Not interesting only to you; I've been wondering about aspects of that film, too. I think it's entirely reasonable to assume that anything that's seen in a movie is not an absolute representation of the reality that was occurring at that given moment. Even in a documentary, things can be staged for more easy viewer understanding rather than an exact reflection of "how to". Here is a picture of Glenn Gould in the studio, from the Plaut Collection: No idea of the date of this, but what is immediately striking is how the piano and Glenn are closed in tight with baffles; there are a few more in the collection taken from the inside, and it looks like he's in a little room with no top. (It's possible that the baffles are only around him, maybe to control his "singing"? The pics don't show the far end of the piano.) Contrast that with what we see in the film, where the only baffles are up against the wall in the distance, basically out of the acoustic space. No view of the microphone(s), so is this just a little quiet space created for him to rehearse, or is it the actual recording scenario? No idea of the answer. Another interesting (to me) aspect of the film: when he gets out of the cab and walks to the studio, it's a very high angle shot looking down at him (actually, the end of that shot is my avatar). Since the camera would have had to be in the street to get that angle, how did they do it? If you look slowly at it when he exits the cab and walks to the curb, you can see the back tail of a flatbed truck. It's not too wild, I don't think, to imagine that they rented/borrowed a flatbed, parked it at the curb, took one of the many ladders that were in the studio and set it up in the truck, and had the cab pull up and let Glenn out while the cameraman was on top of the ladder. Here are a few more from the Plaut Collection of the movie shoot: This damaged pic is inside the control room, with the console and damage on the left, GG with his back to us sitting back with his feet up at the producers desk, Howard Scott facing us, and two cameras visible, one to the left of the damage and one pointing at GG. There's an interesting looking mic on a very short stand sitting on top of the pile of gear to the right of the console, just this side of the (cameraman?). Is that what they used for sound pickup? Here's another version of that same shot, but with Howard next to the camera for his verbal interaction with GG. That's Bob Waller on the right with his face in the lens flare, and the milk for the tea is on the left. Here's a poignant one of GG's special chair, the piano, the rug, and the clapboard with info Did they tape up the chair for this shoot? It looks like the same tape that's in the booth pics showing wires taped to the wall. Finally, here's a nice pic of GG in the studio, with a red mark on his face from Fred's pen that blotched over onto this contact sheet These pictures of the contact sheets are really looking through the glass darkly at a time long ago in a place that no longer exists. I hope their crappy quality gives you that feeling, too. Again, these pictures are from MSS 52, The Frederick and Rose Plaut Papers in the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library of Yale University. I'll do one more in another post, since this is the limit of five.
Finally for this look at "On The Record", here is a picture of one of the room attendants: Don't know his name, or if that's really the job title. He's visible briefly in the movie, sitting on a table or something with his hands at his side on the table. I don't think it's been pointed out, but the control man's job at the studio was limited to operating the console. If he wanted to fine tune the placement of the mics, I think that was OK, but putting the mics out, coiling the cables, putting the monitor speaker in the right location, etc., were done by someone else. And rigidly so, by strict union rules. In one of the "On The Record" shots you can barely see someone who we don't know flinging out a mic cable over near the piano. And the piano, risers, baffles, etc. had to be moved into place, probably by someone other than the audio people. I think that this fellow might be one of those folks, and their time must have been spent in brief bursts of doing things followed by much sitting around waiting for someone to need something moved. There is another photo of him somewhere, showing either this session or another one, where he is placing the piano or the rug or something, which is why I think he was not an audio guy. I have a few pics of union activity at the studio, but we'll get into that another time.
