jeffcrom

Absolutely spot on. I've still got copies with those adverts (full page). In fact they were offering their entire vinyl catalogue as a bulk purchase option as I recall, but you had to send a bankers draft to the (iffy) address in Italy by post. Long before Paypal etc. I remember thinking at the time, which lunatics would be bothered/daft enough to do that.?... I think I posted my copy somewhere on these forums at one point, but here it is again. Lust away....

I will say that I'm luckier than most folks regarding Horo's catalog - or maybe it's just that I'm older. But I've got just about all of them that I really coveted - all three Sun Ras, all three Steve Lacys, the Gil Evans double, the Max Roach double, the MEV double, Konitz/Solal double, the Laboratorio della Quercia double, two Michael Smiths, one of the Sam Rivers (I've got a boot of the other one), and one each by Ran Blake, Roswell Rudd, George Adams, and Don Pullen. I had the Garrett List, but really didn't like it, and sold it to someone here. (Clifford, maybe?) There are a few more I'd like to have, but I'm pretty happy with what I've got.

Where do you find this stuff in Atlanta? I travel there quite a bit an dont see material like this at the usual haunts. Clifford is right, but some of my Horos go back further than that - I bought them directly from Horo when they were active; they advertised in Jazz Journal International, which my college library carried. I have found a few in record stores over the years, but they seldom show up that way. I know that I got a Michael Smith at Record Ron's in New Orleans in the 1990s, and a Ran Blake in Atlanta - but that was probably 15 or 20 years ago.

Oh, no.

Jackie McLean - Hipnosis (BN Classic); the 1967 session Grachan Moncur III - a thing of beauty.

"Members of the Count Basie Orchestra directed by Maxwell Davis" - The Compositions of Count Basie (Crown). This LP will probably not survive the record purge that's coming in a few years, but in the meantime, it's fun to play every once in a while. The band is indeed a mix of then-current (1959) Basie sidemen and west coast studio guys. There are some nice solos by the Two Franks, and B.B. King sings "Every Day I Have the Blues." Joe Albany - Proto-Bopper (Revelation)

Paul Bley - Ballads (ECM)

Been listening to a lot of stuff lately, mostly classical - because what more convenient format is there for classical music than 78 RPM records? Most of what I've spun probably wouldn't interest most folks here, but I enjoyed this one, and was amused by the implications. The record company practice of packaging and repackaging recordings from their catalogs and creating "deluxe," "collectible" issues is not new. In 1947, RCA Victor started issuing some of their pre-1920 opera records in the deluxe "Heritage Series." These 12" 78s were pressed on red vinylite (rather than shellac) and came in fancy gold foil sleeves. I have one - contralto Janet Spencer singing "O don fatale!' from Don Carlos and "The Hills o' Skye," both recorded in 1911. It's a nice pressing of two fine recordings. And it cost $3.50 in 1948, which is around $34 in today's dollars. That's for around nine minutes of music. Collectors were reportedly pretty unhappy with RCA over the Heritage Series, since these recordings had long since paid for themselves. If the internet and discussion forums had been around, I can imagine the postings.

Piano Red - First Piece of the Rock (Southern Tracks). Recorded in 1978, but not released until 1985, shortly after Red's death. Mr. Perryman revisits some of his most famous songs (along with a couple of spirituals), with a four-piece band of his usual buddies, including veteran Atlanta guitarist Wesley Jackson (Fred's brother, I think, although I haven't been able to confirm that).

Steve Lacy - Wordless (undated Musica reissue of the 1971 Futura album)

Charlie Christian - The Genius of the Electric Guitar; disc four

Later - I have always thought that Armstrong's playing is so magnificent on the alternate take of "That's My Home" that it puzzled me why it wasn't the master take. Well, I wasn't listening very well - the only other soloist is tenor saxophonist Skippy Williams, and he is pretty far off-mic on the alternate. That must be why that take wasn't used - but damn! That's some amazing improvising by Mr. Armstrong. It brings a lump to my throat every time.

