I Am So Psyched!

[Soul Stream]

Pretty wild story.

[Dan Gould]

I went back to the auction item page, and I couldn't believe what the page visit counter is at: 63.

When I won this thing last night, it was at 26.

Nothing like a link from Organissimo to drive traffic to another site!

[Bill Fenohr]

Im glad to know that Benny Poole is still kickin'. He is one of the truely nice guys in the business.

Jim,

I hope you guys get to play with him at some point. Benny has done a ton of organ gigs, so he knows what hes doing in that setting. I remember seeing him one year at the Jackson County Fair with organ and drums and he had everyone dancing, which was amazing because Jackson is not exactly a jazz mecca. I guess Bennys persoality comes through his horn and it just makes you happy and you want to move. I can still see all those farmers claping like crazy after Benny played Red Top.

[Dan Gould]

IT MADE IT HERE SAFELY! IT MADE IT HERE SAFELY!

I'm wondering now if this could actually be a regular 33 1/3 master. The label isn't entirely blank, its got the recording company name printed, and also:

78

33

And neither one is marked in anyway. It looks like it could be a 33 with a reasonable amount of stretching out space on each track. If it turns out to be 3 minutes a side, what was the point of making a demo record? No matterl - I just need to clean it up and get it on the TT to figure it out. But unfortunately, there's no way for me to start that work before Thursday night. Oh well ... at least

IT MADE IT HERE SAFELY! IT MADE IT HERE SAFELY!

[Rooster_Ties]

Congrats!!!

Any chance you could have b3-er host a 30-second sample of each side?? (Assuming you can run your turntable through your PC, etc...)

We'd all love to hear some of this thing too!!

Edited March 23, 2005 by Rooster_Ties

[jazzbo]

I'm so glad it made it there safely!

[Dave James]

Hey Dan...nice going. You must've dropped your sox when you saw this one, being the Gene Harris Fanatic we all know you to be. Needless to say, I'm as anxious as everyone else for a full report on this one as soon as you cue it up.

Up over and out.

[Jim R]

IT MADE IT HERE SAFELY! IT MADE IT HERE SAFELY!

Whew... that's a relief. Now, one more thing- do NOT take it to bed with you under any circumstances! You might roll over and crack it.

[couw]

and do not spill any liquor on it when the party moves into the final few hours before dawn

[WD45]

Can you post a pic? I would love to see what it looks like.

[Dan Gould]

Can you post a pic? I would love to see what it looks like.

Funny, I was thinking about that but my sister-in-law borrowed the digital camera. When I get it back I will. Are you curious about the conditio or just want to see the 10 inch record and hand-written label?

[Peggy-Ann]

It would be funny if the sound was good but each track sounds like a precursor of Dan’s favorite childhood song, "Billy Don't Be a Hero".

[JSngry]

[WD45]

Can you post a pic?  I would love to see what it looks like.

Funny, I was thinking about that but my sister-in-law borrowed the digital camera. When I get it back I will. Are you curious about the conditio or just want to see the 10 inch record and hand-written label?

I am curious about that label!

[Dan Gould]

I am curious about that label!

And here they are:

[Dan Gould]

Here's an update:

I think the cleaning was pretty effective but I'm hoping Allen can fix it up a bit more.

Much to my extreme dismay, I discovered yesterday that my wife's turntable, the only one that has a 78 setting, somehow got broken sometime in the last year or two. So, faced with the option of not making any sort of transfer myself and playing Postal Roulette again, I decided to do the only thing I could:

I made a transfer at 45 rpm with my usual turntable.

I can clean up the worst of the pops manually, and then I'm going to experiment with Goldwave's "time warp" function to speed up the recording and we'll see what happens, just in case anything terrible happens on its way to Mr. Lowe.

The initial impression:

For all the hope that this would be a great recording of Gene Harris, it turns out the Demo is more of a feature for the tenor saxophonist, Lonnie "The Sound" Walker.