Very cool. I would have to assume the baffles in the first shot were for recording. I couldn't figure out why they would be necessary for just recording piano, but these may provide an answer: LP Title: Bach: Concerto No. 1 in D minor BWV 1052 & Beethoven: Concerto No.2 in B flat Major Op.19 LP: ML 5211 [no Labelcopy in GAS] Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 19 USSM10028981 Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) (Recording: Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York City, USA, April 9-11, 1957; Mono Producer Howard H. Scott Conductor Leonard Bernstein Piano Glenn Gould Performer Columbia Symphony Orchestra Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, BWV 1052 USSM15700939 Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) (Recording: Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York City, USA, April 11 & 30 1957 Producer Howard H. Scott Conductor Leonard Bernstein Piano Glenn Gould Performer Columbia Symphony Orchestra LP title: Beethoven: Concerto No. 1 in C Major for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 15 // Bach: Concerto No. 5 in F Minor For Piano and Orchestra LP: ML5298 [no Labelcopy in GAS] / MS6017 Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra in C Major, Op. 15 USSM15801197 Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) (Recording: Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York City, USA, April 29 & 30; July 1, 1958 Cadenza Glenn Gould Producer Howard H. Scott Conductor Vladimir Golschmann Piano Glenn Gould Performer Columbia Symphony Orchestra Concerto No. 5 for Piano and Orchestra in F Minor, BWV 1056 USSM15801200 Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) (Recording: Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York City, USA, May 1, 1958 Producer Howard H. Scott Conductor Vladimir Golschmann Piano Glenn Gould Performer Columbia Symphony Orchestra Violin Charles Libove The baffles would have been useful in reducing bleed from the orchestra. Are there any shots from around that time that suggest an orchestra? Yes, that mic was for the film crew. One can also be seen next to Gould during the recording (?) of the second movement: As noted above, it's mysteriously not there in the shots immediately before and after the take, from the control room. Oh, you can see it here too: Possibly an AKG D12 in a suspension mount, but I'm not certain. I'm not sure about that. In the Company film, Fred Plaut is seen plugging in a mic cable. It isn't clear who did the initial setup, but clearly he was doing more than just fine tuning things.
This thread is insanely great — just loving it. Sorry to jump into the midst of this fascinating flow of Glenn Gould-related stuff, but I thought I'd mention that I've just ordered the wildly acclaimed new Analogue Productions 200-gram mono vinyl reissue of the 1951 LP Masterpieces by Ellington, recorded on December 19, 1950 at the 30th Street studio, and I enjoyed the following historical description of the technology that made it possible for Ellington to record long arrangements for the first time, and for it to be reproduced in true high fidelity that still sounds amazing today. From the Acoustic Sounds website: The four selections contained here catapulted the Maestro Ellington into the LP era, as the great composer/arranger/pianist and his matchless orchestra took full advantage of the possibilities afforded by magnetic tape recording and the still-new 33 1/3 RPM LP to, for the first time, capture uncut concert arrangements of their signature songs. This album wouldn't have been possible without a chain of events starting at the end of World War II. Recorded in December 1950, just five years after Germany fell to the Allies, revealing the Germans' advances in magnetic tape recording, Ellington's master work holds its wonder still today and the recording quality hands-down betters the sound of many modern-day albums. 1944-45: Magnetic tape for sound recording spread to America after an American soldier, Jack Mullin, serving with the U.S. Army Signal Corps in the final months of WW II, received two suitcased-sized AEG 'Magnetophon' high-fidelity recorders and 50 reels of Farben recording tape that had fallen into American hands via the capture of a German radio station at Bad Nauheim. German engineers had perfected the technique of using Alternating Current bias — the addition of an inaudible high-fequency signal (from 40 to 150kHz) — to improve the sound quality of most audio recordings by reducing distortion and noise. 1947: Mullin became an American pioneer in the field of magnetic tape sound recording, after working to modify and improve the machines. He gave two demonstrations of the recorders at Radio Center in Hollywood in October 1947. A later demonstration for singer/entertainer Bing Crosby led to the use of magnetic tape for recording Crosby's radio programs. Crosby became the first star to use tape to pre-record radio broadcasts. 1948: Crosby invested $50,000 in local electronics firm, Ampex, and the tiny six-man concern soon became the world leader in the development of tape recording. Ampex revolutionized the radio and recording industry with its famous Model 200 tape deck, developed directly from Mullin's modified Magnetophones. Units marked serial No. 1 and 2 were delivered in April 1948 in time to record and edit the 27th Bing Crosby show of the 1947-48 season. A 200A at the time retailed for $4,000 — nearly as much as a standard single-family home. Crosby gave one of the first production tape decks to musician Les Paul, which led to Paul's invention of multitrack recording. The first production model 200A recorders are delivered to ABC and placed in service across the country. This marked the first widespread professional use of magnetic tape recording. Working with Mullin, Ampex rapidly developed 2-track stereo and then 3-track recorders. Mullin and Ampex developed a working monochrome videotape recorder by 1956. Here's where it gets really interesting, as The Duke and history made matchless audiophile magic. It took Columbia Records until December 1950 — two years into the LP era, and the transition from disc to magnetic tape recording, to get Duke Ellington and his orchestra into the recording studio to cut a long-playing record. June 1948: Vinyl LPs had taken over as the standard for pressing records by the 1940s; in 1948 Columbia Records introduced its 12-inch Microgroove LP or Long Play record, which could hold at least 20 minutes per side. The first classical long-playing record, and the first 12" LP of any kind— catalog no. Columbia Masterworks Set ML 4001— was Mendelssohn's Concerto in E Minor for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 64, played by violinist Nathan Milstein with the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of New York, conducted by Bruno Walter. December 19, 1950. Masterpieces by Ellington recorded at Columbia's 30th Street Studio. Released in 1951. Recording engineers Fred Plaut and Harold Chapman. Recorded on an Ampex 200, using 3M-111 magnetic tape running at 15 inches per second. (3M-111 tape was also introduced in 1948, the year the Model 200 debuted).
