The Playlist (Streaming MP3)• Some Early February Additions

The Playlist (Free Streaming MP3) • Some Early February Additions

.

A fine month for Victors so far! Here are a few of the latest arrivals for your listening pleasure.

We pay top prices for top-quality records of this sort (strong E– minimum, except in the case of true rarities, and grainy pressings are not wanted). Your lists of disposables are always welcome. Please grade very conservatively, using the standard VJM scale, note all defects (no matter how seemingly minor, including label flaws), and state your asking price. 

Enjoy!

.

.

.

CHARLIE JOHNSON & HIS ORCHESTRA: Harlem Drag  (EE+)

New York: May 8, 1929  (released July 19, 1929)
Victor V-38059  (mx. BVE 51298 – 2)

.

.

.

CHARLIE JOHNSON & HIS ORCHESTRA: Hot Bones and Rice  (EE+)

New York: May 8, 1929  (released July 19, 1929)
Victor V-38059  (mx. BVE 51299 – 1)

The Victor recording ledger lists no personnel for this session other than Johnson (as director). Those cited in Rust’s Jazz Records and similar works are from unnamed sources, not original file data.

.

.

PAUL HOWARD’S QUALITY SERENADERS: Quality Shout  (E)

Hal Roach Studios (Culver City, CA): April 29, 1929
(delayed release: April 18, 1930)
Victor V-38122  (mx. PBVE 50831 – 5)

The Victor recording ledger lists no personnel for this session other than Lionel Hampton (as vocalist on the record’s reverse side). Those cited in Rust’s Jazz Records and similar works are from unnamed sources, not original file data. The Hal Roach recording studios, constructed and largely financed by RCA, were used for movie-soundtrack as well as commercial Victor recording sessions, mirroring use of the Victor “church” studio in Camden, NJ.

.

.

.

RED NICHOLS & HIS ORCHESTRA: Harlem Twist  (E–)

New York: June 21, 1928  (released August 31, 1928)
Victor 21560  (mx. BVE 45814 -3)

Initially entered as “Humpty Dumpty” in the Victor ledger, which lists no personnel. Those cited in Rust’s Jazz Records and similar works are from unnamed sources, not original file data.

.

.

RALPH WILLIAMS &  HIS RAINBO ORCHESTRA (HENRY WINSTON, piano): Get Lucky  (E)

Chicago: November 7, 1924  (released December 19, 1924)
Victor 19504  (mx. B 31147 – 3)

Winston is confirmed as the piano soloist in the Victor recording ledger. For god-only-knows-what reason, Brian Rust credited the pianist as Vic Lubowski in Jazz Records and The American Dance Band Discography, while Johnson & Shirley inexplicably compounded the error in their largely derivative American Dance Bands by crediting Vic Lubowski or William Krenz. Obviously, none of them consulted the Victor files, so all we can say (once again) is: Never take these books too seriously.

.

 .

GEORGE GERSHWIN (piano) with PAUL WHITEMAN’S CONCERT ORCHESTRA: Rhapsody in Blue  (E)

New York: June 10, 1924  (released October 17, 1924)
Victor 55225  (mxs. B 30174 -1 / B 30173 -2)

Rhapsody in Blue is now officially in the public domain, so we can legally offer you Ferdie Grofé’s original orchestration that caused such a sensation at its historic 1924 Aeolian Hall debut. Ross Gorman, the featured clarinetist, improvised  the famous opening  glissando, which Gershwin originally wrote (and Grofé scored) as a fussy, articulated seventeen-note run. (Thanks for that insight to Henry Sapoznik, from his classic Klezmer: Jewish Music from the Old World to Our World; Schirmer, 1999).

.

Discographical data are from the original Victor Talking Machine Company documentation at Sony Music Archives (New York), as transcribed by John Bolig.

_____________________

.

Reposting or commercial use of these sound files is prohibited. Please report violations to: publisher@mainspringpress.com (your identity will be kept anonymous).

 

.