Friday’s Playlist • Paramount Blues Rarities

BERTHA HENDERSON (piano by BLIND BLAKE):
Let Your Love Come Down

Paramount 12655 (mx. 20562-2)
Chicago (Marsh Laboratories): c. May 1928

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BLIND BLAKE: That Will Never Happen No More

Paramount  12497 (mx. 4468-2)
Chicago (probably Marsh Laboratories): c. April 1927

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IDA COX (piano by LOVIE AUSTIN): Any Woman’s Blues

Paramount 12053 (mx. 1437-2)
Chicago (temporary studio using equipment from NYRL’s New York studio):   June 1923

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LOTTIE BEAMAN (acc. by Pruitt Twins): Honey Blues

Paramount 12201 (mx. 1695-2)
Chicago: c. March 1924

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REV. MOSES MASON: Go Wash in the Beautiful Stream

Paramount 12702 (mx. 20291-1)
Chicago (Marsh Laboratories): c. January 1928

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California Antique Phonograph Society’s 26th Annual Show & Sale

The California Antique Phonograph Society (CAPS) is holding its 26th Annual Antique Phonograph, Music Box, Mechanical Music & Record Show and Sale on Sunday, August 14. Location is the UFCW Auditorium (8530 Stanton Ave., across from Knott’s Berry Farm) in Buena Park, CA.

There’s always a spectacular array of merchandise at these shows. There’s also a pre-show banquet and silent auction on August 13 (contact CAPS – advance registration is required for the banquet and auction, and spaces are limited). This year’s featured speaker will be Clara Deck from the Henry Ford Museum (Dearborn, MI).

Admission to the show is a real bargain at just $5 (9:00-3:00), $10 for early-birds (admitting at 7:30), or $30 for a two-day preferred early-bird pass (Saturday & Sunday).

For more information, visit the CAPS website or write to: CAPS, P.O. Box 169, Victorville, CA 92393. CAPS also publishes an outstanding collectors’ journal. Its membership extends well beyond California and includes many top collectors, researchers, and dealers.

Billy Murray with B. A. Rolfe on “The Edison Hour” (1929)

The “Edison Hour” broadcast for February 11, 1929 celebrated the birthday of Thomas Edison, who spoke briefly by relay from his home in Florida. The rest of the broadcast was largely given over to performances by Edison artists, and was captured as an aircheck by the Edison engineers. A number of pressings were made, some of which survive at ENHS and at least one of which has found its way into a private collection.

Here’s Billy Murray and the B. A. Rolfe Orchestra from that historic broadcast. Murray had previously recorded this number for commercial release on Edison discs — a rejected version with the studio orchestra under Irwin Schloss, then an issued version accompanied by the Seven Blue Babies (a California Ramblers unit).

The speed fluctuations are a defect in the low-speed transcription, as are  the occasional ominous rumblings — the latter the result of a power tube that “went Democratic,” in the words of the Edison employee who logged the recording.

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BILLY MURRAY with B. A. ROLFE’S ORCHESTRA:
Doin’ the Raccoon

Edison experimental mx. 185 (30-rpm 12″ disc)
New York: February 11, 1929 (from WJZ broadcast)

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For more on Billy Murray and his recordings, be sure to visit The Billy Murray Project and The Billy Murray Free Online Discography.

A Note to Firefox Users

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Victor Orchestra Personnel (1904)

The Victor Talking Machine Co. files rarely list individual members of bands and orchestras, including its own (those Victor personnel listings in discographies like American Dance Bands are based on authors’ speculation, for the most part) — but this Victor roster offers valuable documentation of the Victor house orchestra’s chief members in 1904.

The group was originally based in Victor’s Philadelphia studio, then moved across the river when the Camden studio opened in 1907. (Despite what many discographies say, there was no Victor studio operating in Camden from late September 1901 until November 6, 1907; see Camden, Philadelphia, or New York? The Victor Studio Conundrum for details.) Victor’s New York studio orchestra didn’t become a permanent fixture until some years later; it used different personnel and conductors, occasionally supplemented by  the “Camden men” (as the recording ledgers referred to them).

Some of the musicians pictured here, including C.H.H. Booth, were already nearing the end of their time with Victor. Others, including Theodore Levy (who later became a Victor studio conductor), remained with the company into the 1920s. Walter B. Rogers left Victor in 1916 to work for a succession of small firms, including Paramount, before joining Brunswick in late 1919.

National Music Lovers / New Phonic Discography Has Arrived

Mainspring’s NML-New Phonic Discography has just arrived. It’s a CD-only publication (Windows format, also compatible with Max OS-X or other Macs capable of reading Windows-format CDs).

