The Ellington Era 1927-1940 vol. 2- D.E. & his famous orch.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

the labels are red columbia labels that say MONO at the bottom with the arrows and 360 sound logo, just two 'eyes'.

this set is really weird. ive never seen an ellington comp of its era before. now are these actual tape transfers or just dubs of the 78rpms themselves? is this really the 1st compilation of this columbia material. how many vols. were in the series? does anyone know this release, is t rare? it looked like a really good buy for 3 dollars cause it will save me trouble when i dont wanna dig out the 78s to play this material, let alone hear a lot of songs at once, etc....

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2096/2285635825_de99ba3aef_o.jpg

OH WAIT MINE DOESNT HAVE ACCOMPANYING BOOKLET...DAMN

[Stereojack]

There were only two volumes in this series. The transfers were very good, and the accompanying booklets were handsome, with good annotation for the time. Volume 1 was my introduction to this period of Ellington back when I was just getting into this music, and although I've since replaced these sets with more complete releases, the selections made by the original producer (Frank Driggs, I think) cannot be faulted.

Tape did not come into use as a recording medium until around 1950. The original sources would probably have been the metal parts from which the original 78's were made.

[Christiern]

When metal parts (from which vinyl test pressings were made) either were not available or in such bad condition as to be unusable, we used commercial pressings as a source. Some people took very good care of their 78s, so that worked out well. Sometimes my engineer (the sorely missed Larry Hiller) and I combined several pressings to come up with a clean track. We had stereo cartridges made with 78-type styli so that we could separate the signals found on each side of the groove. All 78s were not worn the same way, some old players were more unkind to one side or the other.

I don't recall Frank doing the Ellington—it may well have been Michael Brooks or Nedra Olds-Neal. I think Driggs had been handed the pink slip by then. He was somewhat dishonest, one instance being when he changed the speed on a Henderson track and issued it as a rare alternate take!

[jazztrain]

The booklet to Volume One lists Frank Driggs as producer with Michael Figlio credited for technical supervision. Original recordings loaned by Jeff Atterton, Stanley Dance, Harry N. Fein, Sidney Mills, Don Molinelli, and Jacob S. Schneider.

The credits for Volume Two are to Frank Driggs as producer and to Milt Cherin for technical supervision. The original recordings were loaned by Stanley Dance, Frank Driggs, Harry Fein, Tom Lord, Don Molinelli, and Jacob S. Schneider.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

lolz, this Driggs guy sounds hes a Columbia rebel, i like it! He should of put the fake alternate take on the net then given John Hammond the credit. so you actually seperated the left and ride side of the groove on a 78 rpm and combined different 78 groove-sides, and put them together for the master? a 78's not stereo, so you mean the two sides of the groove together make the mono, but you just have 1/2 the information missing when you hear one side of the groove?

[Christiern]

The Driggs credit indicates an earlier reissue year than I thought. Harry Fein, BTW, was a Columbia engineer who (as Renfrew Dibble) put together wonderful LPs to give to friends who shared his love for pre-war jazz. He had a great collection, lots of cats, and a wonderful wife who could cook up a storm.

To address your response more directly, each side of the groove contains the same recorded signal, but the extent of the wear (surface noise) varies, so we used the less worn side, feeding that signal into a mono whole, as it were.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

that sounds very high tech to be done in a pre-computer audio editing era. i appriciate so much effort when into to 'needledropping' these things as nicely as possible!