First Pressings, Label Variations, and Scribblings in the Dead Wax

Part of the fun of collecting LPs is learning more about the history of each album, including information about the musicians who played on the session, the name of the producer(s) and engineer(s), who cut the master, which company pressed the vinyl, and whether the album is an original pressing or a re-issue. More often than not, you can find basic information on the back of the album cover or on the dust sleeve. But in order to get the full story, you usually have to dig a little deeper.

The first thing I generally want to know is whether the album is a first pressing or a re-issue. Collectors will pay huge sums to get their hands on an original Lexington Ave. Blue Note or a Beatles first Parlophone pressing. (An original stereo copy of the Beatles' Please Please Me, in decent condition, will easily fetch $5,000.) These albums are often valuable because they didn't press many copies of the first edition. And most are so old that's it's very difficult to find a copy in top condition. Many collectors and audiophiles also believe that earlier pressings sound better, since they are closer to the original master tape. You can find plenty of discussion of these topics on the internet.

I'm not usually interested in having a first edition just for its own sake. I collect music, not albums. And given the prices that original pressings command, I'd much rather have 10 or 20 later pressings for the same price as one original copy. In the case of the Beatles, for the cost of one original Please Please Me, you could buy both the recent stereo and mono remastered box sets, and have enough money left over to fly to London and take a photo of yourself in the crosswalk at Abbey Road. 

Bop Till You Drop

I'm also not a stickler for analog-only LPs. There are vinyl collectors who refuse to purchase an LP if there was a digital conversion anywhere in the processing chain. If a digitally-sourced album is well mastered and well pressed, it still sounds better than the original digital source to my ears. That said, I have a number of digital albums from the late 70s and early 80s (when the labels proudly promoted the fact that their LPs were "Digital") that sound terrible. I remember buying Ry Cooder's Bop Till You Drop LP when it came out in 1979. It was the first digitally-recorded LP released by a major label. At first, I thought it sounded amazing. It had a clarity and sharpness that was very different from normal LPs. Very quickly, however, that sharpness became tinny and incredibly annoying. Digital has come a long way since then, and well-produced LPs from digital sources can sound fine. 

In order to find out whether you have a first pressing or later release, the first place to check is Discogs. Though it is crowd-sourced and has some errors, it is still the biggest and best on-line database of recorded music. When you search for your LP, Discogs will show a list of releases and re-releases by year. For popular albums, it's not unusual to find more than 100 different versions, including different formats, re-pressings, and international pressings. For our purposes - vinyl - the differences in the releases can be very minor, such as a different pressing plant. Or the changes can be major, including a different title, different art on the label or jacket, the addition of bonus tracks, or a remastered version.

Because of all the different releases, it is often difficult to tell exactly which pressing you have. Helpfully, most Discogs entries have photos of the jackets and labels, which can narrow things down considerably. Changes in label design are a pretty reliable way to date your album. For example, Warner Brothers used a green label with an orange and blue WB shield logo from about 1970-1973, and then switched to what's known as the "Burbank" or "palm tree" label from 1973-1978. Lots of popular albums by the Doobie Brothers and Grateful Dead (just to name a couple of bands) came out originally on the green label, and were repressed on the Burbank label. However, it's not always so simple. There are entire books written about the minute label changes for Blue Note Records. 

One of the best sources of information about label design is the blog 
LondonJazzCollector. They guy who runs the site has posted great guides that document the changes in label design over the decades for most of the important labels. (LJC is also a gold mine of information about jazz LPs in general. The forums feature contributions from people who are extremely knowledgeable and passionate about jazz recordings.) Still, even after you've identified your particular release, you'll often need to examine subtle changes to the label and check the information in the dead wax to find out more. 

Bell Sound Mastering Lab, New York.
The f at right indicates that the engineer
was Sam Feldman.

When I first began to look at the information in the dead wax at the end of the album sides, the stampings, symbols, initials, numbers, letters, and scratchings seemed like a foreign language. Or maybe better, a kind of code. After years spent trying to read and decipher these markings with a magnifying glass, I started to keep a list. I also scoured the internet for clues. Discogs has an active and lengthy list. There are also dozens of topics about deadwax notations on the Steve Hoffman forum. I copied every source I could find, added dozens that I was able to figure out by checking the album credits, corresponded with a few mastering engineers to ask questions (in my experience, they are extremely kind and willing to respond) and now have a list of deadwax abbreviations and symbols that is 18 pages long. Some of the stamps and markings show up fairly regularly and are easy to identify. Others are initials or little drawings inscribed as a signature by the mastering engineer who cut the lacquer or as identifying marks for the mastering house or pressing plant. Even with 18 pages of notes, I still find new markings all the time.

Allen Zentz Mastering
 Lacquer by Brian Gardner

Until recently at least, mastering engineers tended to work mostly in the background, cutting lacquers for LPs in quiet anonymity. These unsung heroes often carved their initials or other markings to indicate who was responsible for cutting the lacquer -- that is, transferring the sound from the tape (or digital file) by cutting the groove in a lacquer disk. (Which is not nearly as easy as it sounds. If you're interested in the process, there are some fascinating videos online about how LPs are produced.) And while the listening public was usually completely oblivious, producers and artists often insisted on using favorite mastering engineers who could make their music come alive. One of my favorite signatures are the bird wings used by Brian Gardner (above right.) Gardner, who worked at Alan Zent mastering (hence the AZ) also sometimes scribed a small flower instead of the bird wings. Chris Bellman, who remains active today and is one of the most sought-after mastering engineers in the business, uses a simple CB (below right). However, the tricky thing is that the markings are tiny, and if you didn't know that the initials below were CB, you might easily see a number of other different possibilites. 