Cool info, and glad you're enjoying the thread. Thanks for the info and dating about the Ellington recording, I'll add it to my list. Sounds like you'll have a good time listening to it. I have a Jack Mullin story that is completely off-topic, but since he's in the conversation now, I'll tell it: At an Audio Engineering Society Convention in New York in the early 90's (91 or 93) or maybe in 1989, Jack had a booth set up where you could talk to him about Ampex and his history or whatever, and he had examples of the early recorders. When my friend Gary and I came by, he was playing an original Bing Crosby master recording from the '40s on a very early unit, and he told us that it was full track and that the tape had the iron particles impregnated throughout it rather than being on only one side like more modern tape. Since I have an odd-working brain as repeatedly demonstrated in other off-topic ways, I asked him if that meant that you could also play the back of the tape and it would sound the same as the front? He thought for a second, smiled, and said something like "I don't know, let's try it". Whereupon he stopped it, opened the little door thing or whatever he had to do to get at the tape at the tape head, grabbed the tape and put a twist into it so that now the back of the tape was contacting the tape head, but it was still right-way-round at the reels. He closed the door or whatever he had to do to get it ready to play, and pushed the play button. It played for about a half second when something grabbed and the tape at the play head immediately shredded and flew into the air and the feeder reel started unspooling on the floor or flipping backwards while the takeup reel accelerated with the flap of tape flapping around. He reached over and stopped it and said something like "I didn't expect that", while I was both horrified and terrified that I'd caused irreparable damage to this priceless orginal master tape. I was speechlessly immobile as he reached over, tore off what was left of the damaged section (I think that's what he did, somehow there was a 6" or so long chunk that he tossed aside), and nonchalantly wrapped the tape from the feed reel around the take-up reel like you do and started it playing again. I'm sure we talked a little about what happened, but I just wanted to get away from the havoc I'd caused before Security got there and threw me out or worse for being a troublemaker. Gary asked Jack if he could have the shredded tape, and he said sure. We couldn't leave there too quickly as far as I was concerned, which was too bad because he seemed like a very nice man who was more than happy to share his knowledge and experience with at least one numbskull who had been happy to listen up to that point. Since then, Gary has had that chunk of tape framed behind glass in his office at a major university's School of Music, along with the story of how it came to be there. I get to see it every once in a while and have my blood run down to my feet for a few seconds, remembering.
