Thanks, Walter, I hope you are feeling good and am looking forward to what you come up with. I spent part of the afternoon looking around Youtube and have about 20 or so excerpts. They are on another computer, maybe I'll post a list for your edification? Soon, not now.
Of possible related interest, from the Tony Bennett thread: Tony Bennett:The Complete Albums (post #2223 and preceding) Can anyone confirm that the unreleased 1968 Tony Bennett duet album tracks with Dominic Germano of The Vagabonds were recorded at 30th Street (and not a "synagogue" as reported elsewhere)?
Not sure on the source(s) for this, but this indicates 30th Street: Date: January 15, 1968 Location: CBS 30th Street Studio, New York, NY Tony Bennett (ldr), Torrie Zito (con), Walt Levinsky, Romeo Penque, Sol Schlinger, Joe Soldo, Bobby Tricarico (r), Bert Collins, Al De Risi, Johnny Frosk, Bernie Glow (t), Sy Berger, Urbie Green, Dick Hixson, Fred Zito (tb), Barry Galbraith (g), Milt Hinton (b), John Bunch (p), Corky Hale (hrp), Charles McCraken, Harvey Shapiro, Alan Shulman, Tony Sophos (vc), Sol Gubin (d), Phil Kraus (per), Julius Brand, Fred Buldrini, Max Cahn, Norman Carr, Paul Gershman, Harry Glickman, Mannie Green, Joe Malin, George Ockner, John Pintavalle, Max Polikoff, Matthew Raimondi, Aaron Rosand, Tosha Samoroff, Julius Schachter, Gerald Tarack (vn), Al Brown, Leon Frengut, David Schwartz, Emanuel Vardi (vl), Tony Bennett, Dominic Germano (v) a. CO 92409 The Glory Of Love - 2:42 (Billy Hill) / arr: Torrie Zito CBS 45: 3370 (1968) Columbia 45: 4-44443 (1968) b. CO 92410 I'm Confessin' (That I Love You) (Doc Dougherty, Ellis Reynolds, Allen J. Neiburg) / arr: Torrie Zito c. CO 92411 When It's Sleepy Time Down South (Otis Rene, Clarence Muse, Leon Rene) / arr: Torrie Zito d. CO 92412 Old Folks (Willard Robison, Dedette Hill) / arr: Torrie Zito Date: January 18, 1968 Location: CBS 30th Street Studio, New York, NY Tony Bennett (ldr), Tony Bennett, Dominic Germano (v) a. CO 92413 I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter (Joe Young, Fred E. Ahlert) b. CO 92414 Just A Gigolo (Irving Caesar, Leonello Casucci, Julius Brammer) c. CO 92415 It Don't Mean A Thing (Duke Ellington, Irving Mills) d. CO 92416 Easy Street (Cojane, Carlton) Tony Bennett - 1965-1969 Lots of other session details there as well.
@lukpac: I was actually referring to that Jazz Discography site when I posted the "church" vs. "synagogue" correction. I'm fairly sure it's accurate, but I thought perhaps Dan or others might have official documentation. Thanks.
If you mean this picture, the lady on the left is Susan Johnson, don't know who is on the right. Greetings to you in Chile!
Me estaba refiriendo a la otra chica, creo que es florence handerson? pero muchas gracias de todos modos, saludos.
No, sorry, I don't think that's Florence Henderson. This is Florence Henderson at about the same time as those pictures from Most Happy Fella. Edit: Florence is in Webster Hall for RCA.
