Chris, many thanks for your kind words about my site, it needs to be redone to "modern standards" (html5 and all that) but I don't have the resources (especially the intelligence, money, and patience) to accomplish this; and you can probably understand that with several moves, I can't even reproduce a lot of the material on my site <shudder>, the tapes have been scattered and sometimes the years are not good for audio/video tape; various efforts to cajole the music and pictures to CD's and DVD's - in most cases the source material is stuck in low-rez. The website was made with Frontpage which shields the hapless user from any actual code (most of the time) but it is very limiting now. I do hope to post the improved Ed Prentiss show one day soon but it will still have to be in windows media format. The loss of so many people in music and radio have been devastating. One great thing is the great period of analog-to-CD "re-masters" and reissues the first part of the last decade; sadly that just about ended with our recession/depression later on. For awhile, it was amazing the deep dives that were being made into the vaults. Somewhere I read an article about "the vaults" and it had a lot of unhappy realities - that as younger "executive" types come in, who know nothing about the recorded work more than perhaps ten years ago, they destroy/throw out master tapes/metal mothers/whatever. I guess it's just time moving on??? It's an ugly reality. Speaking of 30th Street, there were very few pictures that Percy took in the 1950's at Columbia; I have no idea why, he was big on taking pictures!?!
Greetings, Dan! I'm sure you are correct about Percy/Chappie/California, and I have a theory about NYC in the 1950's - Percy did a lot of recordings for the "youngsters" (vocalists) as a part of his "deal" with Mitch Miller that was supposed to be that as long as he did some of this recording for vocalists he could then do his orchestral recordings under his own name; and I wonder if the vocal accompaniments he arranged/conducted weren't with different engineers - but his own albums were engineered by Harold Chapman - just a theory. I've never been able to find out if the master tapes in the vaults by Percy Faith contain rich session detail, I only know for sure they are peppered with labels and stickers that show what tracks were issued on the original Lp's and later scattershot reissues or complete reissues... Many of the early 1950's vocal sessions were, I *think* just 2, or perhaps 4, tracks, or "sides" - I'd be very interested to know!
I went to the CBS archives today by myself and felt I accomplished a lot: -got pictures of all the New York AFM Reports and for some other interesting sessions for 1959; -started in on the appointment books for 1959 and got to the end of January; -found some pictures of interesting parts of the studio building in 1962, including a shot of a stairway landing and bulletin board at the landing. -found a shot of Frank Laico in vividly plaid pants during the A Chorus Line sessions Have requested dupes of those pictures, not sure if they'll come with permission to post. Oh and the best news of all: There were two sessions scheduled for Studio D!!!! Nothing resembling any pictures of D so far, though. Oh, and I learned that the only employee pictures they have (I've been making a spreadsheet of employee names and hoped to get pics so I could identify people in the Plaut photos) are those of Executives, and they are all negatives. So that plan was shattered. I'm going again Wednesday and Friday, but will most likely wait until the weekend to post results.
When were the sessions, Dan? As I previously noted, I'm not entirely sure if early sessions listed for Studio D were at 30th Street, or were in fact at 799 Seventh Ave. Here's one for 1964: Of particular note is that the main room at 30th Street was not referred to as "Studio C", but rather "30th St." While I'm not certain, I have a feeling that the "Studio C" notation wasn't used until after 799 Seventh Ave closed in 1966, at the earliest. Unfortunately, I still haven't gotten a clear picture of the various rooms at 799 Seventh Ave beyond Studio A.
I can't say with certainty those *weren't* at 30th Street. But my feeling is it is more likely they were at 799 Seventh Ave. Are there any references to studios B or C?
A and D yes, B and C no. I am only in January, though.... Oh, and there had to be over 500 sessions that year. I figured that I would capture all New York sessions, including St. George Hotel, Studio A, and also those which had no studio identification. That way we can know definitively (to the extent the AFM Reports and appointment books are correct) what was where and what wasn't where. I found one thing in the January appointment book where there were two seemingly incompatible sessions listed as being at the exact same time in 30th St.: On the 19th, there was a session with Ray de la Torre from 2:30pm-5:30pm, and an audition for Miller & Lieberson (no artist name) scheduled from 4:30pm-6pm. Looking at that, though, if that's just a mistake by the original transcriber putting a "4" when there should have been a "5", that would work and be about the right time length for an audition. That would make sense.