Yes, there are two series that show an orchestra, but only with Bernstein conducting. Here is another view of the baffle series showing that there was not a continuous wall around him. (That's a table in the background through the opening.) In fact, as I look this over more closely, the baffle pictures are part of a sequence that ends with the pictures of Gordon Parks taking the picture(s) of Gould on the stool that was in the early 1956 issue of LIFE, so it seems likely that this sequence with the baffles was then, too. Although, I'll remind you that just because my pictures are in sequence doesn't mean that they were in sequence on the contact sheets. I only took pictures of what I was interested in, not everything, so by necessity and definition my pictures skip through time/contact sheets. Or they could be continuous, I don't know. Certainly this run of shots shows Gould at a very young age... Almost painfully young, even. Here are three representatives from the Bernstein sessions Based on Bernstein's sweater in the first two, I'm going to guess that this was an early April session, and the short sleeve shirt was a later April one (from your timeline, the choice with Bernstein is April 9, 11, or 30, 1957). The conundrum of these pictures in this post is: If the baffle pictures are part of a sequence that includes the pictures in the March 12, 1956 issue of LIFE magazine, when were they taken? Your earlier comprehensive post of Glenn Gould recording sessions in 30th St. shows: The Goldberg Variations ML 5060 Recorded June 10, 14 & 16, 1955 Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 30-32 ML 5130 Recorded June 20, 21, 25-29, 1956 with nothing in between. The two possibilities seem to be: 1) Those pictures are at the original Goldberg Variations sessions, or 2) Those pictures were taken for publicity purposes and did not involve an actual recording session. If #1 is true, why did LIFE sit on them for 9 months? If #2 is true, why go to the trouble with the baffles and not just record him in the open room? That would look better. I guess there could be a #3: There was another recording session during that gap after the Goldbergs became a big hit and before March 1956. Anybody have any ideas? Again, all the pics in this post are from MSS 52, The Frederick and Rose Plaut Papers in the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library of Yale University. PS: Regarding Fred plugging in a microphone cable in "Company": movie magic. PPS: Weren't these the sessions with Bernstein that resulted in LB telling an audience that he completely disagreed with GG's interpretation of the piece, which set tongues wagging for decades to this day?
I don't have any answers as to when that session may have been, and the additional photos with Gould right in front of a small ensemble without any sort of baffle call into question whether the shots with the baffles were for the purpose of isolation from an orchestra. However, I can add something regarding the gap in sessions... Based on the photos, we know that the Goldberg sessions in 6/55 would have had the polycylindrical diffusers on the walls, as seen in the Oh, Kay! session from 12/55. And that by the 6/56 sessions the diffusers were down and the curtains were up around the control room, as seen in the The Most Happy Fella session from 5/56. However: That's after the polycylindrical diffusers were removed, but before the curtains were added, similar to My Fair Lady on 3/25/56. Thus, it was taken in early 1956, meaning Gould had to have been in the studio more than the previous dates indicate. My guess is it was for a session, and not just promo purposes, but I can't say for certain. Again, that doesn't answer the exact date of the other photos in question, but it does put Gould at the studio between 6/55 and 6/56. Also, I did check the original document to make sure I didn't miss any other 1955 or 1956 dates. I didn't. One more note: the clock is hanging below the control room window. It was above the window by the time of My Fair Lady, so presumably this was very soon after the modifications had been made. I suppose we're still looking at a ~2 month period, however. For what it's worth, here's the spread in Life. Also: I happened to pull out Don's book this morning, and this photo was in it. The caption reads "Auditioning pianos at 30th Street Studios, April 1957." You really think so, Dan? From what I know/understand about D. A. Pennebaker, his goal was to document, not create. I'd be pretty surprised if he set up a shot of Plaut plugging in cables, especially if it wouldn't have been Plaut really doing it. Even *if* there had been a staged shot of some sort (which seems unlikely to me considering the hectic circumstances that day), I would think it would have been similar to the Gould film, with Plaut tweaking the position of a mic or something.
All I'm using to justify the assertion about the union limitations on control men is a statement to me by someone who worked at 30th St for a couple years (some years after the time period we are talking about now) in which he strongly said how much he hated the union guys hassling him when he tried to do anything like set up his own mics. Other than that, I have no evidence. Nice information integration on dating that LIFE spread, and with looking through Don's book again and applying what we've found here to that. As we learn more we can read more into what we already knew. Good job! As you always do...
I have to wonder if it varied depending on the time period and the specific staff. I get the sense that some of the guys really hated the union setup, while others didn't have a problem it. Perhaps the person you talked to butted heads with someone who was very pro-union, while maybe Plaut got along with "those guys" better or something. Kind of like how Bob Johnston apparently didn't like Fred Plaut: "The old studios on 52nd Street were a big complex with tons of staff engineers. I walked in on the first day, and there was a German engineer in the studio waiting for me, and he said, “Vot are ve vorking on today?” I told him it was Bob Dylan, and he said, “Do ve haff to?” And I said, “Hell, no,” and got another engineer. [That turned out to be Mike Figlio, who also recorded Tony Bennett's “I Left My Heart In San Francisco,” and who would follow Johnston down to Columbia Nashville a few years later.]" http://www.mixonline.com/news/profiles/bob-johnston/365163 Why Plaut would have been at 799 Seventh Ave - or in a position to record Dylan - is unclear to me. I wasn't even looking for anything in particular in Don's book this morning, but I happened to notice that photo and remembered we had discussed the timing. It's too bad there isn't some sort of companion website to go with the book. There has to be enough material to fill dozens of books.