Off topic, but here's the story of my last bassoon performance. I was a junior at the University of Georgia, and hadn't played bassoon for a couple of years. The UGA big band was on the way back to the school from a concert tour. We had an upcoming concert with a guest trumpeter, and our pianist, Steve Dancz (still active and excellent), decided that he wanted to write a complex extended piece to feature the trumpeter. He walked through the bus, asking all the saxophonists what their doubles were. I said, "Clarinet, but I used to play bassoon." Steve got very excited, and a few weeks later presented me with the handwritten manuscript of my part. It featured a long, very exposed, and very difficult bassoon solo. It was harder than anything I had ever played, and went higher than I had ever played. After building to an extremely high point, the solo slowly descended to end on a low D, near the bottom of the bassoon's range. I broke into a sweat, but borrowed a bassoon, bought some reeds, broke out a fingering chart, and hit the practice rooms. It took me weeks of practice, but I finally was able to play it. At the concert, everything stopped for the unaccompanied beginning of my solo. It sounded pretty good, and I played all the high notes perfectly. I played the descending passage, landed on the low D - which sounded fine for about two seconds, then turned into the most horrendous squawk possible on the instrument. So close! I just realized that that was the last note I ever played on bassoon. Damn!

Parts of discs nine and ten tonight - the early Victor recordings. Whew! As much as I love the Hot Fives and Sevens, I think that this is my favorite Armstrong. The best tracks, like "That's My Home" (especially the alternate take), "When It's Sleepytime Down South," and "I've Got the World on a String," are unlike anything else in jazz. They have a sweep, a lyrical majesty, an eloquence, that Louis only reached (to this extent, at least) during this 1932-33 period. The impact and effect remind me more of Beethoven than of other jazz. And that's with pedestrian arrangements and lackluster bands. It's been too long since I've listened to this stuff. The best tracks are breathtaking.

Okay, I don't think that any particular effect was intended here. I just think that it's an extremely high note, and in this register, all the notes are overblown/harmonics. I haven't played bassoon in years, so maybe I'm wrong - but that's what I think. A "better" bassoonist might have been able to minimize the difference in timbre between that note the the surrounding ones - or maybe the player emphasized the difference because it sounded cool.

I played bassoon for a few years in high school/college, and I've been curious to hear what you're talking about, to see if I know what's going on. But your link just leads to a picture.

Louis Armstrong - The Okeh, Columbia & RCA Victor Recordings 1925-1933. Yeah, the Hot Fives & Sevens are badly botched here, but this is practically the only complete issue of the 1929-1932 Okeh big-band sides. Those sides, and the 1932-33 Victor big-band sides (also included here), are absolutely essential - in terms of Louis' playing, the best of them are as good or better than the Hot Fives, although they're very different. Disc eight this morning, with the previously-hard-to-find "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams," Stardust," and "Lord, You Made the Night Too Long," a personal favorite.

Last night I listened to sides two and four. These responses got me wondering - did I hit all the good parts last night? Maybe the other sides aren't that good. But I spun sides one and three tonight, and I still think this is a pretty great album. There are a few comparatively lesser tracks, but that just means that they're very good, as opposed to excellent. The best track is probably "La Quercia," a 21-minute improvisation by Kenny Wheeler, Evan Parker, Danilo Terenzi (trombone), Tristan Honsinger, Frederick Rzewski, and Paul Lytton - I think it's masterful. And there's a really ecstatic passage in "Nella Casa delle Papere" where all the saxophones are chattering away (with Parker as "lead chatterer") and a trumpet player (Rava?) soars above them. There are plenty of other wonders here, but those are two high points. Sure, the recording is not very good, and it's a typical crappy Horo pressing. (I also got mine sealed, back in the day, directly from Horo.) And the credits are a mess. Roswell Rudd is listed among the trumpet players; Steve Potts has become "Steve Petts," and saxophonist Eugenio Colombo is not even listed in the personnel credits. (He is credited with composing one piece, and cited as a soloist.) But no matter - this is a great album, in my opinion.

Laboratorio della Quercia (Horo). This two-LP set is one of the great unsung masterpieces of the Horo catalog. A 20-piece avant-garde orchestra improvises and plays charts in Rome, 1978. On board are Kenny Wheeler, Enrico Rava, Roswell Rudd, Steve Lacy, Steve Potts, Evans Parker, Tristan Honsinger, Frederick Rzewski, Kent Carter, and Paul Lytton.

OK but how do you get the location of just the image without everything around it. (As I said pretend I'm really stupid.) Right-click on the image, which should give you some choices. Choose "view image." That will make the picture appear on its own. That's where you copy the URL and paste it, using the button erwbol showed above.

