A day on the world’s biggest tiny stage: how a Tiny Desk concert is recorded | Culture

The world’s largest small stage is in a glass building in a gentrifying Washington neighborhood. It is set up three or four times a week around noon, behind what was once host Bob Boilen’s desk in the newsroom. from American public radio, NPRBoilen, who retired in October, came up with the idea for the series Tiny Desk Concerts after the frustrating experience of attending a concert interrupted by other people’s conversations. That improvised and intimate format has become a true global sensation, a date with live music that is followed by up to 120 million people. The videos are first broadcast on the station’s website and, within a few days, are uploaded to YouTube, where they receive around 45 million views per month.

Last April, Catalan singer-songwriter Sílvia Pérez Cruz conquered what has been an iconic place for contemporary music for years. She played four songs, one of them unreleased. Due to logistical issues inherent to an office, these concerts are not open to the public, so there were about 20 people present, including the team that organize the Tiny Desk (producers, technicians and cameras), a few radio workers who, alerted by loudspeaker, came down to see who was playing that day at work and a few guests of the artist.

“The stage is imposing, so bare, fragile and intimate,” said Pérez Cruz in the improvised dressing room in a small meeting room after the recital, which was broadcast in early July. “It is also intimidating to have the possibility of reaching so many people. In these times, it is appreciated that there is a format that defends quality live music, which stands on its own without the aid of artifice. Performing here provokes contradictory sensations: a mix between the strength you need to overcome the test and the fragility with which you expose yourself.”

Before the singer and her two musicians, cellist Marta Roma and bassist Bori Albero, arrived, Suraya Mohamed, executive producer of NPR Music, had explained the rules of the Tiny Desk, which literally translates as “tiny table”: “We suggest that the formation be small, although we are flexible in that respect, as demonstrated by the fact that the marching band Gotta be Mucca Pazza would put 23 musicians behind the table. And the concerts, about 20 minutes long and with the least amplification possible, must always be in our offices.” They have only made one (and not just any) exception: that day in 2016 when the White House called and asked them to organize a concert by the rapper Common, when Barack Obama was still president.

The pandemic broke the rules of the Tiny Deskwhich temporarily allowed for a new format: the concert recorded by the musicians themselves and sent to NPR. As soon as they were able, they returned to the original spirit. The confinement also meant, Mohamed explains, an explosion in the popularity of the concert series. “So much so that when our special correspondents went to cover the beginning of the war in Ukraine, they told us that if they introduced themselves as NPR journalists, no one knew what media outlet they were from, but if they said they worked ‘in Ukraine’, they would be able to do it. the Tiny Desk radio station“Everyone wanted to talk,” he says.

Another rule is that artists must come on their own. Although nothing prevents bands, who perform for free, from paying for their own travel to the capital, most of the time it comes about because the musicians play in the city, as was the case with Pérez Cruz, who that week took to the most solemn stage in Washington, the Kennedy Center auditorium, with a special program with the American jazz band Snarky Puppy and the singers Silvana Estrada, Gaby Moreno and Fuensanta. “Doing it at midday is very convenient for them. They don’t have to get up early. And when they finish playing they still have time for the sound check,” Mohamed adds.

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NPR is a listener-funded radio station with a (shrinking) network of stations across the country. It is primarily devoted to news, but it has always been known for its commitment to music. Part of that commitment is what led Boilen and fellow radio host Mark Thompson to the South by Southwest festival in 2008, held annually at venues throughout Austin. They were curious to see folk singer Laura Gibson perform live, but the crowds at the bar where she was playing made that impossible, so they suggested that she pay them a visit to the newsroom when she was in Washington. Gibson took them up on their offer within a few weeks.

“When she came to us, we were like, ‘Why not record it? ’” recalls Mohamed, who has been on NPR’s music desk for more than three decades and was promoted to executive producer seven months ago. “Then it was like, ‘What if we put it on our website? ’ There wasn’t much of that on the Internet back then.”

