Concert stage layout -- who made who?

Given recording techniques at the time that I saw when I was young and that you can see in pictures in some of the record jackets (for example, check the LA4's Pavanne album), the recording was made in a studio, and the soundstage you hear is in all likelihood artificial. Usually there were acoustical screens (not so high as to prevent them from seeing and hearing each other) between the musicians in the studio, with the drummer generally in the back (I usually have Joe Morello's drums toward the left in my system, on at least Take Five) and the others set up as they preferred to perform the music for the recording. Each instrument was individually miked on its own track, and the screens were intended to keep the sounds of one instrument from getting through to the tracks of the other instruments. Their final placement in the soundstage on the record was really in the hands of the producer, therefore. I would also say that for rock especially and jazz, except in the case of purist recording companies such as Chesky or live recordings, today's soundstage for those genres is the same, in the hands of the producer--hell, many rock albums have tracks cut individually and blended on the console/computer, rather than the whole band performing together.

I agree with Sean, there's an awful lot of panning of drumsets across the whole soundstage on a lot of recordings. More impact, I guess. I think Rockvirgo's explanation for this phenomenon is the most convincing I've heard!

Hell, one of my favorite "panning" tricks was in the original Blind Faith album, where Clapton's and Winwood's guitar solos in the middle of "Had to Cry Today" started in opposite channels, panned to be together in the middle and then crisscrossed and wound up in the other channel (and you will NOT hear this effect in the MFSL CD of it, to their discredit!). To do that in concert you'd have to lift and move a couple of huge banks of amplifiers, not an easy trick!

Eldartford, I think Sean was trying to describe the arrangement of amps for a live concert, not a recording. I think you're right in that what a lot of small ensemble jazz recording producers are trying to do is to bring the ensemble into your living room, rather than give you an illusion of the recording space, and it can be effective if done right.