If this is kind of confusing, here's the deal. In late 1962/early 1963, Ellington recorded a bunch of tunes associated with other big bands - enough for two albums. Half the material was issued on Reprise in 1965 as Will the Big Bands Ever Come Back?; the rest came out in 1974 as the Atlantic album Larry is talking about. The 1989 U.S. Atlantic CD reissue of Recollections of the Big Band Era has all the material from both albums. I avoided these albums for years - my loss. They're full of delights, and are certainly not copies of the original recordings. Here's an example of Ellington's brilliance in reworking these tunes - on Wayne King's theme, "The Waltz You Saved For Me" (not played as waltz, by the way), the melody is stated by two saxophones. But Ellington gave Harry Carney's baritone the lead, in the high register, with Paul Gonsalves' tenor below it. It's exactly backwards from the way it's "supposed" to be scored, but it results in a unique sound.

Born 1934, record from 1949? I suppose something ain't right there. I can't believe I hadn't noticed that. The discographies I've seen list it as from 1949, but that can't be right. Comparing the catalog number to other Roost 78s, late 1953 or early 1954 seems reasonable.

Soon after this thread started, I wrote a long post that touched on Larry's original question, restated above. As I was finishing the post, my internet connection went dark, so I couldn't post it, and it didn't save. I didn't have the heart to rewrite it at the time. But here it is - take two: Combining takes or overdubbing in pre-tape days would have involved dubbing from one disc to another, which would degrade the sound quality. Dubbing of this kind did take place - for instance, until 1926 the Pathe label recorded on a paper-towel-roll sized wax master cylinder, which revolved at something like 200 RPM. They then dubbed the takes they wanted onto disc. Not only was there the usual loss of quality from dubbing, but the motor that turned the cylinder was noisy, so rumbles from that were transferred along with the music. To quote 78 expert Tim Grayck, "Much fidelity was lost in the dubbing process, which is why no other record company considered the process, even for a minute." However, many early jazz reissues in the 1930s were dubbed from discs if the masters were lost or unavailable. The most famous example of overdubbing in the days of disc recording is probably the Sidney Bechet "one-man-band" record. Bechet said that he got the idea after his manager, John Reid, witnessed an orchestral recording session during which the oboe player missed an entrance. The engineer then dubbed the just-recorded orchestra and the oboe player, playing "live," onto a fresh disc. So such things did apparently happen in the world of classical recording, but I can't imagine this technique was used very often, especially to "marry" parts into a whole. It would have been pretty tricky to get right. And back to Bechet's record - it's a good example of how dubbing from one disc to another degrades the sound. For "The Sheik of Araby," Bechet first recorded the tenor sax, then overdubbed bass, drums, piano, soprano sax, and clarinet. (It seems counter-intuitive that he started with tenor, but it's a very rhythmic, in-the-pocket part.) By the time the final pass was finished the tenor sax sounded like a bassoon played in an adjoining room, and the bass, drums, and piano didn't sound much better. "Blues of Bechet," on the other hand, only has two overdubs. He put down a piano part, overdubbed a part on which he played clarinet in the first half and soprano sax in the second half, then dubbed tenor over that. The tenor is the final pass, and it sounds good - like a real tenor sax. Lots of digression here, but the bottom line is that I've never read that dubbing partial performances together onto a final master was a common technique in 78 recording, and I seriously doubt that it was used more than occasionally, if ever.

The yin and yang of klezmer clarinet today: Naftule Brandwein - Terkish-Bulgarish/Freit aich, Yiddelach (Columbia, 1922) Naftule Brandwein - Bulgar a la Naftule/A Hore mit Tzibeles (Columbia). This is a mid-40s reissue of a 1925 recording, showing that Naftule was still popular with klezmer audiences. Dave Tarras - Freiliche Yidelach/Hulyet Brider (Victor). From the mid 1940, based on the label style. Dave Tarras' Palestinian Dance Orchestra - Horah & Hashiveinu/Nigun Bialik & Onu Bonu Artso (RCA Victor). Late 1940s, or even 1950 or '51, based on the label. The label says "Arranged by Sam Musiker" - another fine klezmer and jazz clarinetist who was a veteran of the Gene Krupa big band and who married Tarras' daughter.

I have a 78 blog, mostly for my own amusement, but it occurred to me that Billy Root fans might want to hear a rare one - his first recording, for the Roost label, on a never-reissued 78. Billy Root on Roost