THE MAN AT THE OTHER END OF THE MICROPHONE.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

GIVEN THAT Tom Dowd recorded and produced some of the greatest artists in the history of music - we're talking prime stuff from John Coltrane, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Monk and Mingus - AND smashed atoms on the Manhattan Project, you could turn on a camera and let the guy talk for 90 minutes and you'd have a pretty interesting documentary.

And that's pretty much the approach Mark Moormann took with ``Tom Dowd & the Language of Music,'' a movie that overcomes a somewhat superficial approach and patchwork assembly through the sheer force of its subject. And the music ain't bad, either.

There's no shortage of people willing to speak to Dowd's expertise in the recording studio. Moormann interviews Clapton, Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler, members of the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd and, most touchingly, the late great Ray Charles, who warmly embraces Dowd in an on-camera reunion, calling the man who recorded all his great Atlantic sides ``The Guy.'' (Dowd himself died in October 2002, shortly before the film premiered at Sundance.)

Clapton, meanwhile, says Dowd was ``like a father.'' Fellow producer Phil Ramone calls Dowd ``the most positive person you'll ever meet.'' Obviously, Dowd had a lot of friends, and he's a great raconteur, ready, willing and able to explain - in language anyone can understand - how he changed the way music was made, taking the studio from single-microphone recording to refining Les Paul's groundbreaking eight-track console.

Equally important was Dowd's ear and the ease with which he communicated his ideas to musicians, people he genuinely respected and, in some cases, loved. The film's one piece of period footage is priceless, showing an animated Dowd in the studio with Franklin, honing her sound on ``Ain't No Way,'' a classic from her late-'60s Atlantic heyday. It's too bad Moormann couldn't find more archival footage.

The film rather haphazardly deals with Dowd's days working on the Manhattan Project, but there's never an attempt to make a connection between what was obviously a fertile scientific mind and a career spent recording and producing music. There's brief mention of a wife and family but little sense of what Dowd was like outside the studio. But then, maybe Dowd and music were inextricable. He certainly left behind a finger-poppin' legacy that few people can match.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

TOM DOWD & THE LANGUAGE OF MUSIC - Three stars

(Not rated: no objectionable content)

Director: Mark Moormann.

Running time: 1 hr. 28 min.

Playing: Laemmle's Fairfax 3 in Los Angeles.

In a nutshell: Documentary about a groundbreaking music producer and engineer is light on insight but succeeds on the sheer force of its subject. And the music ain't bad, either.