[78-L] Bell, Western Electric and Orthophonics

[David Lennick]

Correction..the first two are 11.5 inch pressings, and the others are all 
14-inch. And the 1923 discs were outside start and the 1924 ones were centre start.

David Lennick wrote:
> Michael Biel wrote:
>>>>     
>>>   
>> 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