I think we all need a 78 break. Of course, "break" and "78" in the same sentence seems like bad luck. I will say, and I think it's true (not positive), that I have only broken four 78s by accident over my collecting career. At times, I've busted them on purpose, but I very rarely break them by accident. And I've had a few that gave up the ghost in storage. You pull them out of the rows, and they're cracked. I've been told that, in these cases, a hairline crack was already present--and just itching to become a complete split.
Anyway, I did not know until just now that Harry Raderman was born in Odessa, Russia, where he did not star as an extra in Potemkin. Wow, what's next? Irving Berlin coming from Siberia? Anyway, Harry Radernan was the laughing trombone on Joseph C. Smith's (in my opinion) wonderful recording of W.C. Handy's Yellow Dog Blues. And it looks like he played in Earl Fuller's jazz band, so we've get Raderman times three today--twice, with Fuller, and once as leader of his own jazz orchestra. The Fuller jazz sides aren't as bad, jazz-wise, as I'd remembered, and they're catchy and fun, with Coon Band Contest (such attitudes were front and center back then) pretty close to actual jazz. The players are very good, save for Ted Lewis and his awful clarinet, and the drumming (Fuller, I assume) is captured marvelously well by Victor's recording horn. Raderman's Make That Trombone Laugh is jazz in the complex, carefully planned Paul Whiteman manner.
The 1917 Columbia Original Dixieland Jass Band sides were long thought to predate the group's Victor recordings--collectors assumed that Columbia, following the ODJB's success on Victor, had released its two rejected sides by the group. No such luck. These are from May, 1917. The Victor sides go back to February. These have a loose quality I really like. And the warm Columbia sound suits them better than the colder, more clinical Victor fidelity. Cold fidelity. Did I just make up a term? Superb sides.
And the two W.C. Handy recordings, also from 1917, feature virtuoso playing and boundless energy and not the best fidelity--the weak treble is a feature of the recording, I think, not over-filtering on my part. (So he says.) Fuzzy Wuzzy Rag is a blatant rip-off of Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag, but the arrangement is fascinating in its ragtime/jazz synthesis. Styles merge all the time in popular music, but, despite the inane (and widespread) notion to the contrary, the merging of styles is not the thing that powers musical evolution. It's not a sustainable model, for one thing. If any given style is a matter of two styles joining together, then we get into infinite regression pretty quickly. But it's cool to find records that straddle the stylistic fence to the extent this one does, and what in the heck did I just type? I used to think jazz came right out of ragtime--until I realized that "right out of" doesn't make much sense as a concept. It's always wisest to think of evolution in terms of change, because that's what evolution is. Mutation over time makes more sense than A+B=C, and again because of infinite regression. So there. Where the heck was I?
Oh, yeah--Anna Wheaton. A "musical theatre actress and singer of the early 20th century"--Wikipedia. I'd Like to Be a Monkey in the Zoo (1917, again) holds up as fairly amusing 103 years later, so she had to be talented. My copy is far from mint, but my wider needle made most of the lyrics possible to make out. I'm not that much into vaudeville, but the occasional example is fun. And we get two helpings of the superb band led by Charles Adams Prince, and two sides by Harold Veo's Orchestra (1917!! What's with that year?), which are quite jazz-influenced. The Zoo Step almost sounds like slowed-down Dixieland.
Enjoy!
UPDATE: And I screwed up the track order. The zip is now fixed. Sorry!
DOWNLOAD--78 Break
Indiana--One-step (Hanley)--Original Dixieland Jass Band (Columbia A2297; 1917)
Darktown Strutters' Ball (Brooks)--Same
Li'l' Liza Jane--One-step--Earl Fuller's Famous Jazz Band (Victor 18394; 1917)
Coon Band Contest (Pryor)--Same
Fuzzy Wuzzy Rag--One-step (Morton)--Handy's Orchestra (Columbia A2421; 1917)
The Snaky Blues (Nash)--Same
"The Zoo Step"--One-step (Clarence Wilson)--Harold Veo's Orchestra (Victor 18372; 1917)
Don't Leave Me Daddy (J.M. Verges)--Same
Make That Trombone Laugh (Henry Scharf)--Harry Raderman's Jazz Orch. (Okeh 4089; 2930)
Black Diamond Rag (Henry Lodge)--Prince's Band (Columbia A1140; 1912)
Another Rag--A Raggy Rag (Theodore Morse)--Prince's Badn (Columbia A1292; 1913)
I'd Love to Be a Monkey in the Zoo (White)--Anna Wheaton, Soprano (Columbia A2384; 1917)
Anna Wheaton
21 comments:
Looks like fun! Thanks as always.
I've been an Earl Fuller fan for--ever! Some of his sides make Sun Ra sound tame. The world needs more of this stuff!
Thank you. I'm afraid I am one of those people who forgets to say thanks every time.
I'd likely be doing the same thing a hundred years ago during the 1918 pandemic; hanging around the house listening to records. If it were 1918, I imagine these would be some of the records I'd be listening to. Hard to feel maudlin with all this toe tappin' going on. The ODJB sure are a noisy lot, aren't they? Re Sun Ra, I imagine he knew all about Earl Fuller, probably grew up with some of those records. Thx agn Lee!
