[78-L] Private acetate recording from 1934 ???

[Ate van Delden]

Louis Arsmstrong performed in The Netherlands in November 1933. A Dutch 
collector found an acetate (?)/instantaneous disc (?)/direct cut (?) 
recording of this on a flea market. It was was reissued on cd (You Rascal 
You and Dinah on Timeless CBC 1-086). The cd even contains private 
recordings from July 1933, from the Boswell Sisters concert in Scheveningen, 
The Hague's sea resort. Even these are not the earliest of this type made in 
this country, I believe.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Biel" <mbiel at mbiel.com>
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 24, 2010 3:56 PM
Subject: Re: [78-L] Private acetate recording from 1934 ???


> From: "Milan P Milovanovic" <milanpmilovanovic4 at gmail.com>
>> just to add something to our discussion about beginings of electrical
>> recordings, as well to celebration of Django 100th birthday I found
>> these data in discographical info:
>> Tiger Rag    After You've Gone    Confessin'
>> Django Reinhardt g solo; Joseph Reinhardt -g; Juan Fernandez - b
>> August 1934   Private acetate
>> How come? I always thought that lacquer master discs from around
>> 1934. were in theirs prime early form and only for pro. Anyone?
>
> Definitely possible, especially if this was a European recording, but
> also possible in the U.S.  Here in the U.S. Presto began advertising The
> Presto Disc and their recording machine in October 1934 and many years
> ago I started seeing them dated from November 1934.  Seth Winner has
> some classical airchecks on lacquers from July 1934, presumably Presto
> Discs.  They did not put markings on their discs for the first few years
> till around 1937.  Meanwhile over in Europe there were several varieties
> of coated discs as early as 1933.  Some were gelatin coatings which were
> water soluable.  Some were a soft lacquer which required baking to
> harden after recording (I think those were the Simplat.)  There was a
> thin aluminum disc with a transparent golden coating that I have from
> April 1934 but might have been introduced in 1933.  Pyral developed a
> disc similar to Presto but I have not had any RELIABLE starting dates
> for these, and likewise in England Cecil Watts of Marguarette Sound
> Studios started hand-producing a similar MSS disc but dating has been
> unreliable.  I have a scan of one dated in early 1934 and there are
> reports that the BBC started using them in 1935, but I have no other
> evidence with a reliable date.
>
> Also in use were floppy celluloid and gelatin sheets in both the U.S.
> and Europe, and some could date back to 1930 because they are mentioned
> in an article, but I have not seen any in the U.S. before 1933.  And of
> course there are embossed bare aluminum discs which were introduced in
> late 1927 although don't usually show up prior to 1929 or 1930.  I do
> not know if these were used in Europe that early, but they were used to
> record air-checks of the VIDEO of British TV broadcasts in 1933, some of
> which still survive and have been restored.
>
> All of these formats were available for amateur use as well as at small
> recording studios using them for one-off recording.  Either could be the
> way the Django recording was made.  The use of lacquer for mastering for
> metal parts for pressings by record companies is known from 1936, but
> could have been done earlier in 1935.  There are two known examples of
> Speak-O-Phone aluminums used for pressings around 1930 or 31 -- Steve
> Barr has one of them, and Donna Halper has the other, I think.
>
> So yes, the 1934 Django is possible, but the identification of the
> technology in that discography is subject to improper terminology if the
> observer of the disc is not an expert in the technology.
>
> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
>
>
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