Greetings friends, I hope you are well!
Imagine with me for a moment that Blue Note Records set up a special concert event at Jazz Alley in Seattle featuring a premier jazz artist. The concert would be recorded directly to 2-track tape in real time, in front of the live audience, by Blue Note's crack team of on-location recording engineers.
Tickets to the event would be made available to interested audiophiles for a once-in-a-lifetime experience of attending the concert/recording sessions, and oh, by the way, a nice dinner would be included, and the eventual LPs that would be released from the event would be available to purchase.
How much would a ticket to attend that event be worth to you: $500, $1000, or $1500, to be part of an event that would go down in audiophile history? Then whenever you wanted, you could put the LP from that event on your turntable and relive the experience. I think that would be fun and a pretty cool thing to be part of. Historic even.
The Paul Sawtelle Big Band Live at the Pacific Audio Fest in 2022 and 2023.
That's pretty much what happened when attendees at the Pacific Audio Fest in 2022 and 2023 were treated to special concert events where enthusiastic groups of audiophiles got to listen to up-close and personal live concerts by The Paul Sawtelle Big Band as they were being recorded directly to 2-track tape, while enjoying dinner.
The record albums from those concerts/recording sessions were released in 2025 as ultra-premium one-step 180 gram 45rpm two-LP sets titled The Paul Sawtelle Big Band Live at the Pacific Audiofest.
Oh, by the way, that remarkable experience was made available for free to attendees at the Pacific Audio Fest as sponsored by the team of Gary Koh (Genesis Advanced Technologies), Swiss phonograph cartridge manufacturer Hyper Analogue Production, and record label Brilliance Music and Studios. So, a huge "Thank you!" to all of them for sponsoring those incredible events. Historic!
Gary Koh (left), Bernie Grundman (right)
Doc David here at Positive Feedback alerted me when the recording was released as a premium 2-LP set, and asked me if I'd like to write about it for Positive Feedback. "Yes indeed!" I told David, as I was there for the recordings of these rather historic events, and I was keen to hear how The Paul Sawtelle Big Band Live at the Pacific Audiofest album turned out.
The first thing I wanted to do was ask Gary Koh a few questions as to how this rather amazing event came about, how they did the recording, and how they decided to issue The Paul Sawtelle Big Band Live at the Pacific Audiofest album.
As you'll read in a moment, it's really quite the interesting story, and I'm rather pleased to share Gary's story with you.
Gary Koh on The Paul Sawtelle Big Band Live at the Pacific Audiofest album
"The album was never something that we planned on doing, and we kind of fell headlong into it."
"When Lou Hinkley asked me to support his efforts to put on the first major local show, I responded enthusiastically. I wanted audiophiles to hear for themselves what a real big band could do, and hired Paul Sawtelle to bring his Kings of Swing."
"Unfortunately, the band had broken up during the pandemic. And you know musicians—they can't be happy unless they are playing. So, with putting a band together, the reunion after a long break, the joy of playing together again, and an appreciative audience, the band knocked it out of the ballpark."
"Here's the backstory: When Paul married his wife Jaci (the graphic artist for the album), she knew he was a musician but had never heard him play. One day, cleaning out a cupboard, she found his horns. Being an artist too, she knew that to be really happy, he had to find a band to play with. He started playing with a community band that a player with Kings of Swing was in, and was soon invited to become a sub for the Kings in 1989."
Paramount Theater in Seattle. Public domain image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
"Paul was playing with the Kings of Swing when they performed at the Paramount Theater in Seattle for a Bill Clinton fundraiser. He met President Clinton and has a hat that says that he's part of the Bill Clinton saxophone club given to each of the sax players (President Clinton is a saxophone player)."
President Bill Clinton plays the saxophone with jazz musicians. Public domain image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
"How Paul started playing the sax: He had been hired as the keyboard player for his first rock band, but when he got there, they had already filled that position. In typical Paul form, he didn't take no for an answer and asked if they needed any other players. They said they needed a saxophone player. Paul said, "I can do that." He went home, got his sister's sax, asked his clarinet teacher to write out some fingerings, and learned how to play the sax over the weekend (sax and clarinet are very similar) and auditioned and got the job."
