Скачать или смотреть Crazy Words, Crazy Tune + Where Do You Work-a John (1927) Ray Starita

CRAZY WORDS, CRAZY TUNE { 0:00 } vocals: Al, Ray and Rudy Starita
WHERE DO YOU WORK-A JOHN { 2:48 } vocals: Al and Ray Starita
Piccadilly Revels Band, directed by Ray Starita
Columbia 4332 (17 March 1927)

'Recorded in a Public Hall' on late 1920s Columbias, to me, means only one thing: bad, distant, reverberant sound. And here we have it.

The coming of electrical technology made recording away from the studio a viable possibility, with the microphone capturing the ambience of the venue. A recording van could be parked outside the building, or a GPO land-line booked back to the studio (just as the BBC was doing relaying concerts and hotel bands back to Savoy Hill). So the record companies busily bagged exclusive use of London venues. HMV got the Kingsway Hall, for example. Here we have Columbia's use of the Wigmore Hall: but sans audience it has the acoustic of an Olympic swimming pool hall. The band sounds miles away; and the reverberation smears the syncopated music; the equivalent of Gregorian Chant being recorded in an anechoic chamber. On this recording the microphone is seriously distant from the band; and the vocalists are close to it. At 0:43 listen to how the band disappears into the yonder as the three Staritas gather around the microphone and shield it from the instruments.

Rust lists ten versions of WHERE DO YOU WORKA JOHN. Was it the Chicken Song of the mid-1920s? However, it is fascinating to hear Al, or is it Ray, singing in Italian. The label designates it a 'Fox Trot'; but Rust has it as a '6/8' i.e. one-step, which is what it is.