It's unclear if these notes are verbatim from the box or not, but FYI: "All sessions were recorded at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City, except (G2 - G5) which was recorded in Studio D, (H1 to I1) which was recorded live at the Newport Jazz Festival and (N4 to N8), which was recorded in Studio A. Studios A & D were located in the same building as Columbia's offices at 799 7th Ave." Eddie Condon - The Complete CBS Recordings Of Eddie Condon And His All Stars That Studio D session is dated February 23, 1956.
In thinking about what the hell I'm doing here with this project, I decided I'm trying to recreate the entire life of the studio so that people can see what happened there visually, technically, musically, architecturally, and historically in a chronological way throughout its long life both before and after becoming an historically, culturally, and globally important audio recording studio. Both the Yale Archives people and the Sony Archives people have told me that I'm doing something that no one else has ever done, when they watch how I go through their information. Most people are apparently interested only in a particular artist or album or genre, but I'm hoovering up all I can. The photo guy was amused that I was excited about finding a picture of a stairway landing. I think ultimately that it is probably an impossible project to conclude, but I've tried to live my life in part according to a fortune cookie that I got when I was considering doing an impossible task in 1977: "Ignorance plus confidence equals success". My current goal is to get through 1962 at least in the AFM reports, although given that it took almost a whole day to get through 1959 and I'm going to only have two days after the appointment books, I may only get through 1961. Tomorrow and Friday I have trusted volunteer help in entering appointment book data, so while I'm working on 1959 the one for that day will work on 1962 so we can try to get to the bottom of the control room changeover. And I hope they'll post comments here about their experiences. Today is sort of a day off, where I work on the other project that I'm in NYC for and also prepare a little for returning to the archives tomorrow, which I think will be exclusively devoted to appointment books. Then a very long day Thursday hopefully concluding the other project, then back to the archives Friday. It's raining here, so an indoor project will be just right until dinner time. PS: Luke, I know you've repeatedly said a range of when the transition from old to new control rooms occurred, and I thought you did it recently, but I just quickly looked through the last 5 pages and can't find it. Can you tell me again so we can start there? PPS Yesterday I looked through the Broadway musicals picture books, starting with A Chorus Line, and the old control room was still in use on 3-25-62 for All American. So unless you can narrow it down more we'll start in late March 62 the day after that session. Since it's more than an hour per month that'll save us almost 3 hours of data entry.
Sometime between April and October, 1962: I'd have to dig further, but at the moment I think we still have that April-October gap.
Another small blurb: "The recording debut of the new Miles Davis Quintet took place on October 26, 1955 at Columbia's Studio D on Seventh Avenue, although the group's later albums for Prestige came out first because of the release date restriction." Jazz Profiles: Miles Davis At Columbia Records - "How It All Began" - by George Avakian I was about to say it's just a blog post, but it turns out it was actually written by George Avakian. George wouldn't have been around at Columbia when there was a Studio D at 30th Street, but maybe he has some recollections about the various studios at 799 Seventh Ave?
And here's a mention of Studio B at 799 Seventh Ave: DUKE ELLINGTON & HIS ORCHESTRA 27 Mar 1959 799 Seventh Ave., Studio B New York City, NY Ellingtonia Unfortunately, other than listings that specifically indicate 30th Street, it seems like a lot of liner notes and such simply note something like "Columbia Recording Studios, New York".
I've been out with a lousy cold, so reviewing the WHOLE thread to minimize my dumb questions. But here is my first one: Are we decided on whether the main studio space, as outlined by lukpac, fits into the far back of the plat map from DanM? That's the only thing that makes sense to me looking at the aerial photos, and gives plenty of space to 30th street for the new control room, WLIB offices, and later Studio D. It also infers that any arches and such features seen in the studio have no relation to anything seen on the outside street - just decorations, perhaps originally backlit stained glass. I tried to kludge a composite pic here: Somebody should make a little architectural model!