A tangent of a tangent, but... I really questioned why Plaut would have been at 799 Seventh Ave to record Dylan, especially since Roy Halee (or "Hallie" as some notes have him) had been recording Dylan since June 1964. That said, Halee apparently *didn't* record the first session with Bob Johnston...Frank Laico did: Studio A Columbia Recording Studio New York City, New York July 29, 1965, 10 am - 1 pm, and 2:30-5:30 pm Produced by Bob Johnston. Engineers: Laico and Dauria (1st session) and Laico and Brosnan. (The Mike Figlio note in the MIX article seems to be a mixup, as it was Figlio who *mixed* I Left My Heart In San Francisco, while Laico recorded it). So...maybe Plaut *was* dismissed, and Laico took his place? Frank also recorded a couple of overdub sessions for Dylan in 1965, both at Studio A. To tie it all back to 30th Street, however, there's this: 20th Street Studio Columbia Recording Studio New York City, New York December 8, 1964, 7-10 pm Produced by Tom Wilson. Engineers: Hallie and Brosnan. I'm going to assume "20th Street" is a typo for 30th Street. Interesting that 30th Street was chosen for folk-rock overdubs! Unless it was possibly Studio D? Do we have any idea how long that was in place? http://www.punkhart.com/dylan/sessions-1.html
Probably for the same reason Frank Laico was in a position to record Dylan one day and did the "Positively 4th St." song among other partial things. And hated it. (Edit: You beat me to it, with credits and everything! Cool that you found it.) My understanding was that all of the control men worked at all CBS studios, and it was just where they were assigned that day and who was available that determined who did what, unless there was a specific client/producer request for a particular engineer. Also, when the regular engineer was busy with something else or sick or off that day, somebody else had to fill in. Frank did some Glenn Gould sessions, too, although no credits that I'm aware of. Since we are still talking about unions, might as well post what I've got about that now. Apparently around 1967/68 there was a dispute between the union the control men were in and another union, and CBS was caught between them and sued, or something like that. There were actual picket lines, and the above pics are at least some of the picketers, and Fred joined them at least once. So that may be an answer to your question about how he got along with unions. This case decided it in favor of CBS and against the control men, IIRC. That stuff sticks in my head even less than exotic microphone model #'s though, so you can go to Justia US Law, which seems to be an archive, and read about it yourself. Again, all pics but the last one from MSS 52, The Frederick and Rose Plaut Papers in the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library of Yale University.
Yeah, I'm assuming that Roy Halee must have been sick or something when Bob Johnston started, which then led to Plaut and then Laico getting called into service. Thanks for the strike info. Here's some of the documentation, the first from 12/3/68, the second from 9/3/69: http://leagle.com/decision/19681693...AD. SYS. v. AMERICAN RECORDING & BROAD. ASS'N http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/414/1326/84539/ FYI, it would appear the actual strike (or one of them, anyway) was around the spring of 1969. From the April 26, 1969 issue of Billboard: Col. Engineers in Nashville Honor Pickets; 12 Cuts Off NASHVILLE - A "matter of honor" refusal by Columbia engineers here to cross picket lines cost a dozen scheduled sessions the first two days, and threatened to cause cancellation of another 24 before the week's end. Members of Columbia's International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, in accordance with a term of their contract, refused to set up a one-man picket line established by a representative of American Recording and Broadcasting Association (ARBA) which is striking Columbia in New York. ARBA was formed when the New York Columbia engineers became disenchanted with IBEW and formed their independent union. They struck Columbia Wednesday, April 9. The picket came here after consultation with IBEW members, flew from New York and began walking in front of the Columbia studios at the time of the morning shift. There were indications this might be for some time. The picket said he, and others who would follow him, planned to stay until the strike was settled in New York. "This is the only way we can force Columbia to negotiate," he said. Compounding the problem is the fact that Columbia cuts off all its custom pressing to outsiders as of May 1. Sessions canceled at this time cannot be rescheduled because of a full agenda between now and that time.
