[Dixielandjazz] Wax cylinders

[Stan Brager]

Karen;

If you want to hear such a sound which was recorded recently, pick up a copy
(or listen to a friend's copy) of Wynton Marsalis' recording of "Tom Cat
Blues" on his CD "Mr. Jelly Lord". It was recorded the "natural" or
"organic" method.

Stan
Stan Brager
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <coastsidegiraffe at comcast.net>
To: "DJML" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2006 8:38 AM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Wax cylinders


> A trip back into the technological past from the N.Y. Times:
>
> Karen
> Pacifica, CA
>
>
>
> June 11, 2006
> The City Life
> Edison, Unplugged
>
> By LAWRENCE DOWNES
> In a basement recording studio in the Bronx the other day, unencumbered by
> wires, cables, amplifiers or headsets, a huddle of musicians took their
cue and
> eased into a song. It was a four-man band - trumpet, clarinet, banjo and
> battered tuba - and a singer, a young woman with saucer eyes, a blond bob
and
> excellent diction.
>
> They played and she sang into the fat ends of two long metal horns, like
> backward megaphones, that funneled the sound to a wooden box, a wind-up
lathe on
> which spun a shiny cylinder coated in brittle black wax. As a needle
etched a
> groove in the cylinder, a surgically attentive man dusted away the
shavings with
> a paintbrush and little puffs of breath.
>
> When the music stopped, he put the cylinder on another machine for
playback. He
> turned the crank, placed the needle and a sweet, melancholy song flooded
the
> room. It sounded like an unearthed relic of the Roaring Twenties, though
the
> recording was barely a minute old.
>
> Down in the poolroom
> Some of the gang
> were talking of gals they knew
> Women are all the same, said Joe
> Then one dizzy bird said, Pal, ain't you heard
> the story of True Blue Lou.
>
> It was an electric moment, though electricity had nothing to do with it.
The
> recording was the product of the collaboration of a radio host, Rich
Conaty, who
> plays 20's and 30's jazz and pop on Sundays on WFUV; Peter Dilg, an
acoustic
> engineer; and the pickup musicians who leapt at the invitation to make a
> brand-new, old-time Edison cylinder.
>
> Mr. Conaty, Mr. Dilg and the band are first-rank, certifiable enthusiasts.
At
> lunch after the session, they plunged obsessively into Thomas Edison lore
and
> Tin Pan Alley trivia. They lamented the supremacy of inferior recording
> technologies. They pined for Betamax and cassettes, for Bix Beiderbecke
and Cab
> Calloway.
>
> Mr. Conaty, who plans to play the cylinder on his show tonight, has an
audience
> that, practically by definition, is too young to remember Sophie Tucker,
Ukulele
> Ike or the young and jazzy Bing Crosby. But the people who, like me, plan
their
> Sunday nights around the show have discovered pleasures in the music
totally
> unrelated to nostalgia. It's a revelation to hear music so fresh and
strange, so
> witty and soulful, from people who are dead and gone.
>
> And there is another pleasure, too. It's the warmth of the technology.
There are
> surely downloadable versions of "True Blue Lou." But unlike the MP3, whose
magic
> is incomprehensible and thus boring, the wax cylinder is viscerally
miraculous.
> It's staggering to think that lungs and plucked strings could vibrate the
air,
> wiggle a stylus and capture a song for 100 years on a fragile thing that
looks
> like a toilet paper roll. Compared with the iPod, it's a lot more human, a
lot
> more accessible, a lot easier to love.
>
> Once you've seen and heard it done, there's no going back.
>
>
> Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
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