I think you have it covered. But something tells me you are talking to a brick wall. This all seems so obvious. The failure to release old material made sense for someone like Bob Dylan (years ago). He didn't need the money and had an aversion to revisiting earlier periods in his career. But this would seem to be a simple matter of money . . . with the monetary window closing. Even Dylan seems to have recognized that now!
Well, hope springs eternal. There is nothing lose here and supposedly she has responded personally to some of the emails. A concerted effort bringing the importance and brilliance of the music of the Savory collection could do the trick.
By the way, if Dorothy Webman is a lawyer who acts as the trustee of the Goodman estate (or in some similar capacity) she likely is a bean counter and paper filer and fee collector who has no interest in rocking the boat in the name of music history or Benny Goodman's legacy.
The lp from the 50’s includes 3 songs post Charlie Christian. “After Yo’ve Gone” from 1944, “Slipped Disc” and “Liza” from 1945. The Charlie Christian box is outstanding and has many alternate takes and 2 very long rehearsal sessions. Plus, the notes by Loren Schoenberg are excellent.
Thanks for this very helpful information. I’ll be sending an email! The market for this music isn’t growing and given the Universal fire a few years ago, its best to get this stuff out rather than keeping it locked away and potentially lost forever.
(Trivia) Question: What was the first Goodman 78 on the Victor Circle label as a first pressing? I know Victor switched to circle from scroll at some point in 1937, but haven't pinpointed the last scroll and first circle.
Found it. VI 25634 (Changes/When It's Sleepy Time Down South) was the last scroll. VI 25644 (Avalon/The Man I Love) appears to be the first circle. Switch over between July 7 and 30, 1937.
I was a bad, bad boy. Over on another thread, all the talk of the superior sound of 78s led me to purchase a bulk collection of 61 Goodman 78s from the first Victor scrolls, through the circles, Red Columbias, and Okehs. Includes some gems like the 10" AND 12" versions of Sing, Sing, Sing, Goodnight My Love, Oh baby, and some other fine tracks. We'll see how many make it uncracked. I swore off 78s years ago, but couldn't resist any longer.
I hope the 12" Sing Sing Sing makes it, as it is an odd size and needs extra shipping TLC. I bought Artie Shaw's 12" Concerto for Clarinet, and the bonehead seller thought he was doing me a favor by throwing in a few extra 10" records. I think those actually caused the 12" to break. I played the unbroken bottom portion. It sounded great. It took me three purchases of that one to get myself a decent copy. I should start a thread - "What Records Have You Had to Buy More Than Once to Get a Satisfactory Copy"?
Oh no please don’t start that thread. It will be “cry me a river” if I have to relive the trauma of my Ella 78 experience. The seller is a 78 expert so hope the 12” makes it.
Then it should be OK. My horror stories are sellers with a few 78s and they haven't a clue about packing them.
Listened to the Carnegie Hall reissue from 1999 before putting on the copy I made for myself. I forgot the shower of pops and clicks left in Schaap's transfer - it was so easy to take out most of them with a very light declicker setting. EQ was piercing and shrill on Schaap's edition too. Anyway, that reissue is a huge upgrade in source material, it's just too bad the transfers weren't mastered well.
And, Schaap accidentally left out about half a minute of “I Got Rhythm.” There is a better and complete version just sitting at Sony and not released by them. This is discussed a couple of pages back in this thread.
I finally broke down and got Schaap's 1999 version to discover for myself what all the critiques were about. I can't listen to it for any great length of time. The pops and the clicks are one thing and I can overlook that but the EQ is "piercing and shrill" as C6H12O6. wrote. I'm not one for fine differences in sound quality, but Schaap's version is so bad, even I can't bear it. The Jasmine version is far better.
I’m currently buying various CD versions of the 1938 Carnegie Hall concert to decide for myself which sounds best. I’ve ordered the infamous 1999 Phil Schaap with all the crackle and pops and reported bright eq. I’m basically just listening to various versions on amazon music via a Bluetooth speaker connected to my iPad - I know hardly ideal, but it’s how I’m trying to get an idea of them before the cd’s hit my hifi system. It’s interesting that with all the crackles and bright/thin sound of the 1999 Schaap ‘remaster’ it still has what I call space and life around the instruments that is missing from any of the noise reduced remasters. But I suspect when i attempt to listen to all of it on cd it’ll be fatiguing with that bright eq. I’ve also ordered the Definitive Records/Disconforme one too. Got it cheap 2nd hand as I’m not a fan of this dodgy label but read it sounds good. Then there is the Jasmine release to get still. It sounds to me just via amazon music clips like it’s done the most noise removal and eq tweaking of the lot. Pleasing warmth and weight on the ear but has it lost something in the process? That leaves the Avid releases which are also recommended. What’s strange to me is that the original Avid 3 disc 2003 version sounds different to the Avid 4 disc 2006 version...on Amazon Music anyway. The 2003 version sounds better to me. More open and closer sounding. They both say remastered by Dave Bennett so maybe it’s just an Amazon Music thing ?? Any advice guys before I spend anymore money trying to decide. I know some people even prefer the 1987 Columbia Jazz Masterpieces disc. Is that worth considering?