Mastered by Chris Bellman

David Turner

Another one of my favorite signatures are the eyebrows used by David Turner (above, and not to be confused with Gardner's bird wings.) Many of the most active and well-known mastering engineers used their initials, and if you go through a stack of albums you're almost sure to find some with signatures by RKS - Ryan Smith; RL - Robert Ludwig; LH - Lee Hulko; KG - Kevin Grey; BK - Bill Kipper; GK - Gilbert Kong; GP or Porky - George Peckham; RJ - Ray Janos; or Wally - Wally Traugott. If you're really lucky, you might find a classic jazz album cut by RVG or the great Rudy Van Gelder. If you do, by the way, buy it!

Mastered by Robert Ludwig,
Pressed by Allied Records,
Hollywood, CA

Mastered by Ryan K. Smith
 at Sterling Sound, NYC

Artisan Mastering

Of course, there are lots of other squiggles in the deadwax besides the initials of the mastering engineers. Nearly all mastering houses and record pressing plants used markings to indicate who cut the lacquer and where the album was produced. Above, next to Robert Ludwig's initials, is the Q-shaped stamp used 

Specialty

by Allied Records, which pressed albums in Hollywood, CA. In the middle above is the very common stamp used by the mastering house Artisan Sound in California. There are a lot of different descriptions of what the symbol is, but the correct answer is a drafting compass on top of a record. The compass makes an "A" for Artisan. Further down below left is the U in a circle which is the mark used by United Record Pressing of Nashville, TN. And also further down you can see a triangle stamp with the letters IAM inside, which indicates that the album was pressed by Capitol Records at their Scranton, PA plant between 1963-1973. IAM stood for the International Association of Machinists, the union representing the workers at that particular plant. The big record producers like Columbia and Capitol had pressing plants in different parts of the country to facilitate distribution. If you live on the East Coast, as I do, the vast majority of LPs that you run across will have been pressed in Columbia's Pittman, NJ plant (indicated by a small stamped P which is often very faint and is usually on one side of the catalog number) or in their Terre Haute, IN plant (represented by a T on one side of the catalog number.) Most of the Capitol releases I find are from their Winchester, Virginia plant which used an etching that was meant  

Monarch Record

to look like a Winchester rifle like this:  ----<. In addition, there were dozens of independent record producers like Specialty Record Company in Olyphant, PA (a large S with a small R and C in the curves, above left) and Monarch Record Manufacturing Company in Los Angeles (an MR inside a circle at right) that pressed for nearly every label. And of course this barely scratches the surface (get it?) of the hundreds of different markings that appear on records. 

At this point you may well be thinking, who cares who mastered the album or where it was pressed? The answer is that knowing that an album was mastered by Robert Ludwig or pressed by Quality Record Pressing in Salinas, KS (for example) almost guarantees that the disk is going to sound great. So all things being equal, if you can snag a pressing by a well-known and respected engineer, that's half the battle. I'll sometimes buy an album that I'm not all that interested in or that I may already have a copy of if I see that it was mastered by one of the greats. If I'm going through the $1 bin and see a copy of Donald Fagen's The Nightfly mastered by Robert Ludwig or a Led Zeppelin IV mastered by George Peckham (AT/GP in the deadwax), I'll buy it even though I already have five copies of both these albums.

Mastered by Rudy Van Gelder, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Mastered by Wally Traugott

United Record Pressing,
Nashville, TN

Pressed by Capitol Records, Scranton, PA

Another interesting way to identify which plant pressed the record is to check the size of the pressing rings on the label. The pressing rings are the indentations made by the particular pressing machines when they flatten the vinyl disk and apply the label. Even if you can't find a letter or other identifier for a pressing plant, if you know that Specialty Record Company's pressing ring is 70mm, or that Monarch Record has double 35/72 mm rings, it can help you figure out by whom and where the LP was pressed. I've got a two-page list of pressing ring diameters that I consult regularly.

And finally, knowing how to decipher the deadwax information or gauge pressing rings will mark you as a knowledgeable collector, which is certain to impress your friends and your local record store dealer.

Enjoy the music!

Soundtracks - Used Record Stores Are Alive With The Sound of Music

Go into any thrift shop that has a pile of used records, and you are almost certain to find a copy of the soundtrack to either The Sound of Music, Camelot, or Godspell.  As I talked about in a previous blog about the Tijuana Brass, there's a reason for this: They sold millions and millions of these things.  In fact, The Sound of Music is listed as Billboard's #2 all time chart topping album, meaning it spent more time at #1 on the Billboard charts than any other album except for Adele's 21. And since about 99.9% of Adele's sales are either CDs or digital downloads, that makes The Sound of Music the #1 all time chart topping vinyl LP record. 

Note that "all time chart topping" isn't the same as "all time best selling." Dozens of pop albums and a number of other soundtracks, like Dirty Dancing, The Bodyguard, and Saturday Night Fever, all sold more copies than The Sound of Music, but none of them stayed at the top of the Billboard album charts for as long. According to Billboard's site: "The (Sound of Music) album -- led by the film’s star Julie Andrews -- earned a staggering 109 weeks in the top 10. The album was so hot it was in the weekly top 10 from May 1, 1965 through July 16, 1966. It was a regular (but not quite weekly) presence in the top 10 off and on through early 1968." All that to say that The Sound of Music soundtrack was one of the top selling albums for nearly three years straight. And talk about lasting appeal, The Sound of Music soundtrack has never been out of print since it was released in 1965. 