Speaking of hairline cracks, I once had a chunk of a Victor come off in my hand, just out of the blue. Since then, I look a lot closer. I have a few 78s with hairlines that I handle VERY gently. So far, I've been lucky. Glad to see the W.C. Handy’s too. I remember years ago both my father and I were very critical of Ken Burns’ series on jazz; me because he ignored a lot of the the modern players, while my dad was bothered that Burns never even mentioned W.C.Handy.
Buster--You're welcome. Hope you like these!
Bill--No problem. Glad to hear from a Fuller fan. And I love the sound of "Fuller fan"! I'm more into Earl's Rector Novelty Orch. sides, but his jazz band certainly rocked. Before there was rock, even! "Liza Jane" fails on a technical level, since the parts are often merely doubling the melody (odd, since some wrote the chart), but it's a memorable side, and the flip sounds like real thing.
Rev. b.--I was thinking the same thing. The pandemic date parallel is spooky. "Well, we're stuck inside, so let's hear some recent Fuller and Handy. You can bet no one will be doing this 100 years hence."
The ODJB held nothing back--and they were incredibly advanced for their time. Jazz historians have been oddly dismissive of this superb group, partly because it wasn't African American (opposite of the situation in rock, where being white counts)--and maybe because they felt that leader "Nick" LaRocca was too boastful. Personally, I think many jazz folks are embarrassed by the sound of early jazz--too common, too unsophisticated, etc. I.e., not 1950s Duke Ellington. Well, for 1917, the ODJB was way ahead of the curve. Fans embarrassed by their music's history aren't real fans, imo.
I watched part of Ken Burns' country series and shut it off in disbelief after the narrator informed us that, prior to 1923, record buyers had mostly "high brow" artists to choose from, a claim so monumentally ridiculous that two minutes of Googling sinks it. And I don't like watching a bunch of talking heads, and, at least in the country series, there seemed to be no attempt to match image to text. So that's what I think of Burns. But yes, Handy should have been mentioned. According to cliche he was the Father of the Blues, but his band was playing jazz. And so I was surprised when I heard my first Handy sides. Jazz historians specialize in leaving people out, forcing us to do our own research.
You scared me there, using crack and 78 in the same sentence. :(
@ Ernie, LOL! Yeah, that gives me the shakes too! What really gets under my skin these days is this thing survived 100+ years, and now ..... DAMN. Granted, there are plenty still around, but now there's one less and they're not making replacements. I'm told it can be worse for cylinder collectors. Depending on the materials used, cylinders can swell up and crack on their own. Apparently, one of the few ways to stop a creeping crack is to drill a hole at the leading end of the crack to arrest its process. Imagine, if I don't damage this thing by drilling a hole in it, it'll self destruct completely.
Well, nothing lasts forever--except plastic (and taxes--chortle). I've heard from cylinder collectors that the main thing is mold (?). The things decompose over time. Shellac is far less given to coming apart over time. Unless you do what I've done a couple times (once innocently, the other accidentally)--use alcohol on them. Then they dissolve. The second time I used alcohol on a 78, I honestly thought it was vinyl or pre-vinyl plastic. Not.
Lee, so what DO you use to clean 78s? I use Spin-Clean for 33s/45s, and I'm wondering if that would work for 78s, too -- distilled water with a few drops of TergiKleen™ Tergitol-based Fluid Concentrate (from Amazon) to wash, then distilled water to rinse.
I go a more common route. Tap water and Dawn! I use a light amount, rubbing with a wet paper towel. Not rubbing hard, of course. On another paper towel, on a flat, solid surface. Rinse with tap water, dry with paper towel.
On other occasions, I've used water only.
I use very dilute Simple Green. Put them on the turntable, put the liquid on while it's spinning, but a soft bristle brush to it to spread the liquid out and get it down in the groove, then soak up the water and dirt with a lint free rag. The rags come out filthy, so it must be doing something. I usually repeat the process twice with the simple green, then twice with plain tap water. Usually comes out pretty clean. I suspect people might have a problem with using the brush and rubbing with the rag because it may be bad for the record, but it ends up much better than what I started with. :)
Dumb question--how do you keep from getting your TT wet?
Diane, I checked on line, and Tergitol is a no-no on shellac.... But Spin Cleaner has a cleaner that works on shellac, says an ad I looked at.
FWIW, I use distilled water and one drop of dish detergent per six or so ounces of water. In other words, a minimal amount. I have a record cleaning machine but I don't use it because this method works just as well and is easier.
I've also found distilled water with perhaps a drop of detergent is about the best thing to use. There are all sorts of whacked-out methods on YouTube, like Elmer's Glue (!). Years ago someone suggested using lemon oil, and then playing the 78. It does in fact remove a lot of built up crud from the grooves, but then you're left with an oily mess that attracts new grime like a magnet.
And it can't be good for the stylus!
Thanks for all of the suggestions! I now see that the Tergikleen folks agree it's no good for 78s. Since I have some distilled water, Spin-Clean solution and/or Dawn, I'll give those a go and see what happens.
I do get a little cleaner on the turntable, but it wipes up. It's a pretty good sprayer, so I can direct it where it needs to go in small quantities. The slipmat gets wet, especially with 10" or 7" records, so I have to replace it a little more often than I should.
If I was smart, I'd do all the cleaning on an old turntable that just spins, but I'm lazy.
The lemon oil method was intended for use with a period soundbox on a Victrola or similar machine, so since the needle gets changed often, stylus damage isn't a concern.
Ahhh.... Got it. I used to have a nice HMV cabinet gramophone. Sometimes, I could dislodge groove gunk with just a couple regular plays....
Post a Comment