[78-L] Bell, Western Electric and Orthophonics

[David Lennick]

Michael Biel wrote:
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>>   
> Kurt couldn't have come along later because Steve and/or the Phil got 
> the discs from Kurt after I told Steve about them after I had returned 
> them to Kurt.  No sides have been reissued that were not in the batch 
> that Kurt loaned me.  We ought to compare our lists.  Did you dub off 
> the pop stuff too, because the only non-Phil that was in the batch was 
> one horribly distorted disc of an operatic soprano.  Playing those discs 
> in chronological order (the dates were well marked) shows how the 
> quality of the system improved over the two years. 

Steve spoke to me right after I'd returned the discs to Jim and drove up there 
afterwards, and he credits me with alerting him to them in his notes to the NY 
Phil set. My transfers were made in November 1992 and I transferred all that 
were labelled "Philharmonic Orchestra" plus one from July 27, 1923 labelled 
"Orchestra" (Espana Rhapsody), about 64 minutes' worth. The screeching soprano 
I transferred on another reel (and it's possibly on 456 which would need baking 
but you already have a dub), and yes I transferred all the pop stuff as well, 
including some later discs by Shilkret and some Byers Studio test pressings. 
Not all..Kurt got a lot of those at another time and I never saw them. The 
process may have improved but my notes say that there are some earlier sides 
that sound far better than some that followed. Filter settings were also 
clearly marked on these discs..and remember that one of them was actually shown 
on a Philharmonic New Years program as supposedly being a Gershwin aircheck?

Definitely time to compare notes. The symphony recordings I have are T-22, X-31 
(both were 12-inch), X-33, X-42, X-50 through -53, X-61 (X-62 was "Miss Eaton" 
the distorted diva), X-83, X-84, X-88, X-89 (the last 4 are Mengelberg, most 
others are van Hoogstraten). Steve Smolian provided artist identification.

dl