[78-L] RRe: question for dance band experts

[Philip Carli]

Tom Stacks uses his full kit on Edison 51929-R, "Earl Oliver's Jazz Babies" (the Edison equivalent of the Six Jumping Jacks) doing "Sam, the Old Accordion Man", January 1927 but still acoustic, and it comes across pretty well. It's also one of the few times you hear Stacks extensively as a drummer. Edison was a bit more flexible with dance band drums on occasion, it seems. Drums were used more extensively on acoustical classical orchestral and band recordings going back as far as 1905, and if they were placed correctly in the studio they certainly didn't muddy reproduction.  There's some pretty ferocious tympani playing on the Victor Concert Orchestra's first sides under Walter Rogers in 1906-07, the contemporary Colonne Orchestra sides for Pathe, most of the pre-war Musica della Regia Marina Italiana Fonotipia discs, and the full kit and kaboodle (tympani, triangle, cymbals, going full tilt) in the Chicago Symphony's first sides for Columbia, among dozens of other American and European examples. PC
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From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com [78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] on behalf of James Tennyson [jtennyson at sympatico.ca]
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 11:57 AM
To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
Subject: [78-L] RRe:  question for dance band experts

> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2012 02:10:19 +0000
> From: david.diehl at hensteeth.com
> Subject: Re: [78-L] question for dance band experts
> To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
> Message-ID: <W309002257240371351131019 at webmail43>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I might have missed mention of this in a previous post, so if so forgive me,
.but one thing that in the acoustic era the one big difference between the
recordings and they way they played on the dance stand was the use of the
drums.  Acoustic sides rarely use the full drum kit. Percussion was reduced
to the cymbal crash and the chinese block which stood in for the snare drum.
Anything else muddied the reproduction. If you want to hear an " acoustic "
era dance band as they played during gigs , listen to that Youtube vid of
Ben Bernie playing for the early de Forest Photophone short in 1925.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAExrFCVVT0  and if you turn up your bass you
can actually hear the drummer.  He's still  playing quietly but he's there .
The other recording that really does show the difference is that HMV Victor
demonstration disc side of Jack Shilkret doing You and on both sides: once
acoustic and one electric. In the electrical version they let the percussion
go wild. And in a way  they didn't allow on most early electric sides
either. >
> The New Orleans Rhythm Kings insisted that bassist Steve Brown participate
> in their Gennett recordings even though the instrument couldn't actually
> be recorded just to keep the feel of the live performance

> http://www.hensteeth.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Doug Pomeroy [mailto:audiofixer at verizon.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2012 06:04 PM
> To: '78-list'
> Subject: Re: [78-L] question for dance band experts
>
> Don't forget, a majority of the New Orleans jazz bands used string
> bass.Buddy Bolden, Sam Morgan, Jelly Roll Morton, many others.> > I doubt
> that it would have occurred to anyone to use a bass in the 20s. The >
> guitar wasn't even coming into use yet and banjos were still popular. If
> you > couldn't dance to it or march to it, why bother?> > dlDoug
> Pomeroyaudiofixer at verizon.net_______________________________________________78-L
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