For some context, the album that The Sound of Music replaced at #1 on the charts was Bob Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home. The album that eventually replaced The Sound of Music at #1 was the soundtrack to Help! by the Beatles. I remember seeing The Sound of Music shortly after it came out in 1965. I also remember going to see Help! later that year. Talk about a culture clash. Yet they are still two of my all-time favorite movies. And Bringing It All Back Home is, of course, a stone cold classic album.

I have two near mint (NM) original stereo copies of The Sound of Music soundtrack. The first is one I picked up at an estate sale a couple of years ago. The second copy is one I found just a few months ago for a dollar at a thrift store. I am always amazed to find 50-year-old albums in mint condition. The copy I picked up recently was open but still in its original shrink wrap, and looks like it was never played. Or more likely, it was played once or twice and then put back on the shelf for the next 50 years. The original eight-page glossy booklet that was included also looks absolutely pristine. The booklet has photos from the movie and extensive notes on the production, the stars, and information about the composers, who were of course the great team of Rogers and Hammerstein. (Sadly, this was their last musical, as Hammerstein died of cancer in 1960.)


Another neat thing about old albums is the time capsule quality of the dust sleeves. The original Sound of Music dust sleeve has a full-color RCA promotional ad for their latest releases, including other soundtracks such as Fiddler on the Roof, Hello Dolly and the classic live recording of Belafonte at Carnegie Hall. My two copies of The Sound of Music have different sleeves, indicating that they were produced at slightly different times. Based on the release dates of the records being advertised, the first dust sleeve (at left) is likely an original 1965 release. The second copy (below) was likely a 1966 release since it contains a half-page ad for "RCA Stereo 8 Cartridge Tapes." Stereo 8 was the original name for the format that became known as eight-track tapes. RCA acquired the patent and was the first label to introduce eight-track tapes in 1966. Eight-tracks peaked in the early to mid 1970s, and were phased out by the early 1980s. I got my first car in 1974, but skipped the eight-track revolution for the then new and much cooler compact cassette tape that was just beginning to catch on. The great advantage to cassettes, of course, was that you could record your own.

I have about 100 soundtrack and original cast recordings in my LP collection. Nearly all of them are classic shows from the 1960s and 70s, including two copies of Camelot (also starring Julie Andrews) and four copies of Godspell (including one in French). I must say that I don't tend to play soundtracks all that much, since in most cases I'd rather watch the film. In addition to the two copies of The Sound of Music soundtrack, I also have an original 1959 mono copy of the Broadway cast recording starring Mary Martin. It was released by Columbia Records, and was in fact the first Columbia LP to be released in a gatefold sleeve. One exception to my not playing soundtracks is the Disney soundtrack for The Lion King, which featured music by Elton John and came out in 1994. However, it wasn't released on vinyl until 2014, when Disney put out a cool picture disk (below). Unfortunately, the sound of the vinyl is terrible (the CD is much better), but it's a very cool looking disk.

Hakuna matata and enjoy the music!

Mose Allison - Wild Man On The Loose

Wild Man On The Loose

NM/NM
Atlantic 1456
1966 Mono

Editor's Note: Sadly, Mose died on November 15, 2016, shortly after I posted this blog.

Last week I picked up a NM/NM mono copy of Mose Allison's terrific 1966 release "Wild Man On The Loose." The album is 50 years old, and both the vinyl and the jacket look like they were made yesterday. Wow! 

Mose is a national treasure who was born near Tippo, Mississippi in 1927. His birthday is November 11, so next week (as I write) he'll be 89 years old. When he retired in 2012, Mose had been performing and recording for 65 years. He released his first album in 1957. "Wild Man" came out in 1966 and was his 12th album in nine years! 

Growing up in the Mississippi Delta, Mose was steeped in the blues. And according to his official web site, he was also drawn toward jazz at an early age. "At five he discovered he could play the piano by ear and began "picking out" blues and boogie woogie tunes he heard on the local jukebox. In high school, he listened to the music of Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Louis Jordan, and his prime inspiration, "The Nat King Cole Trio."

Mose's piano style is best described as free form. He plays staccato trills and runs over a percussive left hand. His solos can stretch out from a few measures to a few minutes. He is playful, inventive, and nearly always unpredictable. But what really distinguishes Mose as a jazz musician is the fact that he is a terrific singer, and many of his songs have wry lyrics which Mose delivers in his distinctive, deadpan style. 

The title track "Wild Man On the Loose" is a good example. It begins:

Look out, stand back, wild man on the loose.
Been in the country for 30 days.
Saved up some money, got some hell to raise.
Soaking up that juice, wild man on the loose.

Look out, stand back, panther on the prowl.
Get yourself some coffee and a glass of water,
lock up your wife and hide your daughter.
Here's a man got to howl, panther on the prowl. 

"Wild Man On The Loose" was recorded at Atlantic Studios in New York in January of 1966. On the album, Mose is accompanied by drummer Paul Motian and bassist Earl May. The mono version was issued with the iconic red/white/purple "black fan" label you see above (used by Atlantic from 1962-66). The black fan label is so-called because of the Atlantic logo at center right that looks like an electric fan. The stereo version has the same design on a green/white/blue label.

The deadwax info is:

Side 1: A-12385-A LW AT W
Side 2: A-12386-A AT LW W

From the runout we can determine that the disk was mastered at the always solid Atlantic Studios in New York city (AT) and plated by Long Wear Stamper (LW) on Long Island.  There is no pressing plant indication in the deadwax or on the label (Atlantic didn't start adding the pressing plant suffix code to its matrix numbers until 1967).  However, given its 32/70mm pressing rings, the disk was almost certainly pressed at Presswell Records in Ancora, NJ.  The vinyl is flat and quiet, with a great "in the room" mono sound. [The "W" in the runout indicates that the blank lacquer used to cut the master was sourced from Audiodisc USA. "W" has nothing to do with Audiodisc, it was just the code used by Atlantic.]

