Teasing the Korean

Ditto. "Love Theme from Spartacus" is incredible. One of the most sublime pieces of kitsch you'll ever hear! If Alex North is kitsch, so is all of the music discussed on this message board. Of course, "kitsch" is meaningless in the post modern era...

I've had better luck over the years with belt drives than I have direct drives.

Mono pressings on most labels in the US outnumbered stereo at least through 1966. Mono copies of US albums from 67 and 68 are much harder to find, because they were pressed in fewer numbers. As far as I know, all those RVG recordings were done to 2 track and mixed to mono from there. I think when confronted with choices, getting the right balance for the mono mix was his priority. The bass and piano tend to have more presence on the mono versions than they do on the stereo.

Come to think of it, I'm sick of just about every standard in the Real Book. Why? Because the compilers only bothered to include a couple of dozen of them, and consequently they're all overplayed.

As I thought I made plain above, these are not my recordings. Someone else made the transfers of the original 78s to digital. I am playing with the digital versions using Goldwave. Your suggestion had me intrigued so I took the first track, which I had edited for pops and amped up the signal because it was recorded low, and I saved it as a mono file. There's definitely an improvement in signal to noise, though its subtle. However, I think this is a way to reduce the noise bed without using the software's NR function. That cleans up the recording nicely but it definitely leaves it sounding a bit compressed and squished. I was using the editorial "you," rather than addressing you in the second person. Sorry for the confusion.

So I guess the guy with the extensive collection of 78s hasn't invested in a mono cartridge for best playback. Oh well. I got these old blues 78s comps he's put together which are pretty cool and has lots of obscure tracks (including two tracks off of B.B. King's short-lived label, Blues Boy King, which fetched $100 last time on ebay) but I wanted to do somethng with the fidelity. I still don't get how a stereo cartridge would put a pop in one channel and not both, but ... Now I need to decide about noise reduction. Some of the tracks have such a prominent sizzling noise floor ... sorry Allen, I know how you feel about that stuff. If you don't have a mono cartridge, at the very least you need to combine left and right signal and sum it to mono. Why? because the surface noise is in stereo if you play it with a stereo cartridge; and by summing the signal to mono, you will reduce the ratio of the noise/groove distortion level to the main music level. That is, you'll reduce the surface noise and strengthen the signal of the music.

As well they should, coming from the pens of Alfred Newman and Alex North!

I think "As Times Goes By" - from both a musical and lyrical standpoint - is one of the clumsiest standards ever written. One wonders if it would have sunk into oblivion had it not been for "Casablanca." It's even worse when jazz musicians are forced to play it.

I guess I can give up all hope that Verve will reissue Gary McFarland and Kenyon Hopkins...

Didn't know about those. Are they on Capitol? MG Yes, 1958 and 1959, respectively. US catalog numbers are: African Jazz - (S)T 1117 Jungle Jazz - (S)T 1184 These feature firey percussion, colorful orchestration, and Plas as featured soloist alternating between tenor sax and alto flute. Cor!!! I bet they're expensive. Baxter seems to be "in" with the DJs at the moment. That's the time for a reissue, methinks. MG Record labels are notoriously slow to catch onto what's "in." Capitol released a 2 CD collection of Les's exotica stuff at the height of lounge-mania in the 90s, and promptly deleted it. So don't hold your breath. These two titles are definitely the jazziest Les Baxter I've heard, and the involvement of soloists Plas Johnson and Larry Bunker on vibes adds credibility. Sadly, Les Baxter is considered a novelty, and I can't imagine Capitol having either the good sense or imagination to release these two. Still, there's always eBay.

Didn't know about those. Are they on Capitol? MG Yes, 1958 and 1959, respectively. US catalog numbers are: African Jazz - (S)T 1117 Jungle Jazz - (S)T 1184 These feature firey percussion, colorful orchestration, and Plas as featured soloist alternating between tenor sax and alto flute.

We need a two-fer reissue of Les Baxter's "African Jazz" and "Jungle Jazz," both of which prominently feature Plas Johnson.

Indeed from '72. I have the 45, which was done in the style of Dickie Goodman singles: Reporter asks question, responded by a line from a current hit single. There were a number of soundtracks released on Mainstream in the 60s, many of which were "jazzy" to a certain degree. These include A Patch of Blue - Jerry Goldsmith Walk on the Wildside - Elmer Bernstein The 10th Victim - Piero Piccioni Some of these also showed up on sister labels AVA/Choreo, but I'm not sure how all of that ties in to Mainstream. Have you checked the discographies page of bsnpubs.com to see if they have a Mainstream discography?

It's between Harvard and Porter, but slightly closer to Porter. I trudged through the snow too many times from both directions.

Music to Listen to Red Norvo By!

I lived in Beantown for many years and for a good chunk of my time there I would hit Stereo Jack’s once a week. I remember trudging through the snow from my day gig in Harvard Square salivating at the thought of what I’d find. I’d often end up walking out of there with an armload of LPs for under $50. “I can’t believe your prices!” I’d exclaim. “We’re a record store, not a museum. We price ’em to move.” And when I would indulge in the periodic requisite sacrifice to the Record Gods, I’d choose to plunk down the big bucks at Jack’s, as a thank you for all those incredible dollar LPs I’d accumulated.

Another enthusiastic vote for Jack's, both in terms of selection and price. I hope you do vinyl! Their vinyl selection is terrific.

"If Only I Could Remember My Name." NOT a funny title for most artists. "If Only I Could Remember My Name." HYSTERICAL title when used by David Crosby. I can't even speak it without laughing by the sixth or seventh syllable.

Well, it's certainly a cut above many of the pop or jazz bossa cash-ins that were common to that period. I'm not sure how something on Riverside ended up on Capitol. But the fact that both Mendes and Cannonball were on Capitol and Pickwick licensed lots of capitol stuff, that explains at least 5 of the 10 or so variations!

Well, the record is still going at the same speed as you get toward the centre, but the circumference of the circle decreases as you go in; So, the two extremes of the pitch fluctuation will occur closer to each other timewise, but the pitches themselves would remain the same. Does that make sense?

Maybe because the pitch fluctuation occurs over an increasingly shorter loop as the tone arm moves in? That's all I can think of. For those of us with above-average pitch, this problem can be really annoying. There have been times when I've had two copies of an LP and unloaded the cleaner copy because it was off center. I'll take a few pops and clicks over fluctuating pitch any day.

Too bad more turntables don't have a removable spindle. You can center the records manually (not always easy but possible) and it's much cheaper.

The Zombies were a life changing band for me. I saw them live a few years ago (Colin and Rod, at least). Colin's voice has not aged one bit. He sounded gorgeous. As for the Yardbirds catalog, it's always been a mess. In the late 70s/early 80s, you had to have like 20 albums to get their 4 albums' worth of stuff. It was spread out over so many records, but there was always one weird budget album that had an oddball song/take/mix that was nowhere else to be found. What a nightmare. And they never sounded better than they did on the US Epic mono LPs. Where did these tapes go?

Definitely get "Roger the Engineer," (aka Over Under Sideways Down). This is essentially their only true studio album (they recorded fairly haphazardly like most second-tier Brit groups). Most reissues include "Happenings" and "Psycho Daisies" with Beck and Page. Be sure to get the edition with the mono and stereo albums. The mono album includes some important overdubs left off the stereo. And the single disc Rhino "Best of" will give you a good survey of the Giorgio Gomelsky period (early stuff through "Shapes of Things"). And the BBC album would make a good companion to those.