I contacted Susan Schmidt Horning to see if she had any insight into Studio D. She didn't, but indicated that she has donated the interviews she conducted for Chasing Sound to the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky: Chasing Sound Oral History Project - SPOKEdb There are interviews with George Avakian, Bill Savory, Howard Scott, Frank Laico, Phil Schaap, Mitch Miller, and numerous others. It appears that all but one are currently available online. Perhaps there are some new insights in some of those.
Listening to the first interview with Bill Savory now, starting at 1:22:39: Susan Schmidt Horning: What about this, one of the things George Avakian mentioned to me was that you and Bachman setup the 30th Street studio? Bill Savory: Well, the way it turned out...the 30th Street studio was, in a way forced on Columbia Records by Columbia Broadcasting. Columbia Broadcasting bought it and they were going to use it for something else, and gonna cut it up into pieces. They decided, no, they'd cut up Liederkranz Hall, in pieces, and make studios. And we could fool around with 30th Street. Well, 30th Street was just an empty room. Huge empty room! In an abandoned church. SSH: Uh huh. That was the church. Liederkranz was, like an old- BS: Yeah. SSH: -was it like a beer hall, or some kind of-? BS: Well- SSH: -it was something- BS: The Liederkranz Society owned it. SSH: Okay. BS: Yeah. But, the...it was a very nice recording, uh, studio. But uh, then CBS took over. Bachman and I tried to figure out what to do with it. So, first thing we did was move in a nice Steinway D - that's you know, a long job - and uh, I go down and play the thing, try microphone positions, we tried baffles in the room to see what areas were easiest to handle without too much echo, because the place was enormous, you know. SSH: What was it, 30th and what? BS: Third Avenue. SSH: Okay. BS: It actually wasn't on Third Avenue, down the block on 30th Street from Third Avenue. A small radio station was trying to use it for something or other, and they eventually disappeared. They weren't using the big hall, they were using one of the studios up on the third floor. Well, we, Bachman and I got various microphones, um I designed some baffles, 8 feet tall- SSH: Baffles were a pretty new idea at this point still, weren't they? BS: Well they, no one was using it, I was the only one that was using them on wheels, these were on wheels, push em around. Mitch used to use them all the time. He'd stick someone between two of them, like Johnny Ray, and bounce Johnny Ray back and forth between them. Okay, well I designed a bunch of those, and we put them down there, and they're on wheels. We'd shove them around and I'd play piano endlessly. Bill would sit in the control room and then try one microphone after another, and then the same microphone backed up various distances. SSH: So that, in that way you were getting a sense of what the best technique for recording- BS: Yeah. SSH: -at least that piano. BS: Right. We weren't particularly concerned about the piano at all. It was just that the sound from the piano was broad range enough, so it would represent almost anything else you would come along with. But, it also gave you an idea how certain areas in the room had to be avoided completely because you couldn't handle anything there. Hit one note on the piano and walk away and it would still be ringing, you know...go out in the hall, have a sandwich, come back- SSH: [laugh] You are exaggerating, aren't you?! BS: Then, the thing that put it on the map, really, Goddard Lieberson wanted to do a bunch of Broadway shows. And he came up and talked with Bachman and myself and other people and said "Look. Uh, it's one thing if we go over to the Imperial Theatre where they're going to put on this thing, they're in rehearsal now, and if you setup to record there, but I find out we can't do that, it's too prohibitively expensive." [inaudible] Goddard said "I want a studio recording that doesn't sound like a studio recording, that doesn't sound like a radio broadcast, it sounds like a Broadway stage." So, Bachman decided, you know, "this is the only place we can try, even". So we setup down there, and Goddard came down, and listened to some of the things we were doing with a small group, and he said "I think this is gonna be okay". And he did South Pacific in there. Once he used the studio, and everybody liked it, then all the other producers said "gee you know, I have to go down there and use that studio". [laughs] SSH: Wow. BS: [inaudible] SSH: That's great, because I remember growing up listening to that album, you know my mother played it. BS: Oh yeah. That goes to 1:27:30. I have to run now, but more tomorrow.
