strong>is a site now occupied by the Rose Theater, the Jazz at Lincoln Center venue in Midtown Manhattan where Columbia\u2019s offices once stood. The current building, a vast glass complex in Columbus Circle, is also home to the recording studio for Jazz at Lincoln Center\u2019s in-house label, Blue Engine Records.<\/p>\n Todd Whitelock, an award-winning engineer who runs the studio, called the advent of the microphone the most important technological development in recorded music. \u201cIt\u2019s got to be the top of the pyramid,\u201d he said in an interview from his home studio in Cranford, N.J.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, and the period until 1925 is known as the acoustical era. A conical recording horn would capture the music being performed; sound waves caused a stylus to cut grooves into a rotating wax disc, marking it with audio information.<\/p>\n Whitelock collects antique 78 rpm records, which he plays on a windup Victrola phonograph. \u201cAcoustical recordings are magnificent, but there\u2019s no dynamic range,\u201d he said. \u201cIt all stays at the same volume. Be it pianissimo or mezzo piano or forte, it\u2019s all one dynamic.\u201d<\/p>\n