The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Here's another Bixfest purchase, an OKeh Truetone Process red label (sorry, no label photo just now) of Clarence Williams' Stompers from 1926. This band featured Bubber Miley, cornet (I believe; not trumpet) and Don Redman, alto sax/clarinet (who also does the novelty vocal in the second song, a Williams composition). These recordings almost sound electric, until the vocal, but I believe the Truetone process is generally believed to be acoustic.

JacK-ass BLUES (Okeh Truetone 40598-A; 74090-B; NY, 4-7-26)

What's the Matter Now? (Okeh Truetone 40598-B; 74091-B; NY, 4-7-26; v. Don Redman)

What you have are acoustic recordings. Starting with matrix 80001, on 19 April 1926, and ending with 80198 on 29 October 1926, are the range of matrices made with the electric 'Truetone' system.

Ah, yes, I thought so (I didn't realize there was an electric Truetone process), but they are such good acoustic recordings! Much better to my ears than Columbia's mid-late '20s process that they reserved for their budget labels (Harmony, Velvet Tone, etc).

Okeh acoustics can sound suprisingly good, there's enough bass on 'What's The Matter Now' to lead one to think it might be electric. But, good as it is, there's still that giveaway recording horn resonance.

Great tunes and transfers, thanks for posting.


EDIT: I just read the above post regarding Columbia's budget labels. I have an acoustic Harmony record that I think is equivalent in sound quality to the subject record of this thread. I'll post it in the next day or two.

Great recordings...and listening to them you'd never thingk they were acoustic...they sound so good.
THanks for posting these as they both show just how good acoustic recording could be. I wonder how they got them to sound so good with such a high amount of bass?

RJ

Two wonderful numbers. They did a marvelous job with that record!

Just to complement, here's the Weintraubs Syncopators with their version from 1928 of the which is quite very close, just slightly faster:

http://www.box.net/shared/ickbzhzhtg

WDC wrote:Two wonderful numbers. They did a marvelous job with that record!

Just to complement, here's the Weintraubs Syncopators with their version from 1928 of the [donkey] Blues which is quite very close, just slightly faster:

http://www.box.net/shared/ickbzhzhtg

Don't you like how the automatic censorship of the message posting software substitutes a bland synonym for "jack-ass"? (I had to hyphenate that word for it to appear instead of [donkey])

Okay, got a workaround!

On another MB I saw a certain pianist's name rendered as 'd**k Hyman'!