While doing research for my presentation, looking for the earliest recording made in 30th St (so far it's still the Mozart Concerto No. 21 in C Major, performed by Robert Casadesus with Charles Munch leading the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, recorded December 20, 1948, although there were mentions maybe ITT or in other places of earlier test recordings) I found an article by Jerry Dubins in the Jan./Feb. 2016 issue of Fanfare magazine, reposted on www.pristineclassical.com by Mark Obert-Thorn Article Wait, Mark is the producer of the reissue and that website sells downloads and limited edition CDs, and the Dubins article is a product review. Regardless, here my selections from the review including that December 1948 session and recording, which were the day after a concert in NYC: "The next two items on these discs—Vincent d’Indy’s Symphony on a French Mountain Air and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21—are studio recordings, both made on December 20, 1948, in New York’s Columbia 30th Street Studios. The pianist on deck was Robert Casadesus... “...The transfers of the commercial recordings were made from American Columbia grey-label ‘six-eyes’ LP pressings, which themselves were dubbed from 33-1/3 rpm lacquer masters, edited together from four-minute long takes in those last days before the introduction of magnetic tape. The broadcast came from a tape dubbing from original acetate discs. "You’d think that the d’Indy Symphony on a French Mountain Air, having been recorded... under studio conditions would have even better sound than the Saint-Saëns (Ed: another piece on the disc), but it doesn’t. In fact, it’s rather poor, with a frequent low rumbling and some fairly pronounced overload distortion in loud passages. I haven’t heard the day-before in-concert version on Lys (Ed: another record label), but I wonder if using it instead of this studio recording might have been preferable. "The Mozart Concerto with Casadesus not only exceeded my expectations, it’s even better, I think, than the pianist’s later remake with Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra. There’s a buoyancy to Munch’s upbeat tempo and rhythmic alertness—listen to how fast Munch takes the finale—that carry Casadesus right along in a reading that sounds more natural, more spontaneous, and happier than does his rather straitlaced performance under Szell. Casadesus provides his own cadenzas, and the sound is terrific." The part about the low rumbling coincides with reports that I've heard about the furnace making noise on recordings done at 30th St, and certainly in December the furnace would have been working hard. The furnace must have been off during the Mozart recording. I thought it was fun to find this. I didn't buy the download, but this Youtube version must be the same one:
It's hard to say for certain without hearing the recording, but if the Mozart concerto is any indication, I question whether any HVAC noise would actually be audible. It seems more likely that any such rumble would have been from one of the disc dubs along the way. I can't imagine that any noise loud enough to be heard over the background noise in the video would have been considered acceptable, even back then.
A) Who knows what that recording really sounds like? It's a Youtube video; it's impossible to know what the bitrate/audio processing/quality is. I'm curious what restoration somebody calling their company "Pristine Classical" would and could do, and how the file compares to the video. That said, rumble could certainly have come in on one dub or another. B) This is among the very earliest recordings in 30th St. The comment I heard was about later recordings either during the later tape era or even digital, from someone who was there. C) You're probably right that there is no correlation between a 1948 recording and furnace rumble, but I don't know when else I would share that info.
Here's part one of the Saint-Saens piece. The end of it has some very quiet parts where it's mostly hiss and mild crackle through headphones, but I feel like there is a low end thing right at the edge of consciousness that could be more audible through speakers with some bass response. The only comment on the video is from someone who said this version had the best soundtrack of any version he's been able to find on Youtube. And in the earlier video post I neglected to mention that I was only posting the third part, out of 3 or 4. There are also more parts to the second of these videos of audio recordings.
Interesting and sad: the wonderful and spectacular "So Long Big Time" video by Tony Bennett and Harold Arlen that is linked on the first page of this thread is no longer on Youtube. That was a really great view of what regularly went on in 30th St. Glad I bought the DVD when I did, but it's still available now for $10 used Amazon.com: Buying Choices: Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Harold Arlen That whole video is pretty good, Arlen had an incredible career and wrote the music for lots of really great songs. Lots of great interviews. Note that the Company video is now $100 new for some reason, and about half for used. However, it can be viewed in one piece at although it looks like it might be from a VHS or something. Better viewing experience of excerpts from the film at BestArtsSondheim Huh, and there was a 1993? reunion of the original cast from the Pennebaker movie, and a home movie was made of the rehearsal. Company, Original Cast in Concert - Rehearsal - Sondheim - Donna McKechnie - Elaine Stritch Still working on my presentation, so not posting, sorry. This is complicated. Stopping the sidetrack, though....