Got it (regarding the LIFE photos): When Gould was signed to Columbia Records in 1955 his first disc was of Bach’s Goldberg Variations [Naxos 8.111247]. He chose next to record Beethoven’s last three Piano Sonatas [Naxos 8.111299], then more Bach in the form of Partitas Nos. 5 and 6. Gould’s fourth released disc was his first concerto disc which coupled Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat, Op. 19, [Naxos 8.111341] with Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052, heard here. The term ‘Columbia Symphony Orchestra’ was a nom de disque used for contractual reasons when an orchestra could not appear under its own name. In this recording it is almost certainly constituted of players from the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. The recording was made at Columbia’s 30th Street studio in New York City at two sessions in April 1957 and was already being reviewed by the redoubtable critic of The New York Times Harold Schonberg in December. ‘The results are beautiful…Mr Gould can play with considerable dash, and he does when necessary; but the overall impression is one of well balanced plasticity, of piano merging with orchestra and veering out again, of fine ensemble and musical finesse.’ Three months later Gould returned to the Columbia studios to continue with the recording of Bach’s last two Partitas, in G major and E minor. He had begun to record these works in February 1956 as the follow up project to his initial disc of the Goldberg Variations. However, Gould was unsatisfied with these recordings, and a period of four consecutive days in the summer of 1957 was set aside to produce the recordings heard here. The G major Partita was a favourite work of Gould who had played it since 1951, and while he played the Partita No. 6 in E minor less in public he was unusually satisfied with his recording of it declaring it ‘A good recording. No party tricks.’ As usual, the opinion of the critics was divided on Gould’s recording of the Partitas. Howard Klein in The New York Times was harsh on Gould and felt that, ‘while Mr Gould’s work is often dazzling, the musical results are far from happy. The short-sighted desire for immediate effects—all the tinkerings with phrases and voices and attacks—makes confections of the agonising E minor Partita. Instead of insight, there is self-indulgence.’ On the contrary, in a far more perceptive review Robert Sabin thought that when listening to Gould, ‘The keyboard, the instrument melt away and we are confronted with the naked imagination and sensitivity of a genius…in his recording of the Bach Partitas I bow without hesitation to the magical delicacy, contrapuntal mastery, and exquisite taste and insight of his playing.’ Many critics raised the tired argument of whether Bach’s keyboard works should be played on the piano or harpsichord, but Sabin reviewed the recording from a pianistic point of view and did not even mention the harpsichord. He perceived Gould’s strong points—‘It is not the majesty or force that Mr Gould emphasises in the Partitas, but rather their wit, their fancy, their poetry and consummate design and detail.’ Most importantly, Sabin made clear how essential Gould’s understanding of structure is in performing these works as well as the ‘incomparable range and variety of his touch.’ http://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurb...iletype=About this Recording&language=English
Google has the Gordon Parks photos from LIFE along with several outtakes: https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/u/0/browse/glenn gould?hl=en I haven't yet seen if there's a way to save or directly link to the images, but at the very least you can view them in high resolution, much higher than I've seen elsewhere. I wouldn't say there are any revelations regarding 30th Street, but there are several shots of inside the studio not seen in the original spread.
Brilliant!! I had no idea there was such a thing as Google Cultural Institute, and I've never seen this pics in such high resolution!! My favorite, of course, is the one (sadly, only one) of the Control Men's Lounge, and I'm disappointed that some of the pinups seem to be from magazines, BUT there are a lot that are 8 x 10 glossies or larger, so maybe they are Fred's work? There is one shot of Gould on the carpet in landscape where you can see the spaced patches for the firring strips from the departed diffusors, and clearly see where some ceiling is white and some is dark, with a fairly precise line between the two. What was the original? Oh, and this ceiling shot reminds me of something I saw in the Masterworks pics that is unique, but I have to find it first. This is a wonderful find, and you amaze me! Nice work!!!!!!!!