This is the most detailed study of NML-New Phonic ever published. It includes:

• All confirmed variants of every issue (some exist in 3 or even 4 versions)
• Correct titles, with NML’s mislabelings and retitlings noted
• Actual performers, with NML’s pseudonyms noted, and source or method of artist identification explained
• Accompanists, band vocalists, and other verifiable ancillary performers
• Composer, show, and film credits (missing on most NML labels)
• True matrix and take numbers, plus reassigned matrix and control numbers, with the originating studios noted
• Corresponding first editions on producers’ main label (including release dates of those issues, and pseudonyms if used)
• Recording dates (actual or estimated, depending on surviving primary-source material)
• Illustrated historical overview and user’s guide

Latest Additions to the Billy Murray Free Online Discography

The newest chapter in The Billy Murray Free Online Discography was posted this morning — Murray’s complete Victor 20000 and 21000 releases, using data compiled by John Bolig from the original Victor recording ledgers and blue “history” cards, Victor catalogs and monthly supplements, and Gramophone Company files.

Updates to the American Record Co. (Hawthorne, Sheble & Prescott) and American Zon-O-Phone chapters were also recently posted. Work is under way on several other new chapters, including Columbia and its client labels, and export and foreign issues on the Victor and the G&T/Gramophone Co. labels.

The discography is a part of The Billy Murray Project, an initiative to chronicle the career and recordings of the “Denver Nightingale.” It’s hosted on the Mainspring Press website.

Friday’s Playlist (July 22) • Dime-Store Jazz

CALIFORNIA RAMBLERS: Arkansas Blues

Romeo 437 (mx. 2521-A)  (as “The Ramblers”)
New York: June 24, 1927 (per Ed Kirkeby’s logbook)

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SAM LANIN’S ORCHESTRA [unit from]: Stomp Off, Let’s Go

Regal 9925 (mx. 6215-2)  (as “Missouri Jazz Band”)
New York: October 7, 1925  (per Plaza ledger)

Although listed as Lanin’s Orchestra in the Plaza ledger, all issues used the “Missouri Jazz Band” pseudonym. This is obviously a smaller (and far better) unit than Lanin’s full band, probably comprising some of his hotter players, with Red Nichols almost certainly present on cornet.

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JACK PETTIS & HIS BAND: Candied Sweets

Jewel 5192 (mx. 7669-3; control 1314)  (as “Dixie Jazz Band”)
New York: December 22, 1927  (per Plaza ledger)

This was the same group as Al Goering’s Orchestra; Pettis got the credit on Conqueror, Domino, and Regal, while Goering was credited on Banner and Challenge. “Candied Sweets” is a long-forgotten Fats Waller collaboration with Pettis and Goering.

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Jack Pettis & his Band: Stockholm Stomp

Regal 8221 (mx. 6998-2; control 634 )
New York: c. December 1926

Plaza ledger documentation is missing for this master. The recording was initially released on Regal and Banner in March 1927.
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For more on the dime-store labels: The Plaza-ARC Discography
Over 500 pages of data on Banner, Conqueror, Domino, Jewel, Oriole, Regal, and their many affiliated labels, along with an illustrated 36-page historical intro. (Winner of the 2007 ARSC Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research)

Audio Oddity of the Week • 1940 American Airlines Promo 78

Flight of the Flagship: Part 1 (The Departure)
General 6001 (a)   (mx. R-2740)
Dubbed at Reeves Sound Studios (New York) March 1940

Flight of the Flagship: Part 2 (The Radio Beam, Explained by Capt. Bill Lester) & The Arrival
General 6001 (b)  (mx. R-2739) 
Dubbed at Reeves Sound Studios (New York) March 1940

A souvenir from the days before planes became flying cattle-cars. The co-author of this production was Stanley Washburn, Jr., who championed the dirigible as the airship of the future before signing on with American Airlines. He was later director of promotions for Pan Am, published a number of books, and invented the Bongo Board (an exercise device designed to improve balance). Captain Bill Lester, who explains the ear-piercing radio guidance system on side 2, was chief of American Airline’s Pilot Training School.

Arto Records Memorabilia

Before there were Arto Records, there were Arto Piano Rolls. This  photo shows the Orange (NJ) plant of the Standard Music Roll Company, of which Arto Records was a separately financed division. Record production had not begun when this picture was taken. It was presented to president George Howlett Davis as a 1918 Christmas gift from the Standard Music Roll staff.

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This announcement from The Talking Machine World for May 1919 was very premature. The first Arto releases were not announced to dealers until more than a year later, in the summer of 1920.

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Although Arto contracted some recording to independent studios, it also made its own masters at the affiliated Newark Recording Laboratory (another George Howlett Davis venture). This 1922 photo shows insurance executive C. H. Shallcross recording a promotional record, which Arto issued with a special label.