[78-L] Columbia sets (was: Bessie Smith album)

[Michael Biel]

From: David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>
> One of my sets of Air Raid has sides 1 & 2 with gold labels
> (like the Mercury sets), Columbia Full Range Recording.
> No album number on it, but disc # is 69353-D, same as on
> CBS labels in C-5. "Sold in complete sets only."

I wonder if this might be a label for the limited autographed edition
C-4?  I hope to see what is in R&H this week.  I should also look thru
the Rigler Deutsch label picture films.  If I can't find something like
it, I will probably need a color scan.  Do any of your sets have a
number on the spine?

> ME-23 isn't even listed under Welles or Mercury Theater in the
> October 1940 catalog, nor in Rust, although his listings of the
> Welles recordings in CED2 are totally wrong.

I got my photo of the page in the numerical showing it.  Sample Excerpts
from "Twelfth Night" and Sample Excerpts from "Merchant of Venice".  The
page isn't dated, so I suppose it was in the original printing of the
loose leaf numerical.  But it is late enough to include C-33, and only
includes the ME series here.

> Somewhere I found a note that C-33 (Macbeth) was "to be 
> released November 1940" according to David Hall.  dl

It is reviewed in the Dec issue of H.Royer Smith The New Records with a
note their sample album did not have the booklet.  I need to check back
on the Columbia ads in each issue of ARG.  I had expected to find
monthly supplements so did not photograph each ad. 

Michael Biel wrote:
> 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 
>>
>>
>>
>>
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