(Answered by Dale Monzon)
There have been references to a couple of the biggest differences that I believe are the biggest contributors to the quality of the music.
In the 60s and 70s bands got together a lot to practice and play. Hours were spent on working on the music, playing together. Once you had enough songs you might play a small bar or club. Local clubs had open nights where several bands would each play a 30–45 minute sets. This was not paid, you just did it for the experience and exposure. Hopefully you’d win a few new fans, they would show up at your next gig with their friends and you would build a fan base. Once you got popular enough to draw a crowd you might start getting paid. In the meantime your band got tons of experience and time to work on performance quality.
The second part of this is that recording techniques were completely different. In the early 60s they were basically live performances where the whole band went in and played the music as a group. This evolved into single tracking where each player went into the booth individually – the drummer would record, then the bass player laid down his track, etc. The first studio album I did was done this way. Everybody had to know how the music fit together and sounded in live performance to put this together.
Flash forward to today. I just did some recording a couple months ago. Everything is now digital cut-and-paste. The song writer has constructed a synthesized version of his song – no interaction for the bass player to invent their part, as the sax player I’m not creating the music going on the album the way I’d naturally play it. Studio time was devoted to recording a couple short phrases which will be modified and edited on the computer. Non of the musicians have played this as a live composition or even with other performers in the room. Live performing is rare for this group. If we ever do play a public gig we will have to learn the music off of the recording. There is nothing organic or interactive about recording music this way, no soul or feeling to it.
Every Moment Has A Song 