Frank Sinatra - In The Wee Small Hours LP (Tone Poet Vinyl Edition)

[dougcrates]

https://store.bluenote.com/products/frank-sinatra-in-the-wee-small-hours-lp-tone-poet-vinyl-edition

November 14

[jcam_44]

As someone who really enjoys this album I don’t understand how this readily available album warrants a tone poet reissue. I’m sure it will sound great. Also skimming over the blurb it doesn’t mention if it is in mono or a stereo fold. I’m assuming it’s mono since I think it was originally recorded in mono. Also it’s not even blue note, maybe I’m wrong but this seems strange. 
 

edit: found where it does state it’s mono

Edited yesterday at 02:05 PM by jcam_44

[street singer]

2 hours ago, jcam_44 said:

As someone who really enjoys this album I don’t understand how this readily available album warrants a tone poet reissue. I’m sure it will sound great. Also skimming over the blurb it doesn’t mention if it is in mono or a stereo fold. I’m assuming it’s mono since I think it was originally recorded in mono. Also it’s not even blue note, maybe I’m wrong but this seems strange. 
 

edit: found where it does state it’s mono

The Tone Poet series has never been exclusively Blue Note. One of the first albums in the series was Chick Corea's 'Now He Sings, Now He Sobs' (Solid State), and one of the most recent is Serge Chaloff's 'Blue Serge' (Capitol). They've also issued many Pacific Jazz titles and a few albums from the Transition label. This does seem an odd choice for the series, though... 

 

From Joe Harley regarding the mastering: 

"Capitol ran two tape decks for this recording (and others). One set was assembled and used many 100s of times. The other was put away with each track filed separately on what we call phono reels. These tracks had never been used before. I had them assembled and this is what we used. The sound is astonishing...Frank is in the room."

Edited yesterday at 04:37 PM by street singer

[clifford_thornton]

I would assume that anything folded into the UME jazz bucket could conceivably get a Tone Poet release. 

PJ/World Pacific was part of Liberty/Transamerica from the late 1960s, which also owned Blue Note, and of course BN bought some of the Transition masters as well. Solid State was a Liberty/Transamerica imprint, too. So it all makes good sense to me.

[colinmce]

Most of what they're doing at BN now is just rehashing the work Cuscuna did in the CD era, which does encompass the umbrella of EMI holdings that constituted "Blue Note" CD releases back in the day (i.e BN & later tape acquisitions, Capitol, Roulette, Pacific Jazz/WP, United Artists, Solid State, Transition, Jazz West, Aladdin, Imperial, Colpix, maybe a couple others I can't think of at the moment)

[JSngry]

6 hours ago, street singer said:

From Joe Harley regarding the mastering: 

"Capitol ran two tape decks for this recording (and others). One set was assembled and used many 100s of times. The other was put away with each track filed separately on what we call phono reels. These tracks had never been used before. I had them assembled and this is what we used. The sound is astonishing...Frank is in the room."

Wait...does this mean that they used one deck per track? Surely not?

Or do they mean one reel per track?

As far as Frank being in the room with me...not sure how I feel about that. Would he be in a good mood?

[Holy Ghost]

6 hours ago, JSngry said:

As far as Frank being in the room with me...not sure how I feel about that. Would he be in a good mood?

Nope. 

[danasgoodstuff]

As far as things on Capitol go, the Beach boys and that band from Liverpool were also on the label.  So was hank Thompson and you could asswmble a nice swinging set of instrumentals from his early albums like the perfectly titled Dance Ranch.

[Big Beat Steve]

1 hour ago, danasgoodstuff said:

So was Hank Thompson and you could assemble a nice swinging set of instrumentals from his early albums like the perfectly titled Dance Ranch.