I've got about 35 Mose Allison albums in my collection, and every one is a treat.  If you see any in the used bins, my professional advice is you should buy them.

Enjoy the music! (And RIP, Mose.)

Early Stereo Records

On a recent visit to a local thrift shop, I came across a bunch of early stereo records from the late 1950s, including a near mint copy of what is considered to be the very first commercially available stereo LP, released in March, 1958. The album is titled "Johnny Puleo and His Harmonica Gang," on the Audio Fidelity label, catalog number AFSD 5830.

You may not have heard of Audio Fidelity, but they were a major label in the 1950s and 60s, and played a seminal role in the early history of stereo records. The company was founded in New York City in 1954 by Sidney Frey, who had worked for a number of years in the record business. Frey promoted Audio Fidelity as being higher quality than other labels and sold his releases at a higher price than most other albums at the time. Audio Fidelity's output was enormous, with more than a thousand releases across all genres of music, from classical to Dixieland, pop and easy listening to jazz, as well as sound effects and traditional folk music. But more importantly for our story, Frey wanted Audio Fidelity to be the first label to release a stereo record. In November, 1957, he produced a limited edition stereo demonstration disk for distribution only to people in the record industry. The demonstration disk featured the Dukes of Dixieland on Side 1, and railroad and other sound effects on Side 2. Frey also arranged for a public demonstration of the disk in New York in December of 1957. After whetting the appetite of the music industry and the record-buying public, Audio Fidelity released the first commercial stereo LPs in March, 1958. The first four titles were Johnny Puleo and his Harmonica Gang (AFSD 5830), Railroad – Sounds of a Vanishing Era (AFSD 5843), Lionel – Lionel Hampton and his Orchestra (AFSD 5849) and Marching Along with the Dukes of Dixieland Volume 3 (AFSD 5851). 

The other major labels quickly jumped on the stereo bandwagon, and ABC/Paramount was next out of the gate with stereo releases in April, 1958. With stereo records now appearing in the stores, the  consumer electronics industry tooled up to produce stereo gear and began working to convince the record-buying public to update to new stereo sound systems. Many records from the late 50s and early 60s have ads on the dust jackets or back covers promoting stereo sound as well as new stereo turntables, speakers, amps, and consoles. 

Because stereo LPs were more expensive than mono records, (typically, stereo releases sold for a dollar more than mono releases) and because stereo gear was still very expensive, it would take eight years before stereo records began to outsell mono, and ten years before record companies stopped making mono records entirely. It's kind of tidy that in the U.S. mono and stereo LPs overlapped for almost exactly 10 years, from 1958 to 1968. And as a result, collectors will often pay top dollar for popular mono LPs from 1967 and 1968, since that was when mono albums were being phased out by all the labels. By way of historical context, The Beatles' White Album, which came out in November, 1968, was the last Beatles album released in both mono and stereo versions. However, the mono version was not released in the United States, only in the U.K. and a few other countries.

During the first few years of stereo, the record labels came up with a variety of marketing campaigns to promote the wonders of two-channel sound. Some early albums (like one of the original Audio Fidelity releases) featured sound effects like a train moving from one side of the room to the other. It sounds pretty lame today, but at the time must have seemed quite amazing to listeners. Nearly all the labels introduced new names and descriptions for their stereo releases. ABC/Paramount called their albums "Full Frequency Stereo." Columbia Records introduced "Stereo Fidelity" and "360 Sound" stereo. United Artists promised "Wall To Wall Stereo" on its new albums.

Most collectors will certainly be aware of RCA's fabled "Living Stereo" series of records. But RCA also produced a short-lived series of releases under the name "Stereo Action" which was advertised as "The Sound Your Eyes Can Follow." The description on the back of the jackets touted "A new dimension in recorded sound that brings you unmatched fidelity through the full sound spectrum, plus the exciting new illusion of sound in motion. Soloists and entire sections of the orchestra appear to move thrillingly back and forth across the room. Stereo Action is musical movement so real, your eyes will follow the sound." I have a couple of these releases in my collection. They were issued with very thick cardboard jackets that had die-cut front covers to reveal a colorful image from the dust sleeve beneath and create a kind of 3-D look. The backs of the dust sleeves have a lengthy essay describing the technical process of creating "Stereo Action" sound.

London/Decca Records introduced a new label called "Phase 4 Stereo" that promised to use "The most advanced and flexible of all stereo recording techniques."  With a "new custom built 20 channel console mixer," London promised that "the positions of any number of musical instruments, voices, sound effects, percussion or remote signals can each be fixed simultaneously in space with greater precision, definition and presence than possible before. Phase 4 stereo is the ultimate in sophisticated technology." The description was accompanied by an impressive illustration of 20 different signals being routed into the new controller. 

Another popular label created to market stereo (and which you may well have seen in the used records bins) was Command Records. Command Records was founded in 1959 by musician and conductor Enoch Light. He produced records with exaggerated stereo separation and glossy gatefold covers with futuristic, abstract designs to catch the eye. Among the most popular offerings were a series of "Persuasive Percussion" albums with drums moving back and forth to exaggerate the stereo effects. Light also recorded on 35mm magnetic track film as opposed to tape, adding to the reputation for quality in the early days of the label. 

The surprising thing about early stereo albums is how good they still sound today. While much of the music is schlocky - lots of easy listening, movie themes, and bongo drums -- the sound is often fantastic. These were, after all, all-analogue productions recorded by top studio musicians working with legendary producers and engineers all driven by owners and labels anxious to showcase the revolutionary sound of two-channel audio. There are only a handful of audiophile labels making records today that sound as good as these early stereo disks. Since you can find lots of copies of these old stereo albums for a dollar or less, often in very good condition, it's worth picking up a few to get a feel for the excitement surrounding the new technology and to gain a little insight into the history of the early days of stereo.