"During one of the band rehearsals before the Pacific Audio Fest show, I told the band that they should bring their CDs to the show to sell just in case anyone in the audience would be interested. When they told me that they didn't have any CDs to sell, I told them that I would find someone to record them so that at least the band members would have their music to show off to their friends."
"I figured that my friend Ki Choi (whom we call the "tape maven") would have a tape recorder, and another friend Phillip Chance (who is one of the founders and principals of the Seattle Wind Symphony) would have suitable microphones and could be the recording engineer since he recorded most of the CDs of the SWS."
"Ki had access to all sorts of tape machines imaginable, and during the Pacific Audio Fest, we even had brought along the legendary Studer C37."
"However, during our discussions, we decided that we would use the same recording set-up as the one used for the famous Jazz at the Pawnshop, and keeping things as simple as possible with a spaced pair of microphones and recorded directly to tape on a Nagra IVs."
"This photo shows the recording set-up. There are other mics in place, but they are all for the live sound system for the audience. The recording microphones (a spaced pair of TLM 50s set up high) are set behind the PA speakers. The vocal mic is mixed in on the Nagra VI and a 2-channel analog feed sent to the Nagra IVs. Both machines were run off batteries."
"This is what it takes to record and mix live directly to tape. The recording engineer (Phillip Chance) "rides gain" throughout the music to optimally record the sound. Turning the gain down a split second before the fortissimo gets too loud, and turning up the gain if a pianissimo is too quiet. There is no going back to "fix the mix"."
"The second year, the recording team got pushed back because people complained that they wanted more "good seats." We added two full rows of seats right in front of the band. Nevertheless, additional bodies damped the room better and we all thought that we got better sound the second year."
"Here's a picture of the original JATP recording master that I carried back from Sweden to Seattle for Mr. Winston Ma to work on for his First Impressions Music project, which provided the inspiration."
"During the recording session, many of our local friends came up to ask for a copy of the tape. When we listened to the tape, we thought that the recording was good enough that we should get it mastered."
"What really got us to seriously think of publishing an album was that during the mastering session, Bernie Grundman remarked that there were so few big bands anymore and that he really enjoyed what we had done. With Bernie bopping along, I decided there and then that we had to publish."
"To keep things among friends and family, we hired Paul's wife Jaci to design the artwork and jacket as we figured that she would not only have the expertise, but would also add the love and consideration for the history of the music."
Jeff's Impressions - I Loved it!
Ok, I hope my lead-in title didn't give it all away too soon, but yeah, I loved this album and the whole experience associated with it!
When I got The Paul Sawtelle Big Band Live at Pacific Audiofest album in my hands, I was very impressed by the high quality of the album jacket and the superb inner booklet it contains.
The inner booklet is particularly remarkable in that it's the equal of any fine coffee table book. The booklet uses heavy, premium paper, superb photographs, and extensive documentation about how the album came to be, how it was recorded, and brief essays about the history of each song on the album. There's a brief bio of Paul Sawtelle, and the band members are identified for each year of the recordings, as they varied a bit between 2022 and 2023.
The stage plot showing where each member of the band was located during the performances is a nice touch and is sure to please us audiophiles.
The two record albums are also remarkable in themselves: The performances were recorded and mixed direct to two-track tape, then mastered by Bernie Grundman, and then manufactured as one-step vinyl pressings on two 45rpm 180 gram LPs.
One-step vinyl pressings are the premium way to press record albums. By eliminating multiple steps in the traditional pressing process, one-step vinyl records have higher sound quality and clarity, noise is minimized, and the musical details are maximized.
I listened to The Paul Sawtelle Big Band Live at Pacific Audiofest with my primary music listening audio system, which at the moment consists of a full suite of Audio Note (UK) components that are here visiting: the Io I moving-coil phonograph cartridge mounted on the Schick tonearm on my CTC Garrard 301 turntable, the AN-S8/L step-up transformer, the M8 RIAA phono preamp, the Tomei 211 SET integrated amplifier, an all-silver Audio Note (UK) cable loom connecting the components, and my trusty Tannoy Westminster Royal SE loudspeakers with Duelund CAST silver/copper crossovers providing the sound output.
Let's do a little listening, shall we?
On album one, side one, Glenn Miller's Grammy Hall of Fame, "In the Mood," was first up (A1), and is a classic example of big band swing music.