I believe I've pinpointed the location of the woody loading. Looking at the better pix on Dan's Flickr, I found nothing for English-built Ford or the American Art School pictured, and the current Gem Garage is crosstown. Instead, I got hits on James B Russell shown to the left of Ford, which is not the investments franchise, but a defunct tobacconists. They were at 150 W 56th St. Today, most of the buildings across the street are long gone, but look down the block - one facade remains that matches the far left side of the 2nd photo: The woody is parked at the back door to Carnegie Hall, and it looks more like a couple of Ampex tape machines. The head housing and idlers are visible on the original photo. Even the steel stand looks like the ones from the 30th St. old control room. -GL (still on SH probation, I think)
Wow, Gary, you're right! Now that you point out the head housing I can see that, and it's really cool that it's a Carnegie Hall remote. Nice detective work!!!!
Yesterday W.B. and I spent the day in the Sony/CBS archives entering data from the studio reservation books, he for 1962 and me for 1959. He is a very astute observer and knowledgeable about all things recorded, as he has shown in this thread and elsewhere, and I asked him all kinds of questions about who Piano was (that name was listed often in the appointments, and I thought maybe it meant that a piano was needed for the session, but amazingly asked him about it anyway and he said it was producer Tony Piano, who I'd never heard of), or what Jim F might stand for (producer Jim Fogelsong, who I'd also never heard of), and so on for the whole day. He is a very fast typer, and got through 290 entries while I got in a few less, so we added over 500 sessions to our knowledge of the studio. And we are logging all sessions in all New York studios so we can say what was where. One other interesting thing is that the appointment book for 1959 and years before is one volume. By 1962, there were a lot of sessions going on everywhere so each year was two volumes, which is a lot of sessions. And we've narrowed the span of control room transition considerably. I looked through the photo archive and the 3/25/62 session for All American is using the old control room, the 4/30 and 5/11 sessions of Brecht on Brecht were in Studio A with Lieberson producing, while pictures of the May ?? (the last date he got to was the 20th, so it must have been after that ) session of Bravo Giovanni clearly show the new control room and even concentrate more on it than normal session pictures, showing the back of the console and other parts. I hope I can post those pictures soon. There were sessions sporadically in 30th St during this time period, but W.B. pointed out that there were almost no weekend sessions and comparatively few late night sessions (I think), so likely the control room window cutting and installation etc. were competed during this time. So the overall window for the control room changeover completion is at most March 25 to May 20-31, and we should be able to narrow the end date down tomorrow. W.B. has a fine eye and encyclopedic memory and it was fun to do research with him.
Continued: BS: [inaudible] the two comedians [inaudible] Sam and Janet Evening. [sings] "Sam and Janet Evening...". Anyway, well, at any rate that put the thing on the map. Then Goddard did a whole bunch of other things in there. He did, uh, Guys and Dolls, Pal Joey- SSH: This is probably, they don't even have this on the albums, you know now you can see everybody and their grandmother gets credit on any kind of like movie or recording, but then, I mean- BS: Yeah. SSH: -you can't look this stuff up and find out where it was recorded. That's why it's so important. BS: It doesn't show. Later on, as you say, everybody and his brother gets a line somewhere on the album. SSH: The caterers get credit, you know. BS: Okay, so as far as us, that is Bill Bachman and myself, setting up 30th Street, what we did was determine that, yes under certain circumstances it could be made to sound quite good indeed. How good with an orchestra, we had to get an orchestra. So eventually we got [???] allowance. And uh, made some tests and everything, and everybody liked the results, and so, that was fun. Then I had smaller orchestras come in there, pop orchestras and jazz bands and everything else and it all worked [inaudible]. It was kind of a universal sound you got out of it. Later on, they didn't need an echo chamber really. They needed an echo chamber for other work. So Bachman invented the greatest echo chamber I ever saw [laughs]. [inaudible] a stairwell. It started on the seventh floor, with a microphone. You go down one half a floor, you know, flight of stairs, and a loudspeaker. SSH: So you had the mic on the seventh floor landing and then down on the sixth floor you had the speaker? BS: It wasn't, it was halfway to the sixth floor, to the speaker. Then the hall, of course, wound all the way down to the