Seen today, the style of that recording is austere, with more and shorter shots. The setting has also changed, and not just because the radio station moved into Washington; Boilen’s shelves, which at the time contained a few CDs and books, have been filled in these 16 years with hundreds of objects that musicians leave as a memento of their time there: from CDs dedicated to Funko dolls, cans of IPA beer, a deck of tarot cards, a reggaeton singer’s underwear or a pair of socks from the Washington 9:30 room. Pérez Cruz left a hairbrush.

The series has already accumulated some 1,100 names, with real milestones such as visits from Coldplay, Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa, Olivia Rodrigo and Karol G, or the 2015 concert by rapper T-Pain, which, according to Mohamed, marked “a before and after”. On the one hand, because listening to the “king of autotune” without embellishments made many reconsider his worth. “Also, from then on, we diversified the offer a lot, and little by little we opened up to all kinds of styles,” he adds. That is another of the great things about the Tiny Desk: it is aimed at lovers of music without surnames, and they program a rock star (Phish), a soprano (Lise Davidsen), jazz greats (Gary Bartz) or soul (Chaka Khan), a Brazilian legend (Milton Nascimento) or an electronic musician (Fred Again).

The job of choosing is shared among 11 producers, more or less specialized by genre, although they are not rigid in their compartments. The team spends the day researching which bands deserve to occupy the Tiny Desk stage. Sometimes they seek them out; other times, it is the artists who are interested in participating. The selection is made with the same genuine interest in the big names as in the fresh performers, and they pride themselves on the fact that they have never rushed to make room for anyone. They also often joke that only “Paul (McCartney), Ringo (Starr), Beyoncé and Jesus Christ” are left to play.

Another feature of the series – and, by extension, of NPR – is the great attention they have paid to Latin American music for years, to which they even dedicate a special issue, between September and October, during Hispanic Heritage Month. The person largely responsible for conquering this space is Félix Contreras, host of the podcast since 2010. Alt.Latin and one more among the ten selectors of the Tiny Desk. In a conversation with EL PAÍS he established the success of Slowlyby Luis Fonsi, in 2017, as the big Bang of the surrender of the United States at the feet of the “Latin diaspora.”

“There were many important names and moments before, of course: Tito Puente, Machito, Marlon Brando playing the bongos, Carlos Santana, José Feliciano, Gloria Estefan… but they were isolated cases, they did not generate a change in culture,” explains the expert. This time it is different, he believes, thanks to the Internet: “Before, when you went to a record store, everything was categorized: rap, jazz, rock… Now on Spotify that doesn’t exist. You listen to music, you … trapwhich may be in Spanish, but that doesn’t mean they separate it out and put it in the Latin music bucket,” explains Contreras.

This dissolution of borders has also helped the Spanish presence, which has grown at the Tiny Desk thanks, in part, to the work of Anamaria Sayre, a young Californian of Mexican descent who arrived a few years ago as an intern. “I think it is a very interesting country because of its connection with Latin America, and because at the same time it belongs to Europe. Also, I think there are very good producers,” she said that day in April in the editorial office.

The first concert he worked on was that of C. Tangana. One of those pandemic exceptions, it was recorded around a festive table in Madrid, and contributed to the popularization of the format in Spain, a country that is in the top 10 of the places where videos get the most views. In the last year, the Tiny Desk has hosted the performances of five Spanish artists: in addition to Pérez Cruz, Omar Montes, Nathy Peluso, María José Llergo and the Catalan duo Tarta Relena have performed. Before that, the guests, from Diego el Cigala to Paco Peña or Antonio Lizana, had mainly come from flamenco. Still pending is the visit of Rosalía and, in the field of Latin music, that of Bad Bunny.

When Pérez Cruz’s concert was over, Sayre gave her a brief interview in which he highlighted the singer’s condition of “an old soul, full of wisdom,” while the technicians packed up and began the post-production process of the recorded material, a job that usually takes about two weeks before the video is published. Pérez Cruz explained that she felt “like she was on an altar.” Later, already in the dressing room, she said that the experience had made her think about “what makes places become special places.” “In reality, it is a corner in an office, but it is not just any corner, but one where many people have come to give their best,” she clarified, about a sum of voices that has contributed to the largest small stage in the world being behind the table of a glass building in Washington.