Enjoy the music!

Mr. Clarinet - Buddy DeFranco

On a recent trip to Montreal, I stopped to look around Burlington, VT for a few hours. Lucky for me, right off Church  St. -- a pedestrian shopping street downtown -- I found Burlington Records. It's a nice store with lots of well-arranged stock covering a wide variety of genres. Unfortunately, I didn't have much time, so did a quick flip through the recent arrivals, and then took a look at the jazz section. Although they have a good selection, I wasn't really finding anything until I came across a NM copy of an album by Terry Gibbs and Buddy DeFranco, called "Jazz Party - First Time Together."

You may be thinking: "Terry Who? Buddy Who?" I suspect that even some serious jazz fans might have a hard time identifying them. And I'll be honest, the only reason I'm familiar with Terry Gibbs is because I'm a big fan of Buddy DeFranco, and over the course of 20 years, from 1981 to 2001, the two of them made at least seven albums together.

"Jazz Party - First Time Together," is (duh) their first record. I didn't own a copy, so was very happy to pick it up for the very reasonable price of $8. The album is on the Palo Alto Jazz label, and captures live performances at Carmelo's in Sherman Oaks, California, on October 4-5, 1981. Gibbs is a fantastic and inventive vibes player. But I confess that I am primarily a fan of DeFranco, who was an incredible musician and probably the greatest jazz clarinetist of the modern era.

Born in 1923 in Camden, New Jersey, Boniface Ferdinand Leonard "Buddy" DeFranco grew up in south Philadelphia. He took up clarinet at age 9, and when he was 14, won a Tommy Dorsey swing contest. While still in his teens he began playing in local bands in the Philadelphia area, and in 1941 joined Gene Krupa's band. Throughout the 40s, DeFranco played with various swing bands, including Charlie Barnet, Ted Fiorito, and the Tommy Dorsey Band. Even though he began his career as a swing musician in the style of Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, Buddy had heard Charlie Parker's historic recordings with the Jay McShan band and quickly fell under the spell of the new sound that would come to be called "bebop." DeFranco is quoted as saying that "It was Charlie Parker who completely turned me around. I decided to play the clarinet like Bird articulated on the sax."

In 1948, DeFranco relocated to New York City and was soon playing in the clubs on 52nd Street with nearly all the great jazz musicians of the era. In the early 50s, DeFranco spent a couple of years with the Count Basie Band and then branched off to lead his own touring band, employing such greats as Art Blakey, Sonny Clark, Bud Powell, Kenny Drew, and Tal Farlow.

Despite DeFranco's fantastic chops, which led to him being voted best jazz clarinetist 19 times in the annual Down Beat magazine poll, it was an uphill battle to make it as a bebop clarinetist. If it weren't already challenging enough, in the mid and late 1950s the great tidal wave of rock 'n' roll broke in the U.S., quickly replacing jazz in the clubs, on the radio, and in the record stores. As the popularity of jazz waned, DeFranco moved to Los Angeles and got work playing TV theme music and doing recording sessions, including two dates with Frank Sinatra. From 1966 to 1974, DeFranco led the Glen Miller Orchestra, touring constantly throughout the world. In the mid 70s, DeFranco actually gave up playing for a time, but soon was performing and recording again with various players in the U.S. and abroad.

In 1980, DeFranco and Terry Gibbs were booked to play dates at Ronnie Scott's jazz club in London. Each night after their individual sets, Gibbs would sit in on a number with DeFranco's band to close the evening. The response from the audience and UK jazz critics was terrific, and they soon found they had great musical chemistry. They went on to play together in a number of dates and to tour Europe in the summer of 1981. Noted San Francisco-based jazz writer Herbert Wong caught their act in the Netherlands. As luck would have it, Wong had just founded a new record label called Palo Alto Jazz, and he was looking for artists to record. After hearing Gibbs and DeFranco, he decided he had to get them on tape. In October, Gibbs and DeFranco were booked to play at the noted L.A. jazz club Carmelo's in the Los Angeles suburb of Sherman Oaks. Wong arranged to record the performances, which resulting in the album "Jazz Party - First Time Together."

DeFranco remained active almost until the time of his death in 2014 at the age of 91. His 70 plus year career spanned nearly the entire history of modern jazz in America. There is an excellent (and extensive) Down Beat interview that the magazine published in honor of DeFranco's 89th birthday, that discusses in great depth his career and musical influences. It makes for fascinating reading and is a mini history of jazz music.

Buddy DeFranco performs at the Consul General's residence in Milan,

Italy in December, 2002. At right is one of Italy's premier drummers, the

fabulous Tullio De Piscopo, and at left, on bass, is Luciano Milanese. The piano

 player (off camera at left) is Andrea Pozza. [Thanks to Mirko for the names!]

One last note. Back in 2002, when I was posted to Milan, Italy as a Foreign Service Officer for the State Department, I had a chance to bring over Buddy DeFranco as part of our cultural outreach efforts. Italy is mad for jazz and has produced some outstanding jazz musicians. I accompanied Buddy for three days of concerts, student master classes, and a private performance at the U.S. Consul General's residence. Buddy was already 78 years old at the time, but was full of energy and seemed to have a great time teaching and playing. I remember in particular the concert at the Consul General's residence. We had recruited an ace Italian rhythm section to accompany Buddy. They showed up on the night of the performance, not having rehearsed at all. They chatted a little as the guests were arriving, tossing song titles back and forth. When it came time for the show to start, Buddy turned to the band and said: "East of The Sun West of the Moon," and off they went. Buddy played with amazing vitality and virtuosity, and the band was locked in on him, It was an incredible evening.