Here's another edit that might have some additional footage, although I haven't closely compared them:
Update: OK, I have mostly finished my presentation for the AES Convention. I have an hour and a half slot, and the first run through of the nearly completed presentation with no audience questions ran 1 hour and 7 minutes. So I think we're good. I've added about a minute's more slides. This one is pictures from the Plaut collection, some from Producer Steve Epstein, some from Don Hunstein, and a few from elsewhere, along with a couple of animations of pictures, a movie excerpt, and some musical excerpts, along with text slides. My wife liked it and thought it was informative. The first presentation is one week from today, free to anyone who can make it to Seattle (Redmond). PNW Section Meeting Notice The presentation (which I intend to fine-tune after hearing reactions from next week) at the NYC AES Convention is Saturday October 22 from 10:45am-12:15pm. You need to have the Papers badge to get in, which is a full Convention pass price.
[The above is Doug's new reply, inserted into the middle of my earlier quote.] With regard to the possible date ("late late 1975 or early 1976"): Note that Sinatra recorded only singles in 1975–76, and almost all of those sessions were on the west coast. The only exception was a "voice overdubbing session" in NYC, August 18, 1975, for the song "The Saddest Thing of All" (ork recorded in Hollywood, August 4, 1975). His last album releases before Trilogy in 1980 were Some Nice Things I've Missed and The Main Event (Live from Madison Square Garden) in 1974.
Hi Everyone, Good info, Doug, and thanks for adding that to our knowledge base. I'll have to look later to see if I can tell when it was. Last Friday I went to a memorial for Don Hunstein at the Cotton Club in NYC. MMM and another fellow who I don't know is a forums contributor were also there, and we had a nice visit. Much of the "memorial" component was a photo presentation that Tom in the Sony archives had prepared a few years ago for our first Friends of 30th St meeting where we gave an award to Don. Because of this thread and our identifications of performers and producers, it seemed like I was the only one who knew who was in a lot of the pictures (the non-obvious ones like Simon & Garfunkel or Bob Dylan), and people were curious who this was that was shouting out the ID's. It was cool because a number of them have been posted in this thread, including the My Fair Lady one that has Robert Coote, Julie Andrews, and Rex Harrison. Later I introduced myself to the group and mentioned the F030St, and talked with a number of interesting people, including the fellow who did all Don's printing. He gave me a card and I look forward to talking with him about Don's photos. There are unquestionably more than are commonly seen, and it would be great if somehow this leads to access to the kind of pictures that are fascinating to people who read this thread but are totally boring to everyone else. Earlier in this thread someone posted who had been Don's assistant for a number of years, and I was disappointed that he wasn't there. I was looking forward to meeting him and hearing about how Don worked. If you are reading, please share some stories with us! Tomorrow is the first public showing of the AES presentation (see a few posts above). I will surely be relying on luck to get through, but will practice tonight anyway. I know MLutthans can't make it but hope that someone else from this thread comes, or someone who reads it. Tomorrow, Seattle (Redmond), next month, the world (New York)!
Hello again, Tonight was the presentation, and I have to say that it went pretty well. The audience stayed quite focused to the end, and the fact that there actually was an audience was quite gratifying. There were lots of questions and comments, including a bunch from a guy who had done a lot of repair and rebuilding of Ampex consoles, which were most welcome but pushed the length to almost two hours. I need to cut a bunch and will be working on that. There were quite a few people who had been to our meetings with Frank Laico, so they were quite aware of the studio but of course didn't have as much detail as is now known. Their comments really made me feel good, which was nice. My only regret is how much I'm neglecting this thread, but I don't think there's a help for that. There will be a beneficial result later, I hope. Thanks to Lukpac and all who helped with the prep. Oh, and there were several people whose schedules precluded their presence. Since it's going to require some major redoing to get down to size, I'm going to have to figure out a way to give it again to an audience so see both how the revised version goes over and if the timing fits. If I don't know you already and you live around Seattle, let me know if you want to come see it and I'll let you know when and where. Now to go back to my post-event reverie of subdued excitement.
