[jazzcourier]

Nice to see someone acknowledge and remember the great Johnny Guarnieri.He is more than a footnote in Jazz history,having played with Charlie Christian in the Goodman sextet and the harpsichord on those famous Grammercy five recordings,the aforementioned Lester Young sides that were made during that amazing period in the mid 40's when small group Swing was turning into Bebop.He was almost house pianist for Harry Lim's Keynote label and made more small group sessions for Savoy backing the much underrated Tenor great Don Byas.
  He eventually settled in California and did a plethora of studio work and in the 70's had a great gig as a pianist at a nice supper club/bar on Ventura Blvd. in Sherman Oaks .At "The tail of the cock"  as the night wore on, his playing turned from mellow dining music to hot,hard and heavy Jazz played in the classic Fats Waller two fisted piano style.His last set became notorious amongst listeners and it was not unusual to find some well known pros basking in Johnny's greatness.One night we sat in awe as Eubie Blake strolled in and  pushed him aside and took over the piano,they ended the night with four hands on one piano, as the help swept up around them. Another night, a familiar face sat in the shadows at a nearby table,nodding his head to the music,it was the great Erroll Garner,a lifelong friend of Guarnieri.Three of Johnny's "students" formed a label and were determined to document his brilliance,the end result was "Superstride" from 1976,a tour de force of solo  piano.

[jsaliga]

I've decided that it's not worth the trouble of cleaning the records first before I play grade them.  This might sound counter-intuitive, but when you have a lot of records to play and sort, cleaning them first can be a big waste of time.  Suppose for a second that you have to listen to 40 records, all of which were graded E- or better when you bought them.  Some are not going to live up to that grade when you play them.  In fact, some are going to be pretty bad.  Out of the 50 records I went though this weekend, I'd say that about 15 of them were completely worn out.  Another 5 to 10 might play to V++ and the rest will be E- or better.

It isn't really possible to tell how a record is going to sound by a visual inspection.  So instead of cleaning first I want to know if the record is worth keeping.  If the record looks dirty then I run a soft cloth over it.  If the cloth picks up dirt then I clean the record before playing it.  If not then I play it and grade it.  If it is worn out then it goes in the junk pile.  If it is a keeper then it gets cleaned, bagged, and stored.  My limited experience with 78s suggests cleaning is important for best sound, but not crucial for grading the record.  To test that hypothesis I pulled three records from the junk pile and cleaned them very carefully.  This had no impact on how they sounded.  I did the same thing for the keepers and they didn't sound any different either.  But if I am going to keep the record then it's worth cleaning it.

--Jerome

[jsaliga]

One other thing I am noticing...the more popular the artist or song the more likely the record is going to be pretty worn.  So a Gene Krupa record from 1940 will most likely be more worn than a Joe Marsala and His Delta Six record from the same time period.  That observation may not hold up over time, but it stands to reason that more popular and well known recordings will get more play than something less known.

--Jerome

[jsaliga]

I must say that I am really falling in love with these 78s.  The past few days have provided some extremely satisfying music listening.  There have been some bum records to be sure...a few broken here, a couple cracked there, and some that were completely worn out despite their E- grading in the listing.  However, I was fortunate enough to buy most of my records from two or three sellers who very accurately and honestly graded their records.  And every single 78 from these folks that was graded E- or higher sounded like it was brand new.  I've been buying them like crazy.  Here's a bunch more that came in today...



The really amazing gems from today was a 12" Benny Goodman record with Helen Forrest on Columbia, and a 10" Duke Ellington record "Do Nothin' 'Till You Hear From Me" on RCA Victor.  They both sounded pristine and that Cootie Williams trumpet solo on the Ellington record sounded terrific.

But to me this isn't really where the value is in 78s.  That is, buying music that is available on CD.  For example, it doesn't really make a lot of sense to go out of your way to buy Duke Ellington's RCA sides since that material has been extensively covered on CD, and it is very likely to sound better on CD than any 78 you will get.  RCA did a very nice job of transfering and remastering Ellington's Victor sides for the Centennial.  The best of those is available as a 3 CD boxed set of the Blanton Webster recordings from the 1940s.  The Ellington 78s I bought were purchases of opportunity since they were graded high and priced low.  So I sprung for a few of them.

