Re: [ARSCLIST] King Oliver/Louis Armstrong Gennett recordings

[David Lewis <davlew@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tom,

Gennett could, and did, make excellent quality recordings, in the studio at Richmond particularly. To hear them at their best you need to find a copy that's pristine or a test pressing. Unfortunately, those King Olivers, while they sold pretty well, are scarce and I don't know of any that exist in terrific copies. One coupling exists in one wretched copy only.

Send me an email off list I can use to send an mp3 to you and I'll send you an example of an excellent acoustical Gennett.

Uncle Dave Lewis 
---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List<ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx>
Date:          Fri, 1 Jun 2007 18:58:49 -0400

>Right, this one:
>http://www.archeophone.com/product_info.php?products_id=85
>
>I assume the real CD doesn't have the digi-swishies that these online excerpts have?
>
>The instruments are quite a bit clearer than the LP I have but I guess the original media and 
>recording method is just so vastly inferior that a decent listening experience is not possible.
>
>-- Tom Fine
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Sam Brylawski" <goodlistening@xxxxxxxxx>
>To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 4:14 PM
>Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] King Oliver/Louis Armstrong Gennett recordings
>
>
>> As Dick Spottswood reminded us earlier this week, listen to Rob
>> Bamberger's show, Hot Jazz Saturday Night at wamu.org. It's archived
>> for three more days. His show this week is on the new Archeophone set,
>> inc. interviews with its producer/engineers. They did a remarkable
>> job, samples of which you'll hear.
>> Sam
>>
>> On 6/1/07, Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> Was anyone ever able to use digital tools and make those recordings anything
>>> approaching decent sounding? All I have is the Book of the Month Club
>>> reissue of the the Milestone LP produced by Orrin Keepnews and remastered
>>> for BOMC at Fantasy in 1974. The sound quality is so poor that I consider it
>>> unlistenable. I understand the limitations of the original source material
>>> but wonder if any digi-magic was later invented that improved the listening
>>> experience at all?
>>>
>>> The awful-sounding Gennett records were made in 1923. Just 2 years later,
>>> Okeh made some decent-sounding Armstrong Hot Fives records in Chicago. I
>>> have those on a Columbia reissue LP "The Louis Armstrong Story Vol 1", I
>>> seem to have a very late (70s) pressing of this record, which the notes
>>> indicate was issued at the dawn of the LP era, so back in the late 40's the
>>> Columbia engineers must have done disk-to-disk transfers, I would guess from
>>> Okeh metal parts.
>>>
>>> -- Tom Fine
>>>
>> 
>