Congrats Dan. Good luck at the AES convention in October. I wasn’t going to go this year but this might just give me a reason to go? Unfortunately I see you need the paper badge. This would really be the only thing I’d go for.
Believe me, if I can figure out a way to give it somewhere else I will. Somewhere you can attend for free. Working on something, nothing firm yet. If anyone has any firm possibilities please let me know. It really felt good to share what I've been doing for so long. 9 years so far, off and on. The thing is, this thread is SO much more complete than my presentation (although there are things in it that won't be in here in the foreseeable future), and I have to cut it more.
At the presentation the other night, eminent audio scientist James D. Johnston pointed out that the audio for this video of Glenn Gould doing the last session at 30th St with a redo of the Goldberg Variations Lousy Audio 1981 Goldberg Variations is pretty lame with lots of wow and flutter that is not due to being on Youtube. I showed it because that was the only one on the first page of search results on Youtube for "Glenn Gould 1981 Goldberg". When looking for a better version I found this more complete version, the first segment of which ends at the beginning of the wowy one. Best 1981 Goldberg Variations That is such a lengthy video, with lots of elements (not in this order): pre-interview in the control room by a French host, Glenn listening and talking (sometimes to "Marty", presumably the tape operator, asking him to go to a specific spot on the tape) while a man who is presumably the producer (Sam Carter, whose son -IIRC- came to this thread to tell us that was his dad who produced that session) sits in front of the console, giving us a great view of the faders (which I confess I didn't recognize at first from the lousy pictures we have of it). But then there is a view of the console (last shot in this video, first in the wowy one) which then goes through the control room window to zoom in on Glenn. And that is for sure 30th St. I knew that the final session was 3 hours, and I kept thinking, "How did they fit all this into 3 hours?" The answer is that they didn't, and it took a bit of looking around to find out how they did it. First, Marty Greenblatt was likely the tape operator, and I know his name because of putting together the names video and getting all those studio names from the Friends of 30th St who were there. So that fits. Then I found this video: L' Art de la Fugue which is sort of a Master Class of Glenn talking with the same French host as the other video, about the evolution or creation of Bach Fugues. And this one goes for almost an hour, so there's no way they did that all in the same day. I thought maybe they were in the same clothes as the Goldberg, which kept me looking, but they weren't. Still, Looking up that video found that it was part of a series, still available, from Clasart Productions Three Gould Videos Looking in my collected information, there were several sessions with Clasart Films in 30th St, starting on Tuesday, May 12, 1981, as follows: ----May 12: 9am-Midnight ----May 13: 4pm-Midnight ----May 14: 4pm-Midnight Additionally, there was one more session with Sam Carter as the producer on ----May 15: 6pm-Midnight Then no Gould sessions until the last one on May 29. It's interesting to me that the previously-mentioned Steve Epstein and the Juilliard String Quartet sessions were also on all those days except the first and last, but early in the morning while Gould went late. Edit: Huh, the last few lines were cut from the response: Anybody have the video? The box set of all three is very expensive, single DVD of the 1981 costs more than I would view it, so Youtube satisfies that need. If you have it, does the booklet -if there is one- describe its genesis?
The possibility has arisen of doing the presentation in a place called Suffern NY. Is that someplace you could get to? A person that I sort of know from another forum apparently has a pub and restaurant there, and it seems to have routine train service from Penn Station via Secaucus on New Jersey Transit. I think it would be great if the two forums could have people getting together. I'd like to meet you and others from this forum who are in the area. I think it would have to happen either the Sunday before or the Sunday after the convention, so the 15th or the 22nd. What do you think? Everyone is welcome to chime in... Again, it's a possibility and not a done deal, but I think it sounds like fun.
