[78-L] Bessie Smith album

Sat Jan 16 08:29:58 PST 2010

From: David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>
> Re the South American recordings, are you thinking of the Brazilian music 
recorded when Stokowski was down there? There are definitely unissued 
recordings among them, and supposedly lost, according to an article that

appeared on one of these lists last year.

Yes, that's it.  I was trying to see if the issued albums are these,
probably the two tango albums. But now with the reminder that it was
Stokowski who was involved I have googled about it
http://daniellathompson.com/Texts/Stokowski/Stalking_Stokowski.htm
and found that the albums are C-83 and C-84.  But the earlier albums are
also in the similar vein, one of them being Cuban bands.

> I've never seen ME 23..didn't know it existed.

It's in the numerical listing of all of the ME discs with no
explanation.  I never knew about it until I saw it there.

> All the Mercury Theater 
Shakespeare sets were renumbered in the MM series (in the 700s I think)
in the 
late 40s. "Julius Caesar" was the only one to make it to LP..that set is
seen 
in the I Love Lucy episode where Orson is a guest. (I did all of those
sets as 
well as the abridged Julius for Pearl some years ago.)

I remember you needing a cast listing for one of them which I had in the
published script booklets.

> Is "Air Raid" actually taken from the CBS broadcast? It runs well over 30 
minutes, has no announcements, no cast list (unless anyone has seen a
booklet 
for it), and about the only voice I've ever recognized is Frank Gallop.
Ray 
Collins seems to be the only other name turning up on internet searches.
 dl

The cast list is in the published book.  Yes it is from the broadcast. 
The closing announcement on the broadcast (not included in the recording
but in the script) mentions that the recording is going to be released. 
Somewhere I have the rehearsal schedule from one of the original scripts
I came across many years in an archive.  I don't remember the timing but
it is not much if any over 30 minutes.  It is only 7 sides, not 8, and
the 7th side is only a little over a minute.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com  

Michael Biel wrote:
>>From the record numbers in particular series, you can see that the
> albums were not issued in the order of these retroactive numberings. 
> 
> C-1 Tango Album No. 1 342-M - 347-M
> C-2 Tango Album No. 2 373-M - 378-M
> C-3 Rumba and Congo Album 351-M - 356-M
> C-4 the first issue of Air Raid, which no living person has ever seen
> C-5 the second issue of Air Raid 69353-D - S 69356-D
> C-6 Merchant of Venice ME-1 - ME-12
> C-7 Twelfth Night ME-13 - ME-22
> C-8 Bessie Smith 3171-D - 3176-D November 1937
> C-9 European Dance Album 310-M - 315-M
> C-10 Julius Caesar ME-24 - ME-34
> 
> By the way, ME-23 is Excerpts From Merchant of Venice/Excerpts from
> Twelfth Night. Does anybody have it or even seen it? 
> 
> Mercury Theater's abridged Julius Caesar is Masterworks Set 325 11117-D
> - 11121-D issued May 1938.
> Macbeth was C-33 ME-35 - ME-43 December 1940.
> 
> Air Raid was broadcast Oct 17, 1938. War of the Worlds was broadcast
> Oct 30, 1938. CBS bought ARC/Columbia/Brunswick/Vocalion in December
> 38, just at the time when Air Raid was probably being released. As I've
> been reading stories in the magazines of the time wondering how this
> would change things, I realized that if they issued War of the Worlds
> they would have had a HUGE HIT on their hands!!!
> 
> The four foreign dance albums are an enigma. Have any of you ever seen
> any of them? I'm still looking for issue dates since the monthly
> Columbia new release supplements on the films at R&H end at Dec 36 and
> resume only with that Sept 39 cumulative supplement and the 1940s
> numericals. I recall a posting that was linked from either here or
> the ARSCList about a South American archive looking for the unissued
> sides. Something like 40 songs were recorded in ONE NIGHT aboard a ship
> in a harbor where local bands were invited on board to play and be
> recorded. The sets are so rare that they didn't even know about the
> second Tango album till a dub was given them, and some of the surviving
> performers don't remember ever being notified of the releases. Does
> this sound familiar to anyone? I should also ask on Arsclist. By late
> 1940 all the pre-C11 albums other than the Mercury Theater were gone. 
> (I'm hoping they will let me go thru the shelves at R&H next week and
> they might be there. There's a new regime there and I don't know the
> new higher-ups, and am getting my intros to them via Seth.)
> 
> Mike Biel mbiel at mbiel.com 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This would put the Bessie Smith album in 1938, unless it WAS issued
> earlier 
> without a number (as was the case with Victor's Bix Beiderbecke Memorial
> 
> Album). From the October 1940 catalog (designed by Steinweiss, by the
> way).
> 
> dl
> 
> Michael Biel wrote:
>> If I wake up in time (I gotta start getting to bed earlier) Leah and I
>> are going to R&H to look at some catalogs and magazines and I will be
>> looking to see the issue date. I do think the album was sold with the
>> specific records and I think that George Blacker and I did figure out an
>> album catalog number decades ago, but it wasn't easy. If I can't come
>> up with a copy to photograph myself, I NEED a color scan or photo of
>> it!!! Is the photo a glued-on glossy photo?
>>
>> By the way, on Friday in less than three hours, Leah and I BLEW THE
>> STEINWEISS LEGEND OUT OF THE WATER with some of the evidence we found at
>> another branch of NYPL in journals unrelated directly to records that I
>> bet nobody has ever thought to use. No further hints about this stuff
>> -- you will have to go to ARSC in New Orleans to find out. It helps to
>> know where to find things.
>>
>> Mike Biel mbiel at mbiel.com 
>>
>> 
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: [78-L] Bessie Smith album
>> From: "Philip Fukuda" <pfukuda at att.net>
>> Date: Mon, January 11, 2010 2:23 am
>> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I'm just catching up on reading my emails after my vacation, so forgive
>> me if this has been discussed before.
>> 
>> I've been following the Alex Steinweiss thread with interest, but
>> didn't have anything to add to the discussion until today. Imagine my
>> surprise at finding the c1937 (Driggs and Lewine's "Black Beauty, White
>> Heat" say 1938, but I think the label was defunct by then) Bessie Smith
>> Album at the 78 swap meet today. It has a brown cover with a photo of
>> Bessie with the names of the accompanying musicians. I tend to believe
>> the 1937 date since there is no mention of Bessie's death. Did it come
>> with a booklet (mine doesn't have one)?
>> 
>> There is no text on the inside front or back covers. The album itself
>> doesn't have a number, so doesn't look like part of a series.
>> Unfortunately, I only have 4 of the 6 records. Also, I get the feeling
>> the records were sold individually, but the album was a "freebie" if the
>> customer bought all six records. Of course, they are the last six
>> records in the -D series.
>> 
>> Does anyone have a 1937 or 1938 Columbia catalog or monthly supplements
>> to back up any of my wild guesses? 
>> 
>> By the way, Happy New Year to all,
>> Philip
>>
>> _______________________________
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