basement. And it sounded wonderful! But we made all kinds of recordings there in the older studios that were *dead*, completely, and used the echo chamber. And uh, make it sound like 30th Street, to, well, to some extent. SSH: When did the use of those things come in? BS: Hmm? SSH: When did the use of echo chambers- BS: Oh, shortly after, uh, '47, '48, right in there. They were starting to come in like mad all over the place because everything sounded so dull. SSH: Was it because that they, again, the Germans were doing this? Or was this- BS: No. SSH: Somebody t...do you know who Bill Putnam was? BS: Yeah, in Chicago, engineer. SSH: Somebody told me that he was one of the first to use echo chambers. BS: Could be. He was in Chicago, and I never met him. SSH: Yeah, he was supposedly brilliant. And I heard about him from a lot of different people. BS: The echo chamber as such existed in many places. But they'd use an empty studio for an echo chamber, for example. But, uh, this stairwell was really innovative. Nobody had a stairwell echo chamber except Columbia! And it was, in a way, dangerous. We had some air conditioning maintenance men, some electric...electronic people, you know, electricians, and they'd have to travel between floors. And they didn't use the elevators, they'd walk down. So we told them "[inaudible]. Close the door quietly when you're walking down. And be careful with your feet, don't kick anything." So we had one Danish fellow [gives Danish name]. [Name] would be very careful with his feet, but he'd go down the stairs slowly whistling. [whistles] [laughs] That happened two or three times during a date. Finally, we had to turn off [name]. We said "look, you're going to have to live in that elevator if you don't stuff it". Yeah, that was never replaced [inaudible]. When it got moved over to the studio building, on East 52nd, they just used conventional means for echo. SSH: So when Avakian said that you'd setup the studio, it wasn't in terms of putting the equipment in there, this was more in terms of- BS: Oh yeah, we know what size the board had to be, had to have so many positions [inaudible]. The New York Philharmonic? All right [inaudible] this many positions. Okay. We're gonna have to accommodate these kinds of microphones. That means electrical, physical plugs, cables, connectors, all this stuff has to be [inaudible]. So all that was laid out. Bachman- SSH: How was it decided what equipment you would buy? BS: Uh, the only things you could buy then were either RCA, Langevin, or GE, which was a copy of RCA. So, [laughs] [inaudible] same nomenclature. You know, standard broadcast equipment. And it was used universally. SSH: Those were the boards. And, was it just, you say you had the Fairchild machines to begin with. BS: Mmm hmm. SSH: But then you went to Ampex. BS: Yep, the 15 inch Ampex were finally delivered. They prevailed. Eventually, I forget what happened to the Fairchild machines...disappeared. Went in storage I guess. But, we got the studio working. And, uh, decided where the control room should be. And then later on we were outvoted on that. They moved the control room from one end of the...rectangular space, to the side. It was easier to see...[in audible] far end, or the other end. So it worked out all right. And, with the baffles, we could move anything around, isolate people, you know, do this, that kind of thing. That worked quite well. When we were all finished we waited for somebody to use it properly, and found out that the two best things that were, Goddard's Broadway shows, and [???]. And then eventually smaller groups would be brought in by Percy Faith, and Mitch, Mitch would do things down there too. And learned to handle all of them. One of the last things they did there was Sinatra hired the whole place to do his, uh, I think it's a 3 LP album, which he did "New York, New York", with the big thing...he used 30th Street. Then shortly after that they decided it was becoming a problem. Physical deterioration, part of the ceiling fell down [laughs]. Which at the time was like [tape cuts off]. ------------------------------------- That takes us to 1:35:13.
There's an anecdote about recording Benny Goodman at 30th Street, and moving the band around so Goodman could hear the bass, but that's about it for the rest of that interview. I'll check out some of the other interviews when I get a chance.
I don't know about Tony Piano being a producer, but he was definitely a musical director and was a denizen along those parts. He did put out one album on the budget subsidiary Harmony in 1963. But yeah, I knew Tony Piano's name, as I'd told Mr. Mortensen, through his directing the orchestra (such as it was) on Buzz Clifford's 1960 hit "Baby Sittin' Boogie." As well, during that period I was entering, a few 30th Street sessions were produced by, of all people, Nashville producer Don Law. May I wish the next assistant to handle the chores I breezed through yesterday, all the luck in the world . . .
