What 78 are you spinning right now ?

[Clunky]

In honour of me powering up my Dansette Viva for the first time in 20 years I picked up some 78s

Lucky Thompson Boppin the Blues/Just one more chance- RCA Victor

Stan Getz with Jimmy Raney- Autumn Leaves/Lullaby of birdland- Vogue ( ex Roost)

Woodchoppers- Lost weekend/Igor- Columbia- Swing music series

hm...not sure this "new" format will catch on but sentimental none the less.....

Edited February 24, 2005 by Clunky

[Jazz Kat]

Wow, the only 78's I can play are on my old victrola from the 30's, most of the records are too scratchy, and not really "jazz."

[Chuck Nessa]

I have a "dedicated" 78 turntable and about once a year get on a 78 kick.

[brownie]

I have not spinned 78s in some 40 years. Don't have any of those discs any more!

[Bill Fenohr]

I still have all my dads swing era 78's. Mostly big band stuff, Goodman,Basie,Krupa,Shaw,Harry James etc. Like Chuck, i drag them out once a year if that.

[kh1958]

I have a few jazz 78s, but no means to play them.

[mikeweil]

I only have two: a copy of Bill Haley's Rock Around The Clock on German Brunswick, and two Gershwin piano solos, both hanging on the wall for decoration

haven't had a suitable player for more than 20 years.

[Clunky]

Couldn't resist picking up BN 3, 6, 7 twelve inch 78s yesterday in excellent condition.

Sides by Port of Harlem, Bechet , including his famous version "Summertime". Now I need to get a second hand TT capable of playing them now that my Dansette is nearly dead. Any opinions re reasonable 78 decks- cheapness vital.

Edited January 11, 2009 by Clunky

[BillF]

Haven't had any since the 50s when I had:

Humphrey Lyttelton, "Bad Penny Blues"

Jelly Roll Morton, "Doctor Jazz"

Muggsy Spanier, "At the Jazz Band Ball"

Pinetop Smith, "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie"

Meade Lux Lewis, "Honky Tonk Train Blues"

The last two were bought at Dobell's, where I was chased out of the booth for taking too long to make a selection! (I was 17 at the time!)

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I've got a few 78s, but I only play them when I REALLY want to. I don't have the room for a dedicated 78 deck, so I have to:

change the speed on my deck to 45;

remove the turntable;

move the belt up to the other gear;

turn it on to make sure the belt doesn't slip back into its accustomed position;

replace the turntable;

remove the LP stylus - quite hard, as it's tight;

replace it with a 78 stylus - because it doesn't get used often, this is a VERY tight fit;

put the record on;

start up again - usually, it doesn't want to go with a heavy 78 on it - I have to push start it

play the record.

And afterwards, I have to reverse the process and NOT forget to change the speed back to 33

But last week, I REALLY wanted to play a 78 by the Swan Silvertones that I didn't have on LP, so I did all that!

MG

[sidewinder]

Don't have any 78s I'm afraid - or the means to play them. I'm with Brownie on this one.

Edited January 11, 2009 by sidewinder

[Clunky]

Just managed to revive the Dansette, built in speaker wasn't working but I managed to get some sound by hooking speaker cable to an external speaker and now enjoying said 78s.

Two of them (BN 3 and 6 ) have blue/yellow Bluenote labels with 235- 7th Ave. address where as BN7 has the Lexington address, Lion must have moved a fair bit. £3 each.

Currently got Mighty Blues by the POHJM

[Big Beat Steve]

My DUAL turntable (bought new sometime in the 90s) has 33, 45 and 78 rpm (one of the last they made with 78 rpm) so playing them would not require much effort (except to change the stylus). But I don't get around to spinning them that often, and they days when I actively sought them out at garage sales and auctions really are more or less over.

I have about 800 or 900 78s (mostly U.S. and European swing, bop, R&B, country/Western Swing, rock'n'roll/rockabilly, plus some assorted quantities of 40s and 50s pop), but the 78s that I tend to spin most often are late 40s/early 50s bop and R&B items on various indie labels that aren't easily available as reissues.

Now how about another thread "What 16 RPM are you spinning right now?" :D

That's where the question of the equipment to play them really becomes crucial.

If I'd want to spin mine (one Prestige, one Vogue, so not exactly mvery many), I'd have to really pull out one of my portable 50s "Dansette"-type turntables.

[AllenLowe]

1) Original Creole Orchestra, with Freddie Keppard -

2) Buddy Bolden "live" at Funky Butt Hall

3) Wynton plays the Music of Buddy Bolden

4) King Oliver "live" at the Lincoln Gardens

5) Art Tatum: Toledo Beginnings

[kh1958]

1) Original Creole Orchestra, with Freddie Keppard -

2) Buddy Bolden "live" at Funky Butt Hall

3) Wynton plays the Music of Buddy Bolden

4) King Oliver "live" at the Lincoln Gardens

5) Art Tatum: Toledo Beginnings

Those might be rare.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

1) Original Creole Orchestra, with Freddie Keppard -

2) Buddy Bolden "live" at Funky Butt Hall

3) Wynton plays the Music of Buddy Bolden

4) King Oliver "live" at the Lincoln Gardens

5) Art Tatum: Toledo Beginnings

Those might be rare.

Nah!

Back in the sixties, I had a colleague who SERIOUSLY maintained that he had the Bolden cylinder, but it was up in his attic and he couldn't be asked to get it down and show it to us

MG

[kh1958]

1) Original Creole Orchestra, with Freddie Keppard -

2) Buddy Bolden "live" at Funky Butt Hall

3) Wynton plays the Music of Buddy Bolden

4) King Oliver "live" at the Lincoln Gardens

5) Art Tatum: Toledo Beginnings

Those might be rare.

Nah!

Back in the sixties, I had a colleague who SERIOUSLY maintained that he had the Bolden cylinder, but it was up in his attic and he couldn't be asked to get it down and show it to us

MG

Ho hum. Now Wynton plays Buddy Bolden, that sounds really special

[Clunky]

Sandy Brown's Jazz Band- African Queen- Tempo

Three Bips and a Bop- Featuring Babs Gonzales- Professor bop- Capitol, Jack the bear on Bass , not sure who this really is

[Big Beat Steve]

Three Bips and a Bop- Featuring Babs Gonzales- Professor bop- Capitol, Jack the bear on Bass , not sure who this really is

Not on bass, but on drums: That's Jack "The Bear" Parker who also recorded a couple of R&B vocal sides under his own name around that time.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

caruso on red victrola label/ is this a reissue? its pretty old, 2 sided though- i could read off the matrix #s if you want....12"in 78....

*MINT/ no scratchy/pop noise whatsoever, yes lp noise, but not like surface noise, you know what i mean? anyways its like silent, as far as surface noise goes

[Clunky]

Dizzy Gillespie Groovin High Manor, mint condition for £ 2.50, great presense and depth, certainly better than the Musicraft CD of the same material.

More Gillespie, HMV UK issues from 1948 of his early Victor sides, including Night in Tunisia and 52nd Street theme, very quiet surfaces, lovely historical artefacts even if they don't improve on the sound of the Bluebird 2CD issue of this material.

[jeffcrom]

I have recently gone off the deep end and gotten into 78s, motivated by winning an Ebay auction of the never-reissued Collectors Item disc by Boyce Brown/Wild Bill Davidson. That one hasn't arrived yet, so I can't report. But I just got a "new" 40-year-old Miracord turntable and a 78 cartridge, and I've been having a blast with a box of 78s I hadn't heard in over ten years. The most recent spins:

Paul Bley - Autumn Breeze/Drum One on Emarcy. Could this be his only 78?

Kenny Clarke - Klook Returns on Dee Gee. Bebop sounds pretty cool at 78 RPM.

Marvin Johnson - That's My Baby (parts 1 &2) on G & G. An altoist who played with Louis' big band in the early 30s. A silly double-entendre blues with some really nice alto solos - kind of like Benny Carter.

Two 1922 red-label Okehs by Sara Martin, one of which has young Thomas Waller at the piano.

I'll continue working my way through the stack this weekend.

[jeffcrom]

caruso on red victrola label/ is this a reissue? its pretty old, 2 sided though- i could read off the matrix #s if you want....12"in 78....

If it's two-sided, it's either a reissue or a record that was not released until after Caruso's death. If it's an early enough reissue, though, it could be pressed from the original stampers, which is what Caruso collectors value. If you'll post the titles, record #, and matrix #'s, I'll look up your record - I've got both John Bolig's discography of Caruso and the Favia-Artsay Caruso on Records book.

[Shrdlu]

You gotta hear the 24 bit RVG 78s!

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

pppfft! i dont believe u for a second on that!!! A Paul Bley 78 exists as much as an Anna-Nicole Smith 8mm "film-loop!