SH Spotlight Old 78 RPM records: FATS WALLER/BUNNY BERIGAN, etc. sound so amazing 75 years on...

The wax master cooling too quickly during cutting. Supposedly only found on Victor discs. Another poster asked this question recently in another thread. But I was playing a Romeo disc not too long ago and heard the same ringing.
Is there any connection between Romeo and Victor? Like masters being licensed/swapped?

 

Steve, was there a point where they could tell that it was too cool while working? Just getting too hard to cut, or maybe the way the wax came off from the groove being cut?

 

Great film. Thanks for sharing, Steve!

 

Well, the second guy looks like Vaughn Monroe ....

 

I love Vaughn Monroe's music, Steve.

 

In my opinion, Kansas City never gets its full due for all the jazz innovations that the city helped spawn.
Not only did the Moten band become the Basie band, but the Missourians (comprised largely of excellent youngsters from the music program at KC's Lincoln High School) became the first Cotton Club Orchestra and morphed into Cab Calloway's band. Also, Jesse Stone started with George E. Lee, but found fame as arranger for Atlantic Records and composed (as "Charles Calhoun") "Shake Rattle and Roll" and other hits.
Another great lost jazz-age KC band was Coon-Sanders Nighthawks, who not only had a long recording career, but were also known for their coast-to-coast radio broadcasts.

 

Me, too.

The bulk of my music collection is made of up of artists from this era (what is now known as "classic pop" or "American Songbook").

 

electronic Victor low end response

Concerning Fats' Victor organ solo of " Sugar" and the cited 28 Hz: at what level does it occur on what playback curve?

Also, do any of you know when Victor ceased mastering on wax & started using lacquers?

The 12" "I Can't Get Started" was, according to Brian Rust's Jazz Discography
issued from take 1 of master 011675, cut in NYC on August 7, 1937. It was issued on #36208. It doesn't have to be acquired in the swing set. It could be acquired individually. The catalog #s of the 10" truncated dub were issued on 25728, 20-4094 & 20-1500.

Best,
Shiffy

 

I asked the members of the 78online.com 78-L E-mailing list not long ago if there was a scroll label issue of 36208. They told me there wasn't one, and that the first pressing is with the circular label.

 

From what I've read it was related to blood poisoning from an abscess rather than a botched operation. Here's a good write up from Club Kaycee: http://www.umkc.edu/orgs/kcjazz/jazztext/sanders.htm

There's also some good Coon-Sanders material at Paris of the Plains: http://www.umkc.edu/lib/spec-col/parisoftheplains/webexhibit/page6.htm

This is a band that was absolutely huge in their day, but largely forgotten (except among 78 collectors and old radio enthusiasts) today.

 

i often wonder if there was a single release of some of these. like you said, you only see the labels with the album number. it's possible that they only pressed one set of labels and used them for both. i believe it was possible in many cases to order individual records from albums as replacements or just as singles.

it seems odd, given the economic circumstances of the time that the albums would be so common and the singles so rare.

 

the scroll label was gone by late 1937 i think. definitely by 1938.

 

This thread fascinates me, and the arcane knowledge some of you possess blows me away.

I have long been fascinated by recordings from the 20s and 30s that sound much better than perhaps they had a right to sound, given the crude technology that existed. It makes it even more frustrating to know that reissues to vinyl and CD more often than not badly compromise the sound quality because some misguided soul thought we couldn't bear to hear surface noise or what have you.

At the same time, I've always found it frustrating to listen to certain old blues and old-time country recordings that were poorly recorded, or whose metal masters are long-gone, and the songs are sourced from beat up old 78s.

The most famous example is Paramount Records in Grafton WI, which recorded nearly every great blues artist of the 1920s, and then issued the recordings on the cheapest possible shellac you could imagine, guaranteed to be ground to dust after a few playings. I've been known to have daydreams about finding Charley Patton metal masters, and what that would mean to actually hear Charley playing that slide guitar loud and clear on "Spoonful Blues" or "Banty Rooster Blues". Alas, it's only a daydream that will never come true, the metal parts are lost forever, sacrificed for the WW2 effort.

Some stories about Paramount and its studios can be found at http://www.paramountshome.org/index.php?modules.php?op=modload&name=PagEd&file=index&topictoview=0

Cheers, and thanks for starting this fascinating thread!

 

I think Paramount actually used sand as filler in their 78's. Really unfortunate.

 

Greetings from FixitLand!

"South" was indeed dubbed for the reissue Victor 24893-A (released circa March-April 1935 -- NOT 1934), and only early copies bear master pressings (I am fortunate to have a master-pressed copy). A master-pressed "South" has a large, heavy-double-groove eccentric close to the last music grooves, with no out-spiral. A first-dub "South" has take "1R" and an out-spiral to a heavy-double-groove eccentric that runs close to the label, as noted by another poster. A later, postwar dubbing (probably of -1R) has a single-groove eccentric and no "VE" symbol in the wax. But "She's No Trouble" exists in master-pressed form on that number clear up into (at least) the late 1940s.

Sorry if this has become a "dead issue"...

Take care,
--
J. E. Knox "The Victor Freak"

 

Hi and welcome, J E! Do you know if the first pressings of Victor 36208 (Berigan's 'I can't get started') that were sold separately from the SYMPOSIUM OF SWING album set included the album and side(s) numbers on the labels? I posted this question yesterday on 78-L but no-one's responded....

 

According to Brian Rust's THE AMERICAN RECORD LABEL BOOK, the scroll label was used until October 1937.

 

Right, and if the side was cut in August, then it's quite likely that it was never issued as a scroll.

You folks all have Tyrone Settlemier's Online Discographical Project bookmarked, right? Great resource. As is Red Hot Jazz.

I had a copy of the Berigan 12" once, but it broke on the way back from the store where I had purchased it. (it was probably already cracked -- 12" 78s are much more prone to cracks than 10" ones). I'll have to keep hunting for it.

Indeed. I first noticed this listening to Ellington's "Ring Dem Bells," which I have on both a scroll and the Duke Ellington Panorama album set. Different solos, different endings.

Great thread. I love old 78s, both the originals and the album sets. I found this one at a thrift over the weekend.