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

Sat Jan 16 09:46:38 PST 2010

I wonder if the autographed edition was C-4 but not numbered as such? I don't 
have it and my notes with the transfer might have said C-5 because that was the 
only number I found, checking in catalogs at the time.

Re my note about dates..is it possible that it was originally broadcast in 
February, with Orson Welles, and rebroadcast without him (busy with Mercury 
Theater stuff by then) in October and issued from the later version? And as 
noted, even without intros and extros and music, it's still over thirty minutes.

dl

Michael Biel wrote:
> 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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