Aw well ... with all due respect, that album certainly was nice, given its release year and the prevailing musical trends of that period (that certainly were NOT Western Swing that this album was supposed to be part of), and I like listening to it every now and then too. But within the ACTUAL stylistic framework of WESTERN SWING it was glib, slick and bit overproduced to the extent of having had a lot of its spontaneous edges honed off. Not to mention the "something for everybody" repertoire typical of such albums of that day. So - ho hum ... 
Even the Bob Wills/Tommy Duncan 1960 reunion recordings for Liberty had more punch within that stylistic idiom IMHO.

Anyway ... what I think some around here in this discussion do not quite appreciate is not so much the fact that some records are on Capitol but the multitude of labels that seem to be made to sail under the Blue Note reissue flag. Understandable ... Among the stack of CDs that ride in my car as food for my CD player there is a "Stan Kenton in Hi-Fi" CD from what is called "The Blue Note Collection", with the typical Blue Note label design on the CD too, as if to cash in on the "Blue Note" image throughout too. Which looks just silly, silly, SILLY on that record! 

[jcam_44]

I guess I never realized how bastardized the blue note label has become. 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Regarding "phono reels"... I had not heard that term before so I asked Ron McMaster what they were.

He had this to say:

Hi Kevin,

No, I didn’t know about the Sinatra LP reissue but I’m not surprised. It’s a great album and probably not many LP’s left for purchase.

Yes, the library has many phono reels. A phono reel is a combination of various artists and various tracks. Usually they are the single version of a popular song. The LP version remained on the LP master. I always enjoyed working with phono reels because they always contained songs that you never heard of or some obscure B side only released on that specific single. Inside the phono reel is a large card that contains the master number of each song and a section where you would put the date you cut it and the scribe number of the track. Also the master number of each song.

Phono reels are usually the original track and not a duplicate copy unless the original version was ruined or not playable. Yes they usually sound amazing, especially the original Sinatra tracks. They captured a sound quality that was just unbelievable. Every time I got to work with a phono reel was a blast. I would see and hear songs I had never heard before. A collection of various songs on each phone reel. There are many of them in the library. Probably all transferred to digital years ago.

I hope that answers your question and sheds some light on how they did things in the early days. Part of the Capitol history.

Best, Ron

So, from Ron's description, phono reels were made to cut singles. I assume that these particular phono reels from the "In The Wee Small Hours" sessions were created and used to cut the 4 volume, 4 song "singles" Capitol released back in 1955. It's likely to sound very good as a result.

[Big Beat Steve]

36 minutes ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

So, from Ron's description, phono reels were made to cut singles. I assume that these particular phono reels from the "In The Wee Small Hours" sessions were created and used to cut the 4 volume, 4 song "singles" Capitol released back in 1955. It's likely to sound very good as a result.

This might lead one to believe that the 45rpm (multi-)EP versions of 50s LPs on Capitol might have been sonically superior? 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

1 minute ago, Big Beat Steve said:

This might lead one to believe that the 45rpm (multi-)EP versions of 50s LPs on Capitol might have been sonically superior? 

Probably not when compared with a contemporaneously-cut original LP pressing. Both would have been cut with first generation tapes. Different tapes, yes, but still first generation.

The difference with a cut made today is that the LP medium is less restricted than it was "back in the day", with turntables and cartridges that can track a lot more dynamics than the ones we used to have.

Unfortunately, sometimes they have pushed those dynamics a bit too far in the latest BN cuts (Tone Poet & Classic Vinyl series) and created tracking problems for some buyers.

With luck, Kevin Gray will not push the levels too far on this one so no one has that problem.

[Niko]

Indeed, I got my first Tonepoet recently (Picture of Heath) and while a lot of it sounded great, there were those spots that taught me that I better stick to old-time vinyl until the next major upgrade of my system which is not planned for the foreseeable future...

[Kevin Bresnahan]

21 minutes ago, Niko said:

Indeed, I got my first Tone Poet recently (Picture of Heath) and while a lot of it sounded great, there were those spots that taught me that I better stick to old-time vinyl until the next major upgrade of my system which is not planned for the foreseeable future...

Honestly, I don't think you can upgrade and make that LP playable. There are people with rigs that cost in excess of $5K that are having trouble playing that particular LP.