All of us appreciative listeners were getting into the vibrant feel of "In the Mood" at the concert, with its upbeat tempo and lively rhythm, and I felt like getting up and dancing to the tune. I didn't. The luxury of having the LP is that I can dance a little jig if I want to when listening at home. I did.
The sax solos by Alex Worland (tenor) and Dr. Chris White (alto) were superb. Actually, the whole big band's performance was superb, and the recording really captured that feeling of drive, power, and forward momentum of a big band.
Along with the rest of the audience cheering the performance, I did manage to get in a "woo hoo" at the end of the song that was captured on tape. I smile every time I hear it. Good times.
Track A3 on record one is "Big Spender," which was composed for the Broadway musical Sweet Charity in 1966 and would go on to become a favorite big band swing tune.
The song was set to the beat of a striptease to thrill us listeners and admirers, and boy, did Bethany Wilson ever deliver! Bethany "popped our corks" with the drama that she infused into the lyrics.
Lots of feeling, lots of dynamic swing, great sound quality, lots of big band power, and just wow—I was there at PAF again!
The live mix with the instruments and vocals was perfect, the recording team really nailed it, and I could feel the thrill!
All you "big spenders" reading this should get out there and get a copy of this album before they are all gone; there are only 3000 total pressings.
Let's flip the record over to B1 and give "Too Darn Hot" a listen. Bethany Wilson and the big band gave us even more "hotness" on "Too Darn Hot."
One of the things about listening to big band performances that is so impressive is the visceral impact they have on us listeners. The power and dynamics of a big band running at full tilt are thrilling. You can feel the power on your body, the dynamics get the pulse going, and all my fight-or-flight signals are going "Yeah baby! Bring it on!"
Gary Koh is a big band fan. So am I, and I think you will be too if you add this album to your music library.
Gary Koh, Ki Choi, and Phillip Chance really aced this recording. The sound quality is superb, it is tonally natural, amazingly dynamic, with lots of visceral presence and power, and of course the musicians knocked it out of the ballpark with their performances. Want to know what it was like to be there for the performance? Easy, just get the album.
One more example, Cole Porter's 1936 composition of "I've Got You Under My Skin," featuring Jeff "Frank Sinatra" Carter on vocals.
Man, Jeff was awesome on "I've Got You Under My Skin," and boy, the power of the big band playing right in front of me in my living room had me thrilled and spellbound.
"I've Got You Under My Skin" thrilled my audiophile genes with the excellent music, and the recording is so good, it filled my living room from wall to wall, with all the aural images of the big band vividly displayed before me. A real treat.
I could go on and tell you how blown away I was with the music, the thrill of the audience response, being there for recordings, and the incredible quality of the recordings on the rest of the album, but I won't, because I want you to experience it first hand.
There's a reason Myles B. Astor gave a 2025 Positive Feedback Writers' Choice Award to The Paul Sawtelle Big Band Live at Pacific Audiofest.
The Paul Sawtelle Big Band Live at Pacific Audiofest is a terrific album, and I truly enjoyed the experience of being there for the musical performances and the recordings, it was history in the making.
A huge "Thank you!" to Gary Kow for making this all happen. You did an amazing album here, Gary, and you provided an amazing experience for all of us at the Pacific Audio Fest. Your album is destined to become an audiophile classic!
Gary Koh (left), Bernie Grundman (right)
Dear reader, you should go straight out to Elusive Disc and get your own copy of the album HERE.
It's a bit on the spendy side at $200, but given the premium nature of the album, recorded & mixed live direct to two-track tape, mastered by Bernie Grundman, the one-step vinyl pressings on two 45rpm 180g LPs, the beautiful packaging and premium booklet of liner notes, its exclusivity of being limited to only 3000 copies, it is worth every penny and is not to be missed. Get one before they're gone.
I hope you were among the lucky ones that were able to attend the Pacific Audio Fests in 2022, 2023, and 2024, and that you have the upcoming 2026 Pacific Audio Fest marked on your calendar for September 11-13, 2026.
I'll see you there. When you see Gary Koh in his Genesis room, be sure to thank him for all he's done. And who knows, maybe Gary will have another surprise waiting for us at the Pacific Audio Fest in 2026—don't miss it!
As always, thanks for stopping by Positive Feedback to read this article, and may the tone be with you!