OK, here is the picture I was thinking of: This is December 11, 1960, and shows Richard Burton and Robert Goulet playing cards during a break in the Camelot session. As you can see, it's a unique view, looking South (towards 30th St.) parallel almost to the face of the old control room. The unusual thing is that giant arch near the ceiling whose lower half disappears behind the curtains. Why is there a giant arch there? Looking back at the front of the building, the arch is too low to be the Rose Window near the peak of the building. If it's one of the arches for the three larger windows in the middle of the building, why does the arch carry through from outside to inside? There's offices or rooms behind those windows in the front of the building, or so I thought. Since the new control room has depth to it and is embedded in the wall, with that interior studio wall going to the ceiling as shown in other interior pictures, why is there a visible arch here, 20' or so from the street wall? When I found that pic, I thought it was unique, but in trying to find it just now I found another picture from the April 9, 1961 The Happiest Girl in the World session showing the same arch: Mysteries. PS Here are the pics from the previous post. The ones at the Google site are higher resolution: Control Man Lounge Wall/ceiling
These aren't close to full resolution, but I was able to direct link to somewhat larger images: I can't directly explain the arch, but presumably it was just part of the internal design of the building, similar to the arches closer to the ceiling seen in lots of shots. There's what appears to be an identical arch directly across from the one you note, as well as one to the left of it (the latter seen in the Richard Burton photo in your post). BTW, there's a (smallish) color shot of the front of the building in Don's book. It's similar to the one we usually we (and in your post), but at the moment I don't recall if it's the same shot or not. A few more from the LIFE photo shoot: Can anyone make out what's on the score? Even when looking at the full resolution version I couldn't. The shot we often see in front of the control room. Nice shot of Plaut and Gould in the control room.
One thought I had...could Frank's "don't touch it" story be referring to Goddard Lieberson, rather than Mitch Miller? He was certainly around when the studio opened, and other than a gap from 1971 to 1973 (the details of which I'm not clear about), he was around until 1975. Clearly there were major changes in the studio over that time frame, so the "it wasn't touched at all" portion of Frank's story can't be taken at face value, but it's possible that there were changes made after Lieberson retired, which caused the issues Frank described. Photos from the last decade of the studio seem somewhat hard to come by, but it appears that in 1974 for Over Here! the studio looked fairly similar to how it had for the past several years. It's not a good shot, but you can just barely see that the old control room is still present through the crack in the baffles: Unfortunately there really isn't anything in terms of wide shots from the shows after that on the Masterworks site for comparison. But we know that at some point before the studio closed the old control room was removed, and the studio *seems* to have a more "cleaned up" appearance, such as in this undated photo (one of the few where it is clear the old control room has been removed): Perhaps the old control room was removed and other changes made after Lieberson retired? Seems more plausible to me than anything having to do with Mitch Miller, but I suppose we're grasping at straws at this point. Unrelated to all of that, but still interesting, is this shot of West Side Story, which isn't on the Masterworks site: Interesting to me because: - It's a very wide shot. - You can clearly see how the orchestra is arranged. - You can see the area of the studio where the new control room would later be located, to the left of the heating duct on the left side. All of those seem to be rare in the photos we've seen. The same site also has this photo of Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Goddard Lieberson in April 1964, recording Hamlet: Nice view directly in front of the new control room. And finally, these shots of Miles Davis, in front of the old control room, apparently during the recording of Kind of Blue in the spring of 1959.
Not sure, but this suggests until the building was sold in 1946: "In 1944 there was consummated a merger with the nearby Madison Square Church House, affiliated with the First Church, and the name was changed to the Adams-Parkhurst Memorial Church. In 1946, the church building at 207 E. 30th Street was sold, and he work combined at 432 Third Avenue." http://thehistorybox.com/ny_city/ny...s_churches_presbyterian_pt_I_article00542.htm
Luke, once again you've outdone yourself. Not only did you determine precisely when the building sold (but to who?), you hit above on another conundrum, the "don't touch it" story. I, too, have been wondering what role the A&R director would be having in long-term capitol acquisitions and maintenance. And certainly there were major changes to the studio while Mitch was still in his role. As you've pointed out, in January 1949 there are no diffusers on the front of the control room for "Kiss Me Kate", but they are definitely there by December 1949 for "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes". They are there continuously until December of 1955 for "Oh Kay!", then gone by March 25, 1956 for the "My Fair Lady" session, and construction is actually underway before and after that session. When that bit of construction is done but the work is not "finished", they decided to leave the paint/plaster patches as is for the next 4 or 5 years. Why would they leave it so sloppy looking unless they agreed it sounded great and anything more finishing might make it sound less great? In my imagination I see Mitch making the grand suggestion to leave it alone, and Goddard, who was by then not only on the CBS Board of Directors (since 1948) but became President of the company in June 1956 and spent lots of time in the studio and could directly hear the improvement in the sound of the room, going along with it and directing his underlings to keep it so. Frank just made it a simpler decision and story, most likely. And 50 years later. While that would be nice, I'm not persuaded that we're seeing the old control room in that gap. If you expand it and bring up the shadows we see Starting at the bottom, I see an expanse of floor, a person walking from right to left in 3/4 rear view in front of a dark wall, a chunk of light wall, some curtains, then one of the lights in front of some dark curtains. I can't see anything that is definitively the studio window, unfortunately. 1974 is past the year the new console was put in, and it seems to me there was some major remodeling and refinishing that possibly coincided with the removal of the old control room. If that transition instead happened earlier in the '70s, Mitch is gone and Goddard was likely gone, so who was the champion in charge who valued the sound over the look? Nobody, probably. It would more likely have been earlier than 1974, and while he was interim-gone seems like a good candidate. It would be nice to date this last photo... Again, you've done super work in our quest for the Truth.