Buddy DeFranco made dozens of albums during his career. However, he was ever a huge seller, which is why copies aren't all that common in the used record shops. But the good news is that since he isn't that well known, his albums don't command the lofty prices that original pressings of major stars do these days. If you do come across any of DeFranco's records, I'd urge you to pick them up.

Enjoy the music!

Whipped Cream and Other Delights

If you spend any time at all flipping through used record crates at thrift shops or used record stores, one of the artists you are sure to see repeatedly is Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. I suspect that most of you flip right on by Herb without giving his albums too much thought. But it's worth considering just why there are so many used TJB (Tijuana Brass) albums out there.  

Alpert was born in Los Angeles in 1935. Although he is forever linked to the Latino sound, he is not in fact Hispanic. His family were jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who settled in the Los Angeles area. According to Wikipedia, he took trumpet lessons beginning at age eight and played in local talent competitions. He joined the U.S. Army after high school, where, Wikipedia tells us, he "frequently performed at military ceremonies." Which sounds like he played "Taps" at funerals. At any rate, after leaving the service, he attended USC and was a member of the famous Trojan Marching Band for two years. According to his bio, he next tried his hand at acting, landing a few bit parts in movies (including an uncredited role as a drummer boy in the blockbuster "The Ten Commandments.") Wisely, Alpert soon turned his attention to music.

In the late 50s and early 60s, Los Angeles was ground zero for the burgeoning pop music scene. New groups and record labels were sprouting all over the valley. Anyone who could strum a guitar or write a clever lyric was putting out singles and trying to cash in on the craze for teen and surf records. From 1957-59, Alpert worked as a songwriter and record producer for Keen Records, collaborating on a couple of Top 20 hits for Jan and Dean and Sam Cooke. 

Jerry Moss and Herb Alpert in 1974

Although he had released a couple of obscure 45s under different names, in 1960, Alpert began his own recording career in earnest as a singer, cutting a single for Dot Records under the name Dore Alpert. In 1961, with his friend Jerry Moss (who was working as a record promoter), Alpert set up a recording studio in his garage and started a record company. Initially they called themselves Carnival Records, but had to change it after discovering that there was already another record company with the same name. And so, in 1962, A&M Records was born. (A&M stands for Alpert and Moss if you hadn't already figured that out.)

The inspiration for A&M's first single has become part of pop music lore. Summarizing various online versions, Alpert and Moss enjoyed driving down to Tijuana, Mexico to watch the bullfights. Alpert was reportedly captivated by the sounds of the crowd and the mariachi bands. Back in their garage studio, Alpert wanted to try recording something that captured the feel and excitement of the bullfight.

He had been experimenting with a song by Sol Lake called "Twinkle Star," and decided to mix in crowd noises and adapt his trumpet part to create a more "mariachi" style. The result was the very first A&M release, which they retitled "The Lonely Bull." There is a wonderfully campy 1967 video version of the song here.

Alpert and Moss personally funded the production and distributed copies to radio stations in the area. In the fall of 1962, it caught on and became their first Top 10 hit, reaching No. 6 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart. To capitalize on their success, Alpert went into a real recording studio (at an outfit called Conway Records) and quickly put together an album's worth of songs in the same pseudo-mariachi style. A&M released their first ever LP (A&M 101) in December that year, also called "The Lonely Bull." 

Unbeknowest to those who bought the album, there was no group called the "Tijuana Brass." Alpert had recorded the album using L.A. studio musicians, including members of the famous "Wrecking Crew" (who played the music on literally hundreds of chart-topping songs and albums.) Not having a band didn't become a problem until a few years later when the success of his albums forced Alpert to hire a band so he could go on the road and perform as the Tijuana Brass. Interestingly enough, none of the members of the band was hispanic. Although, as Alpert would later quip, "four of them were Italian."

The followup to "The Lonely Bull" was entitled "Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass Volume 2." It is generally regarded as one of TJB's weaker albums. But Alpert bounced back with 1964's "South of the Border," an album that recaptured much of the magic of his initial release. Also that year, Alpert got a huge boost when the Clark Gum Company began using his song "Mexican Shuffle" to promote their Teaberry chewing gum. The song was renamed the "Teaberry Shuffle," and anyone alive at the time will surely remember the incredibly catchy tune that accompanied the gum's TV adverts. You can watch one here.

Alpert was already on a roll, but the flood gates opened with the amazing success of his fourth LP, 1965's "Whipped Cream and Other Delights." While the album had a great collection of catchy tunes and Alpert's trademarked "mariachi" style, a large part of the reason for its success was its (for the time) racy cover of a beautiful young woman covered in whipped cream and apparently nothing else.

Some enterprising grad student could write an entire Ph.D thesis about this cover and its effect on pop culture. But the basic facts are that the young woman was a model named Dolores Erickson. She was actually wearing a bikini with the straps pulled down, and was covered not by whipped cream, but six cans of shaving cream. Not that any of that mattered to the more than six million people (including, one suspects, a huge number of adolescent boys) who bought the album. By the end of 1965, "Whipped Cream" was the top selling album in the U.S., beating out The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Frank Sinatra. All told, the album spent eight weeks at No. 1, and remained in the top 40 for nearly three years.

