[Dixielandjazz] "Editing" records for re-issue

[Anton Crouch]

Hello all

I strongly agree with the views of John Farrell and Bill Haesler on the
"editing" of 78s for re-issue. The sad part is that the people who do this
almost certainly think that they are "improving" the music.

It's not a new phenomenon - who remembers those early LPs from US Columbia
with the vocals by people like Irving Kauffman edited out of hot
performances by the likes of Red Nichols? That was done to spare us the
"corn", but in doing so the do-gooders also often removed some nice
background obligato work.

Far worse is the straight-forward censorship that sometimes occurs. A
recent example is Retrieval 79012 (Tommy Dorsey & his Clambake 7). In the
notes to this CD we are told that "the vocal chorus has been omitted from
matrix 013525-1 for reasons of taste". Reasons of taste? The item is "If
the man in the moon was a coon" and the producers have been so politically
correct that they have not only removed the vocal but also the words "was a
coon" from the track listing. This contrasts with the approach of companies
like, for example, Archeophone which give us the material straight and
explain the social and historical importance of so doing.

All the best
Anton