Re: [ARSCLIST] Fortissimo

[Aaron Levinson <aaron.levinson@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tom-

I do believe it was spelled Grauer not Gauer and that many Riverside 
LP's (including the Barretto) actually had a credit at the bottom of the 
label that said:

Bill Grauer Productions Inc.
     New York City

AA


Tom Fine wrote:
> Hi David/Aaron:
>
> I just read something somewhat relevant to this, in one of the Orin 
> Keepnews Collection CD reissues booklets. Apparently, Bill Gauer, 
> Keepnews' partner at Riverside, was a racing car nut and was very into 
> making these "environmental audio" recordings. The "super-fi" records 
> were not mentioned in Keepnews' notes, this was to a Blue Mitchell 
> album. The reference was that Keepnews was down in Florida with Gauer 
> helping out on one of these racing-cars recordings. Cannonball 
> Adderley insisted Keepnews go with him and hear Blue Mitchell in a 
> club during the trip, and Keepnews was duly impressed and signed 
> Mitchell to Riverside. To everyone's chagrin, the Mitchell records on 
> Riverside never sold well, and it's a credit to Keepnews that he still 
> felt strongly enough about Mitchell's talent to include "Blue Soul" in 
> the Keepnews Collection reissues.
>
> Tying in to Aaron's post, Ray Barretto provided some tasty percussion 
> on that album.
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> PS -- one of the earliest "stereo spectacular" albums featuring race 
> cars was "500 Miles to Victory" on Mercury, recorded by Bill Putnam 
> and originally issued in stereo on a 2-track tape in 1956.
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Lennick" 
> <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2008 12:56 PM
> Subject: [ARSCLIST] Fortissimo
>
>
> > Anyone remember, or even hear of, a label called FORTISSIMO produced 
> > by Riverside in 1961? Super-quiet surfaces (wonder how they managed 
> > that? Riverside never turned out a quiet disc in their lives), discs 
> > cut from the inside out (changer owners must have loved that), master 
> > tapes recorded at 60 IPS "with the heads oriented horizontally" 
> > (whaaaaa..?), a 400hz alignment tone, and repertoire such as Racing 
> > Cars, Jets, Pipe Organ (miked from inside, I think) and Banjo Polkas.
> >
> > Amazing what turns up in some of these old audio magazines that I've 
> > never run across in over 45 years of record collecting.
> >
> > dl