Twelve back-and-forth, personal, argumentative posts deleted. Member suspension issued, as well. Next time somebody mouths off in a thread, please.......JUST hit the REPORT button and let the staff take care of it. Getting into personal back-and-forth with an individual member who posts something snotty never has a good ending. Carry on.
By the way, I transferred that Art Tatum LP to a CD to play in my car, and I listened to it twice through yesterday while driving to Portland. This is the LP, first issued in 1972 by Capitol: There are definitely some tracks that are mastered from "inferior sources," i.e, multiple-generation-down tape dubs or disk transfers. I think they may be from 78s. I didn't count, but I'd guess maybe 6 or 7 cuts have that "alternate sound" style, with increased high-frequency noise on them.
Did they master this more than once? My copy from the late 1970s or early 1980s sounds like it is all from tape. It has yellow labels. I've listened to it many times over the years and it never once occurred to me that it wasn't from tape. Of course, I could be mistaken.
Not really a Tatum fan, so I'll keep it short. I have the 1991 Decca CD Classic Early Solos (1934-1937) which suffers from noise reduction (Sonic Solutions' NoNoise was used), the 1991 7CD-set Complete Pablo Solo Masterpieces (no mastering credits in the booklet) and the Alan Yoshida-mastered JVC/Pablo XRCD Group Masterpieces with Ben Webster. I never listen to them.
The original Pablo sets (12"x 12") have credits in the booklets: Transferred to digital and edited by Danny Kopelson Mastering, Phil De Lancie (Fantasy Studios, Berkeley) The Pablo sets are great to have but there's some fake stereo on there - I wonder where the original masters are? Have any later re-issues used the mono master for "Blues In C", for example? This is the fake stereo as heard on the Pablo Group box: I've heard worse but still - imagine how the original mono master sounds...
I worded things very carefully: "There are definitely some tracks that are mastered from "inferior sources," i.e, multiple-generation-down tape dubs or disk transfers" with "increased high-frequency noise" on some cuts only. They may all be from tape -- I don't know for sure. I'll post a clip. Stand by....
@ShockControl -- I pulled out the LP. Mine has this in the runout: M1 11028 G6 M2 11028 H6 JAY (Side one was cut on the Neumann lathe; side two on the Scully by Jay Maynard. Not that it matters for the discussion at hand!) I'd be very surprised if all copies of this LP, at least domestically, were not all cut in Hollywood from the same 15 IPS running master, so sourcing should be identical, and each cut should be following the same set of mastering notes. Some early USA cuts -- not mine -- could, perhaps, have been cut from a dub of that running master in NYC, but that facility closed not long after this LP appeared. Anyway, here's a rundown of what I'm hearing, and anybody can listen and chime in! I've taken my transfer from a couple of days ago, and just isolated the "fades" at the end of each song. SIDE ONE: The 8 tracks on side one date from July 13 and July 25, 1949. The endings of the eight cuts can be heard in succession here, 43 seconds total: https://app.box.com/s/2jismglblqxdpr8bnigpnm7rkqzgx9k0 My take on those 8 tracks from side one: Tracks 1, 2, 3, and 4 (July 13): Gobs of hiss, and slight whistling sound -- bias oscillation during tape-to-tape copying??? Track 5 (July 13): Very clean -- better source? Track 6 (July 13): More hiss; maybe some whistle to accompany the hiss? Track 7 (July 25): Cleanest of the bunch? Track 8 (July 25): Not much hiss, but the whistle is audible SIDE TWO: NOTE THAT THIS SIDE HAS A LITTLE SHEEN OF "grunt" ON IT'S SURFACE. (It came new that way!) Some of the crackly stuff in the background is likely from that sheen; some *may* be the result of tracks being sourced from disks. I am not sure. The 8 tracks on side two date from July 25, 1949, and September 29, 1949. The endings of the eight cuts can be heard in succession here, 51 seconds total: https://app.box.com/s/vxbzy9f3i71mubtir83yjx3uhu4fnn0g My take on those 8 tracks from side two: Tracks 1, 2 (July 25): Pretty clean, hiss-wise, but with the whistle going again, although it's fainter on track two Tracks 3, 4 (Sept): These sound like there MAY BE disk noise going, i.e., repeated ticks at a faster rate than they would appear from the 33-1/3 RPM LP, but I'm not positive, as there is that "grunt" on this LP side, and it causes some noise, as well. Tracks 5, 6 (Sept): Back to "gobs of hiss and slight whistling sound" similar to the start of side one Track 7 (Sept): Much less hiss Track 8 (Sept): Increased hiss, with whistle Maybe if @MMM or @lukpac are bored, they can have a listen, too.
Hard to say with certainty, and I'm not an expert on that era of recordings (or Tatum), but my money would be on 16" 33 1/3 RPM masters. Perhaps this was the issue? "I was doing a big band series for Time-Life Records in 1984 and we were doing Stan Kenton," Michael Brooks recalled. "Capitol's transfer tapes were horribly distorted, so I wanted to go back and use the original 16" lacquers (fragile acetate first pressings). The lacquers were stored in a room in huge piles, hundreds of them stacked flat on top of another, squashed, the piles so high you'd have to use a ladder. All ruined."
Putting this on the wish list. I've been enjoying Tatum solo of late and this is one I've yet to hear.
After you get all the principal studio masters, this one is for Tatum fans. 10 CDs of rarities plus one short DVD
I'm still waiting for an car company to come out with a special "Model T" edition. That is a car with an audio system with a built in hard drive that comes pre-loaded with the complete recordings of Art Tatum. When you play Tatum as you drive, your fuel mileage goes up by at least 40%, which is odd because you are going faster. The engine derives a significant part of its energy from Tatum's playing.
As Woody Shaw III recently posted on his FB page when linking to Tatum's Yesterdays on YT: "One listen to Art Tatum turns all the narcissism and musical ego centrism that characterizes entertainment and the music business today into one big joke"
Are the masterings similar on the two sets? How about liner notes? Any reason to choose one over the other? I see there's a brief interview recording included on the later set.[/QUOTE] I have the later one with the blue tinted cover. It was mastered by Norberg but in a surprising twist of fate, it is not NR'd to death. Now was any used? Not to my memory but I can take a closer listen. Now there are some interviews in one of the discs and yes NR was used on those.
A great boxed set of his earliest stuff is ART TATUM - Piano Grand Master - Amazon.com Music Samples can be heard at Piano Grand Master (4CD): Amazon.co.uk: Music
My mother saw him on 52nd Street in 1943 This documentary is very worthwhile, though it is "old VHS" video quality
Quick question - this was noted in the Penguin Guide for Jazz, but how come Art Tatum was never recorded that well? Even the Pablo solo recordings can surprisingly be a bit lacking even though they were recorded to tape. No arguing with the performances - the guy was truly phenomenal - but at least he was able to record about 200 numbers with Pablo alone, so the recording quantity does make up for the recording quality.
I'm sure Concord would appreciate a pedantic letter demanding they change those titles across all platforms.
My point was that they were very well recorded for the early 1950s. It is hard to identify solo recordings of piano in that era that were better made.
I have the Buddy De Franco group Pablo record. Incredible stuff. Theres a great story behind the record I read somewhere, how De Franco had flu on the day they did it.
Norman Granz firmly believed that the Tatum sessions were his own life's greatest work as a producer.
at his best, Art Tatum was better than Charlie Parker. It's almost too much music to fit between the ears. Maybe I need to use a pitch control and slow it down, lol.