To me the real value in 78s is to acquire recordings from artists that you've never heard of.  In general, I love the sound and vibe of most music recorded between 1930 and 1950.  About half of my buys are from artists that I had no prior knowledge of or very little exposure to.  To me that is the real joy in this stuff.  And a lot of those records are in nice shape because they don't get as much play.

--Jerome

[jsaliga]

Oh, and as for Perry Como...



Dig You Later (A Hubba-Hubba-Hubba)

I have to man up to that since jazzcourier considers it dreck.  But hey, I'm no great fan of Perry Como myself, though there are a few tunes that I like.  This one, and I would buy a 78 of Jukebox Baby in a cold minute and not be ashamed of it.  I like some of his novelty tunes but the massively produced stuff with thick string arrangements never did anything for me.

The guy sold a ton of records though, and without popular artists like Perry Como record labels would not have survived to bring more artful choices of music to the cultured minority.

--Jerome

[jsaliga]

A pretty big haul of about 120 records have been coming in over the last few days.  Here are a few of them...



I have learned that buying 78s on eBay, while convenient and fun, can also leave you with a lot of bad sounding records.  For me the important thing was to find a few sellers who grade fairly and accurately.  I know I mentioned this before but I can't really emphasize it enough.  The grading scale for schellac records is a little different than it is with microgroove vinyl LPs.  Here is my take on what you can expect from 78s that fall into the various grades...

E+     Sounds brand new, with no evidence at all of groove wear.  Very little and in some cases no surface noise.  These are pretty rare in my limited experience, but I do have about 10 records that play and visually grade to E+.

E, E-  I am lumping these two together because I think the only thing that seperates them is that excellent minus may have a little more surface noise, but it doesn't really intrude on or distract from the music.  They play and sound great and are plenty good enough make a minty sounding digital transfer from.  This is the grade that I try to buy most of the time, or E+ when I can find them and the price is reasonable. 

I will only go lower if it is something of personal importance to me and is somewhat rare.  I will also go lower if I am buying certain kinds of records as a bulk lot where the per record cost is very low.  For example, I bought a lot of twenty 78s on the Perfect, Brunswick, and Vocalion labels from the 1920s.  The seller indicated that the batch graded from V to E-.  The price was $15.  There were three Fletcher Henderson records in that batch on Brusnwick.  One was totally worn out and not playable.  But the other two were quite nice and both play graded to a stong VG+ (pretty good for recordings made in 1924).  There were about 7 other keepers from that lot so to me the purchase was worthwhile.

V+ or VG+  This is the lowest grade that will provide an enjoyable listening experience.  There is some groove wear and usually considerable surface noise, but neither over-powers the music.  You will hear some occasional light crackle, but, again, nothing too distracting.  VG+ records generally aren't suitable for digital transfers, and will require a lot of post-capture cleanup (usually at the expense of some fidelity) to make for a clean sounding digital file.  Visually, these records may have a few light scratches or scuffs that won't affect play.

V or VG  These records are not very listenable.  The grooves are generally worn beyond playability.  There is some music left in the grooves, but it cannot overcome all the noise, so when you play one of these records you will hear much more noise than music.  A lot of acoustic and early electric records are like this.  Visually these records appear grey in the groove area and have lost their shine.  They tend to have physical problems too, such as light flaking in the lead-in groove or even small cracks.  I wouldn't grade any 78 with a crack of any kind above V, no matter how well it played or how good it sounded.

This will be my last post to this thread.  The main reason I started it is because I couldn't find very many threads on AC about 78s.  My hope is that if someone else is interested and they do a search they may find this thread a little more helpful.  As you can see from some of the replys there are other members here who enjoy shellac records, and I'm happy to count myself among them.

Happy listening. 

--Jerome

[jazzcourier]

You will be happy to know that Russ Case  who backs up Perry "Comatose" had a very active and distinguished career as a section trumpeter and session man for Benny Goodman,Paul Whiteman,Louis Armstrong,Billie Holiday and many others.He also wrote some nice arrangements for a Jack Teagarden album for Verve.
     Good luck on your adventures and keep spinning that shellac!
     When those worn records are too beat to play and someone of years past has squeezed out the last notes on those discs i like to break the record and save the label and assemble them into shadowboxes to hang on the wall.They are Art onto themselves and a reminder of where we have been in a changing world of invisible media and the vapor trails of the download.