Is it difficult to switch between producing jazz, blues and classical?
It’s not. I switch many times during a day. For classical, the planning phase is a lot longer because you’re dealing with orchestra schedules that are planned two to three years in advance. I know I’m going to be recording Mahler #3 in London at the end of January. But between now and January, there could be six new jazz projects that we plan and execute. That’s a big difference, and when we got into jazz, the lead times became a lot shorter. So the looser the musical structure, the shorter the lead time. With an opera, there might a 120-page booklet you have to put together besides the three-CD opera set. In jazz, you might call up and say, “I’ve got this great band playing at the Blue Note. Do you want to come record it?” That’s pretty much how it went down for the first Oscar Peterson record in 1990. That happened in a week. You’d really have to move heaven and Earth to do that for classical music.
