gramophone-georg wrote:From memory, this is likely the best:Wolfe wrote:I wouldn't mind owning that Dorsey / Sinatra disc, but my guess is that it's cut from the same source as the Dorsey / Sinatra RCA / BMG collection it comes from, which is to say it's heavily filtered. The original Victor 78's of that stuff sound very good, arguably better than the earlier of the Columbia Sinatra (solo, post Dorsey) sides. I haven't found any really good CD / LP transfers of the Victor sides.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Frank-Sinatra- ... Swz~paR~IX
I don't know what went on with Columbia after about 1941... quality really seemed to suffer. The Harry James sides on 1939- 40 Brunswick and Columbia are great if you can find the original pressings which isn't easy. The late 1940s- 1950s Columbia reissues that put "Featuring FRANK SINATRA" first on the label are quite poor pressings by comparison.
I'm unsure of just exactly when Columbia started the practice of cutting takes to 33 ⅓ 16" lacquer discs and then dubbing those to 10" or 12" 78 rpm masters - that could be a culprit. But even the undubbed 33 ⅓ lacquers that survive and can be heard on the Frank Sinatra 'complete' 12 CD blue box of the Columbia years have boxy sounding sonics earlier on. Things improve a lot, expecially the later stuff that was recored at the 30th Street 'church' studio in New York, that Columbia was using in those years.
The Sinatra / Harry James 78 rpm sides are rare in their original Brunswick form but the common circulating CD that gathers them all, plus some other 1939 James Brunswick material is adequate.