[78-L] Aaron Sachs (was Whither Manor?)

[Cary Ginell]

I have six Manor 78s and was interested in the fact that the Gillespie 5000 disc was the only one in that series. It's a historical recording, too. The first version of "Salt Peanuts" b/w "Be Bop," the first use of the term on a record.

After searching for 12 years, I recently found two Manor 78s (1124 & 1191) by Aaron Sachs & the Manor Re Bops, which turn out to be the first commercial recordings featuring Terry Gibbs on vibraphone. Recorded June 8, 1946. As soon as I received the discs, I sent MP3s to Terry, who expressed delight in hearing them for the first time in decades. Three of the songs (Aaron's Axe, Tiny's Con, and Sam Beeps and Bops) were written by his friend, drummer Tiny Kahn. The other (Patsy's Idea" was by pianist Gene DiNovi. Terry was nagged by the melody for "Tiny's Con," which he said was extremely close to Miles Davis' "Donna Lee," recorded for Savoy the following year. Is anyone familiar with these two enough to have an opinion about a possible shared origin? Sachs was one of the few bop clarinetists (Buddy deFranco is the main exponent) and it's odd to hear the instrument on this kind of record. 

Incidentally, Aaron Sachs is still alive (he just turned 88 a few days ago) as is Di Novi, who is 83 (he was a teenager of 18 when he made the records for Manor). The other musicians are bassist Clyde Lombardi and drummer Tiny Kahn. Kahn died at 29 in 1953. Lombardi died in 1975.

Cary Ginell


> 
> So which dates are right? Manor also had a 1000 series that did start right around the beginning of 1945, but that doesn't mean that the
> short-lived 100 series began then also. And a recording date of 1946-47 for "Milky White Way" doesn't seem too terribly late when released
> in 1948, though after The Trumpeteers already had a hit with it was arguably not the best time. 
> 
> Uncle Dave Lewis
> ---
> The Coleman Brothers are mentioned in "Regis Label starts Releasing Platters" Billboard Mar 27, 1943 pg 25.
> Milky White Way on Regis was reviewed in Billboard Jan 29, 1944 pg 60
> Manor album SP1 'Spirituals Of The Old South' was advertised in Billboard Feb 9, 1946 pg 24.
>  DJD
> ---
> Thanks David! Not only are the earliest dates possible the right ones, "Milky White Way" is mentioned even in the very first article cited. Irving Berman's quote that "The orders I have on hand now will take six weeks to fill" doesn't sound like failure to me; moreover, I had no idea that Regis itself was based in Newark, at least at first; always thought of Manor as a Manhattan-based label. Certainly "Milky White Way" had plenty of time to establish itself before The Trumpeteers covered it; if anything, a 1948 re-release would serve to call attention to the original.
> 
> That's just plain bad research, Dave; while I don't doubt that The Coleman Brothers may have had reason to complain about their association with Irving Berman, to invent a reason based on faulty discographical data isn't good medicine. 
> 
> By the way, I updated the Apollo Records article on Wikipedia yesterday: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Records_(1944)
> I just got sick of the bad, inaccurate stub that was sitting there.
> 
> Uncle Dave Lewis
> <<<
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