[78-L] West African recordings, was Re: Advent of Electrical Recording

[Doug Pomeroy]

I have a French CD which contains 20 recordings from 1928 by the  
Kumasi Trio transferred from Zonophone 78s #1001 through #1010,  
(YY13601-2 through YY13620-2).  The notes state the recordings were  
made in Kingsway Hall, London.  Because of the processing to which  
the audio was subjected, it's a little hard to determine whether the  
recordings are electric or not.  But the room sound suggests they  
were recorded with the omnidirectional condenser mic of the period.

DOug Pomeroy

> Message: 11
> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:07:35 +0000 (UTC)
> From: fnarf at comcast.net
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Advent of Electrical Recording
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> They were entirely for the West African market. The musicians were  
> brought to London for that purpose. Some of the discs presumably  
> stayed in London, as there was a small West African community that  
> early, but most went back to Nigeria and Ghana. They were on the  
> Zon-o-phone label. I may be confused about HMV; the liner notes say  
> they were recorded at EMI Hayes, which would have been all-electric  
> by then (1927), so maybe I'm wrong.
>
> Unfortunately the CD isn't mine; I got it from the library. You can  
> see it (and hear samples, if you're in the US) here: http:// 
> www.amazon.com/Living-Hard-African-Britain-1927-1929/dp/B0015XQG4U/ 
> ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1264193934&sr=8-2 but of course the  
> liner notes aren't online. I dunno if there were matrix numbers  
> given or not.