[78-L] Musicraft Records (was MAJESTIC Records questions)

[zimrec at juno.com]

Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2009 17:17:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: Dan Van Landingham <danvanlandingham at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [78-L] MAJESTIC Records questions
To: 78-L Mail List <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>

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Years ago (late 1970s?), when Jerry Valburn was involved with Oliver Sabin in reissuing the Musicraft material, at one time, I had in my possession, the original and / or photocopies of the recording ledgers sheets for most of the 1944-46 period sessions.  I no longer recall under what circumstance I returned those sheets, but for some reason, possibly to assist Jim Doran with his monograph, I retained, and still have, the original session sheets for the Herman Chittison recordings.

There is a separate, standard letter-size sheet for each title that was recorded at a given session.  The sheets show the various information such as matrix number, song title, composer & performer credits, etc.  Also shown are timings for the various takes, usually 3 to 5, although it seems only one take of a given title survives.  Each group of sessions sheets had a cover sheet on which was listed the artist, date and song titles of the "attached" individual sheets.

Each session was also numbered.  Prior to returning the recording ledgers, I made a listing of the sessions, making note of the artist, matrix numbers and dates, but not any other information.  The earliest session is number 1, Phil Brito (Paul Lavalle), January 13, 1944, mxs 5112 thru 5117.  The last is 196, Carl Sandberg, July 1, 1948, mxs 6124 thru 6133.  There were also 15 sessions preceded by the prefix C.  These date from July 5 thru Nov 29, 1946.  There seems to have been an error in Musicraft's record keeping because they labeled two sessions as C-8 and none as C-9.  The dates and matrix numbers for the two C-8 sessions do not coincide sequentially.  Because the other C-prefix sessions follow a chronological order, I assume the Cantor session should be C-8 and the Shaw session of Sep 10 should really be C-9.  They are as follows:

Eddie Cantor with Carmen Dragon Orch - mx 5656 thru 5659 - Aug 28, 1946
Artir Shaw Orch - mx 5636 & 5647 - Sep 10, 1946.

There were a number of sessions for which I had no sheets, including the run of sessions 147 thru 160.  Number 146 is Duke Ellington, Dec 18, 1946 and number 160 is Shep Fields, Oct 22, 1947.

Too, as with the aforementioned Cantor & Shaw sessions. a number of other identical sessions numbers were indicated for pairs of recording sessions.  Use of the same number for the first two pairs, below, seems logical:

Session 6:
Red River Dave / Frank Novak, cond. -  mx 5145 thru 5151 & 5155 - Mar 6, 1944
Dick Thomas & Esmereldy / Frank Novak, cond. - mx 5152 thru 5154 - same date.

Session 7:
Will Osborne Orch - mx 5156 thru 5159 - Mar 30, 1944
Esmereldy - mx 5160 - same date

Session 12:
Al Duffy - mx 5189 thru 5196 - May 5, 1944
Polkateers / Frank Novak, cond - mx 5197 thru 5205 - May 9, 1944

Furthermore, there is one session prefixed by the letter A:

Session A1:
Earl Rogers - mx MM 1088, MM1189, MM1100 and MM1101 - May 16, 1946.

I was never able to learn the significance of the A or C prefix sessions.

The Valburn-Sabin reissue LPs had gatefold jackets and used the artwork of the original 78-rpm album sets.  At some point, an ownership issue came up and the masters and other materials were turned over to Albert Marx who continued to reissue material but, in my opinion, with inferior packaging and, IIRC, only 6 tracks per side.

One thing I do remember was a glass base acetate of Georgie Auld's "Lover Man."  Unissued in 78-rpm form, the disc had a radial crack.  John R. T. Davies, in the pre-home computer days, declicked it for issue on Musicraft LP MVS-501.

Unfortunately, I have no idea what happened to the original and photocopy recording ledgers sheets that I once had.  I probably returned them to Valburn or Sabin at the time that possession of the masters had reverted to Marx.  In any event, researchers are welcome to access what information I have.  It would be nice to have the session listing published in some form for wider access.

Art

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