Victor’s Church Studio, Camden (1918 — 1935): Lost and Found?
by Ben Kragting Jr and Harry Coster
This article first appeared in the
Dutch-language magazine ‘Doctor Jazz’ last year. Although my knowledge of Dutch
is scant, it was obvious that this was an important article, well-researched and
carefully written, and deserved to be read by a wider, English-speaking
audience. To this end, I approached co-author Ben Kragting to see if he and
Harry Coster would like to see the article published in VJM, and they both
agreed. Ben translated it into English and it was then checked over by pianist
Alan Rogers. Grateful thanks are extended to them for their hard work! Ed
Introduction
In 1901 the record label Victor was officially founded by Eldridge Johnson
as the Victor Talking Machine Company of Camden. In the early years of the
history of the Victor Record Company, the factories, offices, and some of the
studios were situated in the city of Camden. A more detailed history of this
famous record label can be found in Brian Rust’s ‘The American Record Label
Book’ (Arlington House, New York, 1978). In 1942 William J. Ganz made a
fascinating short documentary entitled ‘Command performance’ showing how Victor
Records were produced. This documentary lasts 19 minutes and can be seen on
http://www.archive.org/details/CommandP1942. It shows and explains the
complete manufacturing process, including the recording, followed by the making
of the metal master discs and the final resulting pressed records.
A visit to Camden
At the beginning of the documentary ‘Command Performance’ one can see an
overview of the building complex used by the Victor Company. The Dutch audio
restorer Harry Coster visited the USA and the City of Camden in 2007. He was
curious to find out how much was left of the extensive building complex in
Camden, which was originally part of The Victor Talking Record Company (later
R.C.A.).
1. The factories of the Victor Talking Record Company, c. 1920.
“I didn’t know where to look, but I had found a little map on the internet
that gave me a fair idea of where it was; a site just past the Benjamin Franklin
Bridge. Having arrived at the site, I was surprised to see that a large part of
it still exists. Most of the original buildings have been demolished, but the
main building that housed the main office and had the celebrated Victor Tower
with the mosaic of the world-famous Nipper logo is still standing. This main
building has now been reconstructed as an expensive apartment complex (Camden
Waterfront Transformation). Originally, beside the main building were several
studios, located there because it was quiet. The laboratory building that
formerly housed the first studio and which was converted in 1925 to make
electrical recordings was also situated next to this main building.
Unfortunately these buildings have also been demolished and the space is now a
parking lot. Still surviving is one of the factory buildings, which housed a big
studio on the upper floor for symphonic work in the 1910s and 1920s. This
building has also been converted into an apartment block. When I visited Camden
the former studio floor was still empty and was being offered for sale as an
apartment. By now I became very curious as to what the location looked like
where once one of the famous working studios of Victor was located, the Victor
Church Studio on 114 North 5th Street, Camden. In this studio Fats Waller made
his legendary pipe organ recordings. Some sources said that this studio had to
be demolished due to the construction of a subway; some other sources said that
the church was demolished long ago, and the space turned into a parking lot. So
I had no expectations whatsoever.”
2. The main building of Victor and the characteristic Victor Tower and the
Nipper mosaic in 2007. (Photo courtesy Harry Coster)
3. The main building of Victor in 2007; on the right is the remaining factory
building that housed the big studio for symphonic work. The laboratory building
was demolished and is now a parking lot. (Photo: Harry Coster)
4 & 5. The famous pair of pictures taken in 1925 of a Victor acoustic recording
session and of an electric recording session in Studio 1 of the seventh floor of
Victor Building 15. (Mark Berresford Collection)
The history of the Victor Church Studio at Camden.
Larry Hufmann, who researched the career of the famous conductor Leopold
Stokowski, also did some research on the Victor Church Studio(i), because
Leopold Stokowski and also other famous conductors such as the Dutch conductor
Willem Mengelberg (1922), Arturo Toscanini recorded there. Probably also the
opera singer Enrico Caruso made recordings in this legendary studio: however,
there is considerable doubt that he recorded there.
In February 1918 the Victor Company bought the Trinity Baptist Church, 114 North
5th Street, Camden.(ii) At first part of the building was used as a storage
room. (‘Building 22’) At some point it was decided to remove the bell tower of
the church, as can be seen in the pictures. It is not certain exactly when this
was done. It was probably done in order not to offend the God-fearing folk of
Camden by using a religious place for worldly entertainment. Early in 1918,
immediately after the purchase of the church, Victor decided to convert part of
the church into a recording studio.(iii) This was necessary because the noise of
the production processes in the factories became a nuisance for the studios
situated there. The upper floor of the church was made ready to house a studio
and a recording room.
In those days the recording lathes had to be situated on an upper floor. This
was because these turntables were not driven by electric motors but by the power
supplied by the controlled descent of heavy weights, rather akin to a
grandfather clock mechanism without an escapement. According to Harry Coster
these weights needed to travel at least 4 metres in their descent! The recording
speed had to be absolutely constant and that is why for many years the company
chose weights instead of electricity as a power source. The precision of a Swiss
clock mechanism was needed in a recording studio. After each recording the
weights had to be cranked up again. Apparently the use of electricity was still
considered risky, mainly because fluctuations in the electricity supply would
cause the recorded sound to be distorted by speed variation and would result in
a well-played recording having to be rejected. Also, a weight driven clockwork
motor generated far more torque - necessