Marble Falls music producer Bob Linder tries again for Grammy win

DANIEL CLIFTON • PICAYUNE EDITOR

MARBLE FALLS — As the saying goes, “The third time’s the charm.” For music producer Bob Linder, it could mean a Grammy in his future.

“We’ve been nominated for both the previous CDs, but we didn’t win,” Linder said with a grin. “It’s always better to win.”

On June 24, Tierra Studios of Houston released its third CD in the Texas Jazz Masters series, Gary Weldon’s “Every Day Ain’t Friday.” Linder, a Marble Falls resident, produced all three CDs.

The first two CDs in the series, Larry Slezak’s “No Worries” and Thomas Hulten’s “Slide Side,” earned Grammy nominations for various parts. In 2010, Linder earned a Grammy nomination as Producer of the Year for his work on “Slide Side.”

Linder, who has a long musical history, including conducting symphonies and working on television shows, found himself wearing a producer’s hat several years ago after the owner of Tierra Studios approached him about putting together the jazz series. Up until that point, Linder had done many things in the music business, but producing wasn’t among them.

“In this business,” Linder said, “you never say ‘no.’”

So with the studio owner’s blessing and backing, Linder went to work.

Producing, Linder explained, basically makes him responsible for the entire package, including selecting the soloists, hiring the musicians, determining which tracks to use and even wrapping the CDs. Well, maybe not wrapping the CDs themselves, but pretty close to it.

Though Linder spent many years of his career with symphonies and more classical styles, he ventured off into jazz a few times. During those times, he built up relationships with jazz musicians. So when he began putting together the three-CD series that celebrates Houston-style jazz, Linder reached out to those in the business.

While bands and musical groups spend lots of time performing and rehearsing together, jazz soloists don’t always work with the same musicians every time. So as Linder built groups of musicians around Weldon or the other two jazz musicians, he had to make sure they had the time to work together before actually recording tracks.

“It takes about a year to produce an album like this one,” Linder said in reference to Weldon’s “Every Day Ain’t Friday.” “These musicians may know each other or even performed together at one time, but it’s not something they do regularly. So there’s a lot of rehearsing.”

The musicians, both the soloist and in the orchestra, perform each selection. As producer, Linder must fuse together the best performances from each musician. So if the lead soloist puts in a strong performance on the second try, but the trumpet player has a better sound during the fourth cut and the pianist fingers sound more lively during the third run-through, Linder and the sound engineer, Glenn Wheeler, in this case, must pull those together.

“Even after doing all these takes and picking the best ones, the bass player may be too soft, so we have to go in and bring that up,” Linder said.

It’s about getting the listener to hear what he or she needs to hear, he explained.

With the new CD out, Linder said the studio will make an application to the Grammy Awards.

“It’s only an application,” he said. “They still have to like what you did enough to nominate it. It’s really out of our hands. We have our fingers crossed that we will get a nomination.”

Go to www.tierrastudios.com to hear a piece of “Every Day Ain’t Friday.”

daniel@thepicayune.com