"Inez" is a ballad and is really all Walker, with a quick fade at the end of his solo as Gene starts his own (so that really makes me hope the recording studio is gonna tell me that they have the original masters. I can dream, can't I? Ten days ago, I'd never have dreamed there was a Four Sounds Demo out there, so .... )

"Hot Bread," as might be expected is a blues. Again, most solo space given to the tenor, but Gene does take a turn and so does Andy Simpkins.

I guess the bottom line is, if this is all I get from this 78, I guess at least I got a recording of Gene playing with the funkiest Gerry Mulligan ever captured on wax.

[Dan Gould]

Update:

Goldwave allowed me to convert to 78 speed with no trouble and no change to the music. B-)

Its also allowed me to do some noise reduction and some compensatory EQ-ing, such that I think I've got some pretty decent sounding transfers. It'll be interesting to see the results Allen gets and how they compare.

So, here are some discographical and musical observations. The recording date and composer credits are based on information provided by Janie Harris, Gene's widow, who told me that the song titles "sound like Gene."

Demo Recording by The Four Sounds

Lonnie Walker, tenor sax

Gene Harris, piano

Andy Simpkins, bass

Bill Dowdy, drums

Recording Date: 1955-56

Location: Boddie Recording, Cleveland, Ohio

Inez (Gene Harris)

2:25

A ballad feature for Lonnie Walker, "Inez" starts with its rather simple four note melody, stated twice, by Harris alone. While Walker's solo stays close to the melody, he does put a lot of feeling into the notes. Unfortunately, there is a quick fade just as Harris' solo starts.

Hot Bread (Gene Harris)

2:43

Another rather simple composition, Hot Bread is a blues which starts with Walker alone, playing a familiar sounding riff, Harris chord punctuation, and then one of those sort of staccatto descending runs that reminds you of any number of R&B hits of the era, and then the whole band joins in as Walker blows the first chorus. Harris takes over for one and sounds like Red Garland with a locked-hands approach-something I've never heard him do otherwise. Simpkins then takes a solo and Walker returns and takes it out.

So, all in all, there's not as much Gene Harris as I'd have wanted, and the tunes aren't the greatest compositions, but it doesn't really matter cuz this forgotten recording has now been rescued from the memory hole.

And the Gene Harris Fanatic is one happy puppy.

[jazzbo]

[Rooster_Ties]

Not half bad for $2 (plus shipping costs). B-) B-) B-)

[Dan Gould]

IN case anyone's curious, here's a before/after to demonstrate the clean-up:

Not the best since the before shot is more of a closeup, but you get the idea.

[Aggie87]

....how does the laser get in there and read the music on that big black shiny thing?? B-)

j/k, congrats on a great find Dan!!

[AllenLowe]

should be interesting to see what it sounds like here - I'll put it through the VPI and try a few different styli with the CEDAR - Dan,can you include a CDR of the transfer you did (unless you've mailed it already) -

[wolff]

If you are going to play this thing often I would pick up a 78 cartridge. Shure, Grado and Rega make nice affordable units. Shure makes a cartridge that accepts their 78 stylus(wider for the 78 grooves), so you can just swap it in and out with the standard Shure stylus.

[Dan Gould]

If you are going to play this thing often I would pick up a 78 cartridge.

Good suggestion, but I mentioned above that the TT used to make this transfer doesn't even play 78s, I had to use the software to adjust the speed accordingly. On top of that, with the hisses and pops, there's no way I'm going to be playing this at all once I get the best possible transfer on CD. In fact, I'm considering giving the 78 itself to Gene's widow, once I'm done with the transfers. So no need to invest in 78 cartridges.

[AllenLowe]

just listened to your files, Dan - I would say a little too much processing on the second one, so please be sure to keep the straight transfer, as, if the post office (GOD FORBID!) loses the 78 I could still work with that one - nice thing about CEDAR is that it doesn't have that compressed quality and does not leave any artifacts - looking forward to doing this - and let me add that I'm about to post (probably later tonight) a thread about the Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall concert, for which I will be taking one tune and applying some CEDAR restoration to show what can be done - (also, I'll make an extra CDR or two for Gene's widow - let me know how many extra copies you need) -