I can’t speak to the difference in the Avid releases. But, the Jasmine is probably the best sounding of the Schaap version. The 1987 version basically is the CD version of how the Concert was originally released on lp. It does not have “Sometimes I’m Happy”, (the 2nd number), “When Dreams Come True” (the first encore), and the Jam session is very edited. But, it does have the complete “I Got Rhythm” that Schaap accidentally edited. The sound of The 1987 has the Savory mastering touch that many of us grew up with. All the versions after 1999 use the Schaap version in someway, with it’s mistakes. As of now, only Jon Hancock’s remastered version contains a complete version of the concert, but Sony is sitting on it. Earlier in the thread you can see Seth Winner has remastered some of it. Winner has the disc Schaap used. Hancock mostly used the Savington Crampton discs.
Thanks for the info LeeP. Yeah so wish that Seth Winner remastering would happen! I may get the Jasmine one to see what I think. Think there is a review on Amazon sarcastically saying how it’s removed not only the noise but also the music. We’ll see. Not sure exactly what you mean by ‘the Savory mastering touch’ regarding the 1987 Columbia release..can you explain?
Hooray - I'm not the only one with both 10 and 12" versions of SSS (curious as to what the differences are but not enough to actually A//B them). Columbia Goodman 78s still show up regularly but the Victors not so much.
According to Connor's book the 10" is an abridged version of the released version and the 12" is complete. Hope they both arrive un-cracked. There are three versions each of Part 1 and Part 2. I just realized I was missing a version and ordered an old Time-Life LP set (very cheap - BTW) to complete my S3 collection. Note that the T/L CD set does not have the alternate take, only the LP. Connor's books are a treasure of detailed information. I often miss critical points, they are so rich in detail (see my post on the scrolls/circle transition).
Well, Savory used judicious echo for the lps to smooth things out. But, it’s not bad. It’s just what was done then. If nothing else it’s nostalgic for me.
(BLUF: don't buy it) So this bugger finally got to me and I ordered it. I can report that it is a total hodgepodge of existing air checks on Disc 1 and is not a bootleg of the Savory air checks. Sing, Sing, Sing is from Carnegie (oddly since it was never broadcast) and is only Part 2 to boot. Savoy is also from Carnegie. King Porter Stomp is from the Columbia Jazz Concert No. 2 album as is Down South Camp Meeting (with better SQ than the Columbia original), as are several others. I SWEAR that Lady Be Good is a direct transfer from the Victor studio session, and am pretty sure that's the same for Someday Sweetheart, China Boy and More than You Know. All four seem to have reverb added, perhaps in order to make them sound "live". In fact, I think all of Disc Two is Victor studios with reverb. All-in-all this is quite disappointing and I would not buy it again, esp. finding that Disc 2 is likely all studios (with sub-par EQ). I'm doing a track-to-track comparison as I type, but its quite disappointing.
I recall comparing, in a fairly cursory manner, a 6-eye LP of a portion of the concert to the Jasmine version. The Jasmine won easily. I'm not sure what I was expecting from the old 6-eye (short of a miracle). Waiting for that great version of the concert (such as the Winner version) seems like waiting for the Dodgers to return to Brooklyn. It ain't happening. I think it's already too late. Sony ****ed it up big time by sinking their resources into the Schaap version and there's no longer time to correct the mistake. That version was released more than 20 years ago, and I suspect the market even then was slender.
At this point, I'd settle for a digital-only release of the Winner version through the streaming/digital download services. Universal has started doing that. If Winner already as everything ready, I don't see the downside, unless it's a glitch in the licensing or cuts that the streaming services take.
There’s the odd contention in the Firestone biography (apparently accepted by Firestone) that every single musician - or his estate - must be tracked down and paid a not insignificant sum (at least with respect to the Savory recordings) that makes such releases financially impossible. I don’t know what to make of such assertions in light of similar recordings released by Goodman, including the Carnegie Hall concert, and other artists. Who knows what obstructionist BS is being dished out by the Goodman Estste these days.
Yes, I have been hoping that Sony would just make the remastered version they did with Hancock available digitally. It’s not clear what the hold up is. They have been releasing a lot of digital things.