All this by way of saying, there is a good reason you find so many TJB albums in the used record bins. Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass were incredibly popular during the 60s. And in contrast to the Beatles or the Stones, Alpert appealed to everyone from teens to grandmas. As a result, Alpert sold more than 75 million albums, and a lot of them are still out there. And while the music is certainly dated, it holds up well in a retro lounge kind of way. Over the years I've picked up all of the TJB releases, including both mono and stereo releases of the early albums. It's not hard to find copies in VG+ and even NM condition. And since they rarely go for more than 50 cents or a dollar, you really can't go wrong. 

Enjoy the music!

Westminster Laboratory Series - Early Example of Audiophile Vinyl

There was a golden period in the early to mid 90s when everyone was busy replacing their LPs with CDs when you could pick up a box of classic rock LPs at a yard sale for a dollar. I even took advantage of a few Freecycle offers to nab entire collections for the price of hauling the boxes out of someone's basement.

Nowadays, because of increasing interest in vinyl, not only are the dollar bins picked over, dealers and thrift shops are carefully checking their stock for jazz and classic rock titles that they can sell for much higher prices. The chance of coming across a mint Blue Note or first edition Pet Sounds for a buck is rapidly approaching zero.

However, one area where it is still possible to find really good deals is used classical records. In the first place, there aren't nearly as many collectors. And more importantly, most used record dealers and thrift shops don't specialize in classical titles and don't have the time to investigate the value of used classical disks.

Among my 3,500 or so LPs, about 500 are classical. I've gone through phases when I listened to a lot of classical music, but must admit that nowadays about 90% of the time I'm spinning jazz or classic rock. Nevertheless, when I stumble on a nice stash of classical titles for cheap, I always grab them.

A couple of years ago at a library book sale in Arlington, VA, I was going through five or six boxes of used LPs, up for grabs at a dollar each. The rock records were mostly the usual worn out copies of Linda Ronstadt, Andy Williams, Barbra Steisand, John Denver, and Loggins and Messina.

But there was one box with 25-30 classical titles all in NM condition. Flipping through them, I found a mix of Angel, Deutsche Grammophon, RCA, London, Philips, and other quality labels. Many were open but still in the shrink wrap. I didn't bother checking the titles, but just carried the box to the cash register. When I got them home and started going through therm, I found something interesting. There were two albums enclosed in thick plastic covers with metal zippers. When I tried to extract the albums, I
discovered that the plastic had fused to the jackets. Not sure what I had, I carefully worked the plastic off and removed the jackets.

Inside were two albums pressed by the Westminster Hi-Fi label. The first (the green one above) was a recording of Prokofieff's Classical Symphony in D major, Op. 29, by Artur Rodzinski and the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of London. The second (the purple one to the right) was Respighi's Feste Romane, performed by Sir Adrian Boult and the Philharmonic Promenade Orchestra of London.

There were several unusual things about the albums (other than the plastic zip covers.) First, the jackets were printed on a very cool metallic foil material (which makes them very hard to photograph.) Next, the jackets didn't have pockets, but were simply hinged boards with a record inside. In addition, each album included a thick, 32-page booklet (in matching colors!)

What the heck? First a quick check of the vinyl. They both appeared to be unplayed. The jackets, except for discolored strips on the right front side where the plastic had adhered, were also nearly mint. I checked one of the booklets and noted that it was written by C.G. McProud, who is identified as the Editor and Publisher of Audio Magazine. The booklet is dated 1955, making the recordings 60 years old. In the booklet, McProud presents a 20-page "Engineering Guide to the Westminster Laboratory Series." He spends the first five or six pages explaining why a high-fidelity recording should only be made with one microphone. As he explains it, multiple microphones will smear the sound of the individual instruments since the recorded sound arrives at each mic a split second apart. Other topics that McProud covers include "Inter-Groove Echo," "Equalization," "Dynamic Range," and "Harmonic Distortion." He makes a compelling case for why Westminster Lab series recordings are superior to any other LPs (at least in 1955.) The last 10 pages of the booklets are detailed track notes by James Lyons. A web search turned up a James Lyons who founded the Monterrey Jazz Festival and was important in promoting West Coast jazz, but his bio doesn't indicate any particular involvement with classical music, so maybe it's another James Lyons.

While I was Googling, I did some digging for info on Westminster Records. Wikipedia says: "The label was founded in 1949 by the owner of the Westminster Record shop in New York City, James Grayson, and conductor Henry Swoboda. Its trademark was Big Ben and its slogan was "Natural Balance," referring to its single microphone technique in recording music, similar to Mercury Records' "Living Presence" series."

Note the futuristic logo of an atom superimposed on an audio wavelength. The Big Ben "Natural Balance" logo is at bottom. It's a little hard to see (click on the photo to get a larger image), but also note that the music band stops about halfway into the side. 

On an online audio forum I found more info: "Westminster put out a "Lab" series of recordings, characterized by pressings which were not allowed to run over 15 or so minutes per side. The main "playing" groove stopped about halfway into the play area of normal LPs, though the runout groove continued to the center of the record. The idea was to eliminate the end-of-side distortions that plagued many records that ran all the way to the label and were the bane of many a hi-fi fanatic. The albums were sold at a premium in spite of offering less music, but the sonic clarity was a significant selling point to their demographic."

I was able to find a price list for LPs in a 1956 copy of Billboard magazine, and it shows that the retail price for the Westminster Laboratory series was $7.50, while standard issues from the big labels like RCA and Mercury were $3.95 or $4.95. In this regard, Westminster was apparently a forerunner of premium labels like MFSL or Analogue Productions. A review of the Prokofieff title in the March, 1956 Billboard magazine notes: "What justifies the heavy price here is the already substantial market for the plastic-zippered Lab packages, and the assurance of finicky and accurate engineering they have come to represent. Of special interest is the orchestral transparency captured, each part clear and in eminent balance."