Since this story is so popular, here is what Gary has on his wall, framed but since this isn't a photo there's no shot of the tape. He wrote it in a kind way to avoid implicating and embarassing me, but I told you what I remember happened since I don't care about being embarrassed anymore. He sent it over in response to reading the story here.
I'm nearly certain that's the wall for the old control room. For the following reasons: - The light is very close to the wall. As we can see in the photo taken after the old control room was removed, there were no lights right next to the outside wall of the studio, but as we can see in lots of shots of the old control room, there *were* lights right next to the control room wall. - The curtain. In the shot after the old control room was removed, there are no similar curtains on that wall. - If you look closely (lightening the photo may help) you can see that the curtain isn't on the wall of the building, but out where the old control room wall was. You're right about one thing, however, that dark bit isn't the control room window. It's possible it's the door to the old control room, or just...something else. Either way, it's to the left of the window. The new console was in place as early as March 1973 for A Little Night Music, as seen here. But the old control room was still in place a few weeks later for Irene (and, I would still argue, as above, in March 1974), so I don't think there was any direct connection between the new console and the removal of the old control room. And as I noted, Lieberson didn't retire until 1975. Again, just a hunch, considering photos post-1974 are sparsely available, but I really wonder if the "bad" remodeling Frank alluded to was done after Lieberson's retirement in 1975. It's too bad there isn't an online Sony archive. I'm sure there are thousands more photos, many of which would likely provide quick answers to some of our questions.
I nominate both, "DMortensen" and "lukpac" for Grammy Awards in 2014, for their great investigative work, regarding the Columbia 30th St. Studios of New York. I truly wish, that some of the members of this forum, who may be financially able (I wish I were rich) and give you guys the finances to be able to go to New York and dig even deeper and find anyone who may still have more photos and stories regarding this hollowed ground. Thus, turning this thread into more than just one of the all-time best threads that the Steve Hoffman Forum has ever seen!
Not that I have any plans to head to Yale any time soon, but just curious: what are the restrictions for handling the archive? You mention that tripods, lights, and "other apparatus" are not allowed. What about flatbed scanners? I'm just thinking it would be pretty easy to bring a laptop and flatbed scanner, which would yield better results. That would require a bit of a trip however... Amazing stuff: MSS 52 - The Frederick and Rose Plaut Papers; 28' This collection consists of 35,688 photographs of recording artists, actors, writers, and statesmen taken by Fred Plaut (1907-1985) while he was a Recording Engineer for Columbia Records from the mid-1940s through the 1970s. Most of the negatives have contact sheets, and there are 3,591 enlargements. Each shot is listed with a unique number in the finding aid. An additional 23,256 negatives (most with contact sheets), 2218 enlargements, and several hundred slides taken during travels, are not catalogued. There is also correspondence to Fred and Rose Plaut (d. Feb. 1, 1992), a singer, from Francis Poulenc, Virgil Thomson, Ned Rorem, Aaron Copland, et al., and publications that have reproductions of Plaut photographs. Recording artists (musical and spoken) frequently requested Fred Plaut to do their recording. He would bring his camera to a recording session and request permission to shoot a role of film. All in all 657 persons have been identified, many in significant numbers (e.g., Leonard Bernstein 1,170 photographs, Robert Casadesus 437, Glenn Gould 393, Eugene Ormandy 387, Rudolf Serkin 1,283, and Igor Stravinsky 1,343). http://web.library.yale.edu/music/archival-checklist#plaut
