[Dixielandjazz] BENNY GOODMAN 1938 Carnegie Hall Recordings.

[Robert S. Ringwald]

But Steve, what are your sources?

I am not disagreeing with you.  I just want to see the credits for what you 
are quoting.

 As I tell people when they send me hoax and urban myth messages, the 
Internet is like writing on the restroom wall.  Just because someone writes 
it, does not mean it is necessarily true.

--Bob Ringwald


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Barbone" <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
To: "Bob Ringwald" <robert at ringwald.com>
Cc: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 9:25 AM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] BENNY GOODMAN 1938 Carnegie Hall Recordings.


> "Robert S. Ringwald" <robert at ringwald.com> asked (about the recording
> information & microphone placement during the 138 B.G. Carnegie)
>
>> Steve,
>
>> Where did you get this info?
>
> There are several sources on the internet two of which are quoted below.
> That plus a little deduction about B.G.'s Band sound. e.g. There are
> photographs of BG at the Paramount theater in NYC. (1937) Some indicate 
> that
> 21,000 kids were in the audiences (combined afternoon & evening shows) at 
> 25
> cents a pop. There are at least 3 visible microphones in front of the 
> band.
> One in the center, one on stage left and one on stage right near the vibes
> and piano. (BG can be seen playing close to the center microphone)
>
> Interesting aside about the Paramount engagement is Goodman's quote about
> audience involvement: "We looked at them as if we were the audience and 
> they
> were the show." That came to be a self fulfilling prophesy for many of his
> future engagements. Somewhere along the way, many jazz bands seem to have
> forgotten that a dancing and or "moving" audience was indeed, The Show. 
> The
> R & R guys blew us jazzers away on that score.
>
> Even though the 38 Carnegie suffered from poor recording quality and the
> degradation of the original acetates, Carnegie has superb acoustics. Since
> the arrangements of big band music then was oriented towards "section"
> passages, they could be heard acoustically in a large venue. But the
> soloists were at a disadvantage in large venues and microphones were 
> usually
> placed as those seen in BG's Paramount engagement.
>
> With a Paramount size audience, in that venue and others like it, I think 
> it
> is a pretty safe bet that BG and all the other soloists used a mike. There
> are photos of Earl Hines in 1943 at the Apollo (Eckstine, Parker, 
> Gillespie,
> Sarah Vaughn (some piano as well as vocals), Benny Green, Benny Harris and
> Hines are using mikes.
>
> You can see similar mike placement in photos of most outdoor jazz 
> concerts.
> Like the 1938 Randall's Island Swing Festival, ( Basie, Ellington, Herman,
> et al), and/or the Newport Jazz Festivals.
>
> Cheers,
> Steve Barbone
>
>
> Start snips
>
> "And we see some great Carnegie Hall footage. (Despite the persistent 
> myth,
> the great big overhanging mike wasn't used to record that concert; three
> mikes off to the sides of the stage recorded it. The NBC "Diamond"
> microphone, used to record Toscanini's famous broadcasts, was switched off
> that night.)"
>
> AND
>
> "Alas, much of the concert has been 'lost'. True, he concert was recorded
> and is available on CD; however, the technology of recording was very
> primitive. Only three microphones were used -- a 144BX above the 
> conductor's
> podium and two others at ends of the band. The feed went offstage to a 
> mixer
> and then to a CBS truck in the alley. Strangely, engineers on site did NOT
> control the mix. Therefore the settings were the same for each song. From
> there, it was sent by broadcast-quality telephone line to the CBS master
> control room downtown who then patched it on to Harry Smith's Artist's
> recording studio and Raymond Scott's Universal Recording studio. Both
> studios cut acetate records but they were limited to 8 minutes 45 seconds
> each. Thus, two turntables were in constant use in each studio --- alas,
> synchronization had not been invented and half the recordings are at a
> slightly different speed than the others. In the CBS studio, a master was
> cut on a 33" aluminum studio transcription discs. The aluminum discs were
> filed away and 'disappeared'."
>
> "Benny Goodman eventually came into possession of the acetates. Because
> Goodman had used musicians from a variety of bands, contract difficulties
> made it virtually impossible to issue a recording. Everything faded from
> view until about 1950 when the acetates were discovered in (of all things)
> his sister-in-law's house. Needless to say, the quality had degraded even
> further. With heroic engineering, it was possible to restore about 75% of
> the concert. The re-engineered version was issued in 1950 and became one 
> of
> the first of the 33-1/3 rpm long play records to sell over a million 
> copies.
> A rework of this recording is available on CD. In early January of 1998, 
> it
> was announced that the aluminum studio masters had been rediscovered,
> allowing the entire concert to be reproduced with much better fidelity."
>
>
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