The Castles were loaded--they could have afforded weekly trips, had they wanted. I decided to redo my 1914 James Reese Europe file from the last post--I really liked the sound of my first try, but I decided the lower end needed just a little more body. I think I've succeeded, though it took precise EQing to prevent distortion. This is The Castles in Europe, which was an incorrect title that, for some reason, Victor gave to Europe's Castle House Rag, at least on some copies. So, this is The Castles in Europe, but it's really Castle House Rag. By either name, the percussion is just as amazing.
Despite the woodwinds and brass, Europe's orchestra has (to my ears) a string band sound. It's the harmonic texture as much as anything else--a texture that I'd describe as "busy," though polyphonic or heterophonic would be the more formal term(s). It's the texture that happens when a large group of stringed instruments are playing en masse. Much of the earliest jazz has that busy sound, and it was precisely that cluttered sound (which to some ears sounded like cacophony) that Paul Whiteman and Ferde Grofe smoothed out so superbly in Paul's jazzy dance sides--the "symphonic jazz" which journalists of the day hailed as a step up from the "crude" music of blacks. Whiteman had "tamed" the music.
And I love Whiteman and Grofe, anyway, because their polite jazz is brilliant. When it comes to the arts, I like to refrain from politicizing things.
But we're talking about James Reese Europe and his amazing ragtime/jazz band, and I think it's one of the all-time toss-ups as to whether this side, and other Reese recordings like it, were jazz or ragtime (or both). Since ragtime seems to have been the form that carried over into jazz--the style which somehow, almost invisibly, mutated into the ODJB, King Oliver, and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, I think the "Is it jazz?" question might be irrelevant here, if only because ragtime and jazz, at this point in the evolution of black music, were at times so close in style and feel as to be... the same thing, essentially. And if anyone knows what on earth I just typed, please send me a polite email and explain it. Thanks in advance.
The Castles in Europe (Castle House Rag)--Europe's Society Orchestra, 1914 (with extra bass)
Ripped by me from my eBay copy. Flat curve--i,e., 0.0 Hz bass turnover, O.O dB treble rolloff, with 300 Hz bass turnover added, along with 60 Hz LF shelf. Then a lot of EQing.
Lee
7 comments:
Thanks, Lee. Be careful, you can spend forever tweaking tracks, and then you never get to hear the next one in the stack. But you know that just as well as I... :)
Well, I started from scratch, at least. The worst thing, besides the risk of winding up in an endless loop, is to continuously modify an existing rip--after a few tweaks, the rip is ruined. All attempts to restore it are futile. (That sounds like Borg dialogue...)
Here is a polite email, explaining that YOU explained it perfectly. Love your analyses.
Diane,
Thanks!
Thanks for the redo - even better! The percussion is really something. It's a shame Europe's life ended so early- Would have been nice to see what he throughout the 20's
Steve in PA
Steve--
Thanks, and I absolutely agree. String-style bands (augmented by brass and reeds) seemed to stop being a thing about the time electrical recordings came in, but how wonderful it would be to hear such groups recorded electrically. Art Hickman's orchestra, as you likely know, had a somewhat similar setup to Europe's--banjo choruses, prominent strings. The acoustical process just didn't do that sound justice. It needed to show up a decade earlier! Better yet, about 50 years earlier.
Plus, accurate reproduction of the percussion. But we can dream...
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