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Hi, Peter, et al,
An article in "The Columbia Record" of April, 1904
and a subsequent one in August discusss the activities of Columbia's recording
team as headed by Frank Capps in Milan, Italy. He was working with F.
Passadoro, formerly of the Anglo-Italian Commerce Company. In the same
issue and earlier, there are brief articles about Capps recording
in Russia, the discs from which were issued in a 35000 series, as well as
Poland,and Japan. . All the Italian ones I've seen from this and
subsequent Italian recording activities during this period are in the 11000
block. Many of the classical vocals are listed in Bauer. There is an
annoucement of a Columbia pressing plant in Mexico and an intimation that tere
may have been recordings made in Japan, though the florid writing allows a few
interpretaions.
This house magazine begins January 1904 and starts
with Volume 2. My run ends July, 1907. A brief note indicates
Volume 1 was published in Denver. Anyone seen any issues of
these?
I'm sure this information has been gathered
elsewhere, but this brief browse through the "Columbia Record" should
point a path toward a more detailed answer to your inquiry.
Peter, would you pass this on to your
successor at the British Library. He asked me about this on the train to
the airport and I've misplaced his email address.
Steve Smolian
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, March 19, 2004 6:07
AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Harmony label
(and other things)
Dear
All,
For engineering reasons, I have been compiling lists of American matrix
numbers and recording-dates (and later, with microgroove, "mastering dates"),
as the most unambiguous way of determining the ideal equalisation curves at
any time in America. This is a long way
from being at a satisfactory state; but at least I can add the following
points to Dick Spottswood's posting below.
According to Brian Rust's "American Dance Bands on Record" (under Paul
Specht), matrix 351164 was recorded on March 21st
1932 and issued on the
Harmony label.
But personally, I don't think the 350000 series was really a "Harmony" series.
The majority seem to be in the 140000 and 150000 series. In this country these
were issued under the British "Columbia" label, which is not
surprising because British
Columbia had a controlling
interest in the American Columbia group at that time. I have hypothesised that
these are "true" Harmony matrixes, but being on the other side of the pond
where US 78s don't grow on trees, I'd welcome confirmation of this idea. In
which case, the latest I have found in Rust is matrix 151507, recorded
April 13th
1931 (under Britten), and
this was published under Clarion and Velvet Tone - but *not* Harmony.
So
the first "Other Thing" from my subject-box is, can anyone supply a meaningful
description of US Columbia's matrix number-blocks? For example, I hypothesize
that numbers 2000 to 2999 weren't used at all; the 47000 and 77000 blocks and
the 49000 block were concurrent but the first two were ten-inch and the third
twelve-inch; and so on.
. Another
point : I don't think "The Columbia Master Book Discography" (Greenwood Press)
lists the 110000 series of "Foreign" issues, which as far as I know were all
recorded in New
York. Metalwork was sent
to Britain so the stuff could
be pressed for continental Europe. This is to tell you
that I am gradually piecing together some information about this series for
the benefit of the "World Music" community, and there are a number of
dating-clues on the EMI microfilms here at the British Library Sound
Archive.
If
anyone needs access to information like this, or can help me (particularly
with microgroove before RIAA standards were adopted), I would very much like
to correspond with knowledgeable people off-line. My email address is
:
Peter.copeland@xxxxxxxxxx
Many thanks in anticipation,
Peter
Copeland
-----Original
Message-----
From: Dick
Spottswood [mailto:dick@xxxxxxxx]
Sent: 17 March
2004 17:40
To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Harmony
label
|
Harmony
made acoustics from 1925 through early 1930 or thereabouts. I used
to have three Julie Wintz 1930 records:
149755-1
Harmonica Harry Harmony
1104-H
149756-3
The Man from the South Harmony
1092-H
150473-3
After You've Gone Harmony
1169-H
The first pair were
made electrically on 14 Jan 30. The last was made acoustically on
16 April 30. Go figure.
Some earlier
stuff was electric, i.e. organ records, Rudy Vallee. The circled W
prefix on Columbias etc. meant that royalties were due Western Electric.
I'm not sure when the earliest were made, tho I'd guess 1928.
Electric Harmonys have no W prefix, though they sound as good as
WE, at least to me.
Sometime in 1930,
everything new was electrically made, though still without the W next to
matrix numbers. Harmony & allied labels (Clarion,
Velvet Tone) were history by the close of 1931. Jack Teagarden's
"Chances Are" (1403-H) from 10/31 may not be the last Harmony, but it's
close.
Anyone else have any
pertinent thoughts or facts?
Dick
|
|
"Rob
Bamberger" <RBAMBERGER@xxxxxxxxxxx>
03/17/2004 11:27
AM |
To:
<dick@xxxxxxxx>
cc:
Subject: Harmony
label |
I vaguely recall that you told me once
that while Harmony remained acoustic for a time after the introduction of
electrical recording, it did eventually get some sort of electrical system
that was inferior, and that some of the Harmony's that I'd described as
acoustic were actually crummy electrics... . Is this right? At what
point did they get electrical equipment?
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