mmilovan

It is the other way round with these Columbias - Columbia invented laminated records for usage of finest shellac at the top or at the bottom of record surface (and to save valuable materials by including cardboard core in the middle), so Columbia records sounded very fine!

Video (film) clip about recycling 78s during WWII: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxPIgASBUdY

Seriously involved in analogue-to-digital transfer from 78rpm sources (usually records, but lacquers as well) I can tell that the most important thing is to find clean, unplayed source. With such material you can get the most beautiful sound and can transform it in sonically superior recording. Not all those old records were recorded with the same equipment or with the same BALANCE of the recorded sound. For instance, there are few JR Morton sides from 1926. (recorded for Victor) that sound terrific, almost Hi-Fi, and then, later they spoiled the sound in bass register. It is the same with Duke, Wellman Braud bass playing with bow is registered on the record with clarity. Personally I listened and transferred one Hungarian record with bass drum recorded clearly and loud in 1928. (recorded frequency was as low as 38 Hz!!!), but then, there are bunch of records from around that time that sounds as crap! Acetates from begin 1940s is another story, they are Hi-Fi in every part of recorded sound with aliquots as high as 20000 Hz, but with clearly pronounced bass notes. Listen to the BMG CD called "Learn to Croon" with recorded voices of Frank Sinatra and Jo Stafford (broadcasts from 1941 and 1942). Amazing sound, with Buddy Rich and his bass drum pulse... unbelievable, that is (mastered by Steve Hoffman)! Doug Pomeroy transfers of Benny Goodman band from 1930s are unbelievable as well (material on Bluebird BMG CD named “Benny Goodman, The King of Swing”, issued in 2003).

Me too. Also Bird was great admirer of Buddy Rich. Nothing wrong with him. My favorite one would be earliest known recordings of Bird in Kansas City, and few tunes from 1941. with drums and guitar accompaniment only. And for those who hate early wire/acetate recordings, I find Bird recordings on such media acceptable as well. It is not about hi-fi it is about soul!

Is there any confirmation of proportions of damage - were there only records or metal parts, memorabilia, session lists and so on...

His clarinet that Goodman gave him was stollen from his dressing room, and he gave up clarinet playing - goes the official story. Somewhere I've read Sadik Hakim heard Pres playing clarinet around 1947 or so.

More, moooore, mooooooooore!!!

Naaaah, there is no need to worry about, they have all physical back-up copies of these.

I'm deeply interested in what the hell is "physical back-up copy" of metal parts? To my mind it can only be another metal part, stamper or copy in virgin vinyl pressed from negative... So they did all that copies, right? Oh yeah, for sure...

PROBABLY EVERYTHING... This is the message I've got from another board few minutes ago: "Unfortunately, yes. I visited that vault with Steven two years ago, and with his authority was able to "check out," lending-library style, about ten metal parts. There was a corner of the building with metal racks that contained hundreds and hundreds of them in a lot of cardboard boxes marked "Hoffman." That would be Steve Hoffman, who worked for MCA in the late '70s and early '80s, producing LP reissues of hot stuff. Steve cherrypicked the vast archive of Decca metals, pulling every Gennett, Vocalion and even Paramount mother or stamper he could find. He took these home to transfer, and then KEPT them! MCA busted him for possession - I don't know his punishment for this "crime" - and returned it all to the vault. The metals were never re-intergrated into the files, and in 2006, were in exactly the same state - packed willy-nilly in their cardboard boxes - as when they were repossessed. This should tell you how much MCA really cared about them. They would have been a lot better off in Hoffman's house. Anyway, with Steven's help, I took home and transferred the parts for "West End Blues" by Zach Whyte's Chocolate Beau Brummels; two sides by Pine Top Smith, including an unissued take of "Now I Ain't Got Nothin' at All" and eight others. I almost but for some &(^%$( reason DIDN'T take the two Gennett sides by Carmichael's Collegians, "Walkin' the Dog" and "March of the Hoodlums." I can still see them leaning against the box where I left them. I had reason to hope that Steven and I - or Steven alone - could return there on a regular basis, but for reasons he never made entirely clear, he wouldn't and we didn't. Now, as far as we know, all that metal is SLAG. Along with all the acetates and tapes that I presume were also still there. Sorry, guys. Brad Kay" Thank you Universal!

And another, most important, question: was Finnish radio with tape recorders around that hall in time mentioned in the newsreel?

Closer listening to that 1944-53 JATP set can resolve that problem: Flip used that repetetive figure we can find on 00:49, probably he borowed it from Lester. And I'm not sure if anyone will edit solo of Flip, just to cut first few bars, and paste Lester's playing. At least, due to such primitive editing we will clearly hear that part (from Pres to Flip), but solo "flows" here perfectly. Also, I'm with Allen Lowe, this is not his rhythmic sense.

John, I'm afraid it is NOT Lester on 00:49. Sure the player uses the same repetitive figure so closely associated with Pres, but the way he uses it, projection, tone, and vibrato suggests no Lester here. It can be Flip, I don't see Ventura anywhere (and in addition to marcel's post, I think it is Lester in shades/darkness with Krupa, not Ventura). But I can't tell if it really was Flip or Ventura, can't make that difference.

The same with me, I can hear no Lester on that film clip! And, no wonder Lester prefer J. C. Heard more than Max Roach ("No bombs please, just give me that twinky-boom behind me...") And speaking about Lester, here is one special clip: Bobby Scott remembers Lester Young http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQRKFbYBtBM

Who is that alto player captured alongside with Lester and Flip: is it Willie Smith?

marcel, this is wonderful :excited:

Are those sessions they played in ever issued on record/CD?

I think I've noteced Milt Gabler somewhere in the middle section, but I'm not quite sure. Also, there was part of saying from a person totally unknown to me.

Sauter-Finegan orchestra was really something worth listening to, every note! And he turn inside out tired Goodman's band begin 1940s! RIP Mr. Finegan!

Most tragicall of them sure was Wells, but, Earle Warren and Jo Jones wasn't that far from the very same situation.

The same with me. It would be better if they spent all that money in reissuing more of his recordings, then to recreate "crystal clear" junk (listen carefully, and you will hear that something went wrong with all that, because it doesn't sound like Tatum). And AllenLowe described it perfectly, especially with all that "acoustical qualities created post-recording"... but it is situation in studio recording technique today, I'm afraid.

Just found this on Youtube: What session could it be, ever issued as record? Oh, and how sad is that story about Dickie Wells - poor, poor man, totally forgotten then. He worked as post office clerk... I almost cried having known about him...

If it is true about the metal parts then can you imagine: Basie, Jimmy Dorsey, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Lunceford... all in those beautiful sound... gone... forever... never to have them in sonicaly highest level of some further vinyl pressings. We can only hope these were not masters, but records - anyway such loss is unrecoverable. I always thought that records and tapes are in some safe deposit spaces under controlled conditions, burried safely under the ground and so on. Now I know this is not the case. From what have been said from that LoFrumento they didnt have slightliest clue about what content of that storage. How anyone can say "It was unclear if the recordings were originals"... What was there, Martians?

This is message I've got from another board. We can hope these were only records, and not masters/metal parts as well:

I'm very sorry to hear this, he was really fine musician... one of those last Pres' disciples has gone... R.I.P. Phil!