I can't comment on the quality of the performances, but I do agree with the reviewer that the sound is fantastic. The vinyl is dead quiet except for one or two ticks, and the recordings are detailed and dynamic.

I wasn't able to find a list of all the "Lab" series albums Westminster produced, but did find about 20 different titles on Discogs, Rate Your Music, and Ebay. The first review I can find in the Billboard archives is December, 1954, for the second release in the series, catalog number 7001. The highest catalog number I can find is 7056. And the last Billboard review I can find is in the October, 1957 issue. Assuming they didn't skip catalog numbers, a rough estimate is that Westminster produced 57 titles in a little less than three years. I'm not sure when they stopped selling the Lab series, but the Westminster label shut down when it was sold to ABC in 1961.

As for my one dollar investment, I found one of my two albums listed on Ebay with an asking price of $100. Of course, there is no telling if anyone will pay that, but I certainly got more than my money's worth. And in any case, I'm not interested in selling.

Enjoy the music!

Franklin Mint: "The Greatest Jazz Recordings Of All Time"

Back in the 70s when I was in junior high school, I subscribed to one of the monthly record clubs. I can't remember which one it was -- Columbia House, BMG, and RCA were all popular -- but their advertisements were everywhere, promising deals like: "10 Albums For Only One Cent!" You did indeed get 10 albums for a penny, but the catch was that you were obliged to order another four or five albums at full price over the course of the year.

In addition, each month you received a catalog announcing the "Selection Of The Month."  If you wanted the selection, you did nothing, and the album would be shipped to you at full retail price plus shipping and handling. If you didn't want the selection, you returned an attached post card saying not to ship the album. Naturally, the clubs counted on a lot of their subscribers forgetting to return the post card and paying for the album. I was pretty diligent about returning the card and only ordered the bare minimum required. I'm pretty sure I came out way ahead. I still have a few old LPs in my collection (including a Led Zeppelin IV cut by George Peckham) that have "Record Club" stickers on the jackets.

One of the most enduring of the "subscription" mail order firms is the Franklin Mint Society. Founded back in 1964, The Franklin Mint has sold books, coins, dolls, plates, knives, and diecast classic cars by the millions. From time to time, The Franklin Mint has also offered record sets. Anyone who has spent time rummaging through used records in thrift stores has surely come across sets from their 50-box collection of "The 100 Greatest Recordings Of All Time." Judging from the number of these sets that I find, apparently every home in America had a subscription to the series at one time or another. It may have been required by law. For the casual listener, it wasn't a bad way to assemble a collection of classical music's greatest hits. And since you can find the boxes today for 25 cents or a dollar, they're still a good deal. As a bonus, they are usually in very good condition since people liked the idea of owning a collection of classical music, but no one ever actually played them.

A few months ago at an estate sale, I found a collection of Franklin Mint albums entitled: "The Greatest Jazz Recordings Of All Time." There were 25 handsome box sets, with gold lettering on the covers and leather bindings. Each box contained four LPs, pressed on 160-gram, dark red vinyl, for a total of 100 albums. Many of the sets covered a stylistic theme or time period, such as "Great Jazz Inventors -- Davis, Mingus, Monk" or "Cool Jazz-Third Stream -- Baker, Getz, Brubeck, Mulligan, Konitz, MJQ." The red vinyl was stunning, and every disk I examined looked absolutely mint. They were priced at $12 per set, so I decided to grab five and see if they were any good. I thought I could come back the next day and get the rest if they turned out to be interesting.

Once I got them home and started to do a little research on the Interwebs, I discovered that these sets are quite collectible and much appreciated by jazz fans -- not only for the quality of the pressings, but for the extremely well-done selection of tracks and artists. The collection was curated over a period of several years (1983-85) by the noted jazz critic and music scholar Dan Morgenstern. At the time, Morgenstern was the director of Rutgers University at Newark's Institute of Jazz Studies, one of the world's greatest collections of jazz recordings, memorabilia, and other cool jazz-related stuff.

Morgenstern raided the Institute's collection for rare 78s and other obscure recordings that in some cases have been out of print for decades, Of course, he also includes selections from dozens of seminal albums by jazz greats from Louis Armstrong to Pat Metheny. In all, there are some 1,200 tracks on the 100 albums.

In general, I'm not a fan of collections of any kind of music. As a rule I never buy greatest hits collections by rock or jazz artists. If I like an artist, then I want to have the individual albums so I can appreciate the work as a whole and in context. But in the case of some jazz pioneers or obscure artists from the 40s and 50s, it's not practical or even possible to track down their recordings. So these Franklin Mint sets are a great find. And even though I have many of the individual tracks on the original albums, Morgenstern does a great job of selecting cuts that highlight the development of a particular instrument or style of jazz. In the case of one of the sets I bought (Volume 16) "Cool Jazz - Third Stream," it's fascinating to hear tracks by artists I've never heard of (Cy Touff, Andre Hodeir, Lennie Niehaus - anyone? anyone?) alongside cuts by Miles Davis, Lee Konitz, Gerry Mulligan, and others who came to define the Cool Jazz genre.

Each box set comes with a 20-page glossy booklet by Morgenstern or another noted jazz writer, providing historical context and giving a track-by-track discussion of the music. After spinning a few of the albums, I rushed back over to the estate sale to pick up the rest of the boxes. Naturally they were gone. But I've been able to pick up more online, and now have 20 out of the 25 boxes.

If you ever stumble across any of these sets in good condition at a thrift store or used record sale, don't hesitate to buy them. Complete sets in mint condition go for around $300-400, and individual boxes are usually around $25 on Ebay. The dark red disks look stunning, and the pressings on 160-gram virgin vinyl are stellar - dead flat and quiet.

Enjoy the music!