In this case, there were three, and one of them consulted with me. Unfortunately he didn't get it. Years ago "78 Quarterly" polled collectors to attempt to track how many copies of various discs were out "in the wild." There were less than ten known copies of this one. (A reissue on Melotone is more common, and that's also a master-pressed issue.)
Thanks for the info. I have the Melotone version, but paid more for it than I should have. Nice to know it was a master-press. I couldn't find that info anywhere and assumed it wasn't.
Some of you here might want to opine here - 'The Benny Goodman Treasure Chest' 3LP set Question I'm not sure if my recollections are 100% accurate.
I've been playing around a bit with the Rek-O-Kut ULTRA, which I received yesterday. As far as LPs go, the results are variable to my ears. The Goodman "white album" doesn't seem to benefit from any of the settings other than the RIAA. My recollection is that the 1970s double-LPs sounded muddier. Maybe there was an RIAA adjustment between those and the 16-LP set. I don't have any of the 1970s LPs at present, but I do have the Artie Shaw double-LPs from that period, and I do think the 78 treble setting adds desirable clarity. As recommended, I applied the 78-300 setting to an LP of pre-1935 recordings - Blind Willie McTell 1927-1933 The Early Years (Yazoo) - and that sounded the best (better than RIAA-RIAA or 78-RIAA). The recommended settings for pre-war 78s sounded best, as expected. A bit more crackle and pop, but that's to be expected. I look forward to trying the settings out on some of my early 10" LPs and 45 RPM sets.
That's very similar to what I found. If you have a Goodman Trio or Quartet side on 78, especially a quieter one, try the RIAA vs. the 78 setting for treble and see if you notice anything.
I have one or two RCA Victors and some larger small groups on Columbia, one or two with Charlie Christian. I mention the latter because the 78 treble setting can really help with guitar clarity. But I’ve only noticed that with some of my old blues recordings on LP so far.
Just bought the yellow Golden Era CDs. I’m certainly in no hurry to acquire all of them. Just waiting for an acceptable price. I guess the only one I need is the red version, since I have the purple CDs. Coupled with the three 1939 CDs, that would be most, if not all, of the available Camel Caravan shows, I believe . . . at least the ones on Phontastic.
These CDs are getting quite hard to find. I only need these two: and have the three 2 disc sets Golden Era you wrote about (PHONT NCD 8841-8846). But man do these go for a pretty penny!
I’ll keep an eye out for those and let you know if I spot them. I got all three at about the same time, and I don’t think they were too expensive. You are right about the Golden Era CDs, but the one I just got had a fairly low price tag. I suspect the red one will be hard to come by.
I'm listening to the Golden Era CD I received today and was surprised to hear Goodman introduce Russian Lullaby by saying the version "really rocks". This was 1938. I thought this expression (as applied to music) existed only in the post-Alan Freed era.
There are a couple of instances where Ella Fitzgerald used that term with Chick Webb's band as early as November 1937. In "Rock It For Me" (Decca 1586, rec. Nov. 1, 1937) she sings "Chick Webb's socking it and the band is rockin' it". At the end of the verse she actually sings " So won't you satisfy my soul with the rock and roll?" I think this is the first time that exact phrase was ever used in a studio recording. It's not completely clear that the Werners, who wrote the lyrics, wrote that line as Ella was well known to improvise. There was minor controversy on an Ella fan board I was part of in the late 90s as to whether or not she deserved both writing credit AND credit for the term "rock and roll". There is another lyric where she uses the word "rock" but not "roll", but can't think of it off the top of my head. Edit: The "controversy" was whether or not the Werners went back and changed their lyric once Ella sang it. It was a VERY obscure argument.
Rock and roll was slang for sex, so those references have to be divorced from instances where it is meant to describe high energy music. Fitzgerald seems to be using it both ways in the above examples. I always wondered if this use (from 1934) was entirely innocent in meaning:
Yes. She clearly is referring to Webb's music in "Rock it for Me" but the counterpoint between "symphony" and "rock" could also be argued to be a statement against elders and purity vs. teens and sex. I think had it been anywhere close to overt in that song, it never would have passed Decca's censors in 1937. I've read this is one of the first instances of trying to pry the term out of the realm of sexuality and moving it toward music. There was so much criticism of jazz as "sex music" and swing as "sexualizing youth" that it really could go either way if one tries to be definitive. As with everything, it's probably likelier that it was an evolution and that Freed simply capitalized on something that had been happening for years, given his ability to command a given audience at a given time. Edit: Also, I think there was something out of New Orleans (or New Orleans style) in the mid-20s with the term, but I can't recall if it was used to refer to the music as a style, e.g. "the music rocks and rolls".
That very may well have been the song I was thinking of (the one you posted), but at some point I read it traced back to the mid-20s, I thought. Can't recall! I went digging to see if I could find that old debate but I can't even remember the forum name to try to find it on archive.org.
An early title sometimes cited is "My Man Rocks Me (With One Steady Roll)" by Trixie Smith and the Jazz Masters, 1922: unidentified personnel, but likely Fletcher Henderson on piano. Great instrumental versions from 1924 are "Moanful Man" (Cook's Dreamland Orchestra) and "My Man Rocks Me" (Sammy Stewart's Ten Knights of Syncopation). A 1926 vocal version by Wilson's T.O.B.A. Band is titled "Steady Roll." Collectors here may be interested in a rare Goodman track on various artists CD A Gift From The President (Jazz Oracle), recommended: Lazy Day - The Westernaires (Western Electric Wide Range Transcription 483), late 1932-early 1933
The Boswell Sisters also can go for a pretty penny, given the unassailable fact that the Nostalgia Arts CDs are the only way to go. As is typical, Davies was at the helm for these CDs. I have volumes 1-4 and wouldn't mind completing the set. I understand the sisters are accompanied by a young(ish) Benny Goodman here. (There may be more, of course.) Benny is heard early in the mix and solos at about 1:46.
Does anyone have the titles of these CDs? Imperfect I-C01 Imperfect I-Co4 Imperfect I-C09 Imperfect I-C14
Good question. I don’t have the book in question, and I cannot guess (or otherwise determine) what those refer to. There’s a “Past Perfect” set, but I assume that isn’t it. Anyone?
"Airchecks from 1939 Vols. 1-4". Some, but not all, of the tracks overlap with the Phontastics at the bottom of my list.
This is the first time I’ve come across a CD or LP where there doesn’t seem to be a single reference to it on the internet (let alone a copy for sale).
I've found the Caravans a bit frustrating to collect. I ordered a set off of eBay only to find they were needle drops of the Sunbeams (with resulting atrocious sound quality). Of course, there are the digital files at various sites online, but the one with the most complete collection is by show and not song, so it's impossible to parse out on a song-by-song basis. If a complete collection exists on LP or CD, I haven't found it yet. The Viper's Nest (Golden Era 6 discs) and the Phontastic (also six discs) seems to be the most complete. If anyone knows otherwise, please let me know.
Aren't the "Golden Era" CDs (six of them ) Phontastic? And Phontastic has the three other CDs (from 1939), correct? That would be nine for them. Viper's Nest has the six Madhattan Ballroom CDs. Then there are the Congress Hotel CDs and the "Let's Dance" CD. Anything else of note from the 1930s?
Yes, you're correct. I looked at the wrong discs on my shelf. The Golden Era are Phontastic. Everything else from the 30s I have is on Sunbeam Lps. And there's the Savory set on LPs.