Jack Towers 1914-2010

[brownie]

Audio engineer Jack Towers died on Thursday. Obit in the Swingdj forum.

Towers was the man who recorded the 1940 Duke Ellington orchestra in Fargo, North Dakota. He was also responsible for the transfers of Dean Benedetti's recordings of Charlie Parker that were released by Mosaic Records.

Among other treasures he worked on.

Article on the Ellington at Fargo recordings.

[ghost of miles]

Grateful for the many things we were able to hear and/or hear better in large part because of Mr. Towers... R.I.P.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

i wonder how he got involved with the bennidditti tape transfers.../!?

[brownie]

because he was among the very at audio transfers. He also worked pretty often with Phil Schaap who took care of the Complete Benedetti Recordings of Charlie Parker box for Mosaic which was another excellent reason to be called for to take care of this.

Must have been an awesome job to handle the material and make some sense of the mess.

[mikeweil]

That's one of the greatest losses of the year - a great master at restoring audio treasures. R.I.P.

Edited December 25, 2010 by mikeweil

[Stereojack]

The man had golden ears.

[mjzee]

The Fargo recordings are simply beautiful - astonishingly so, considering the time and the circumstances. A remarkable life. RIP.

[AllenLowe]

he was the acetate master, and a very nice man.

[Peter Friedman]

A major contributor to recorded jazz.

R.I.P.

[Justin V]

The man had golden ears.

That about sums it up. RIP.

[romualdo]

was only looking at a photo of him a couple of days ago (Fargo booklet) & thinking of the memories he would have had of being there on that night

Requiescat In Pace Jack

[brownie]

News travel fast these days...

it reached The New York Times now!

NY Times Obituary

The obituary says he died on December 28. The thread here was started on December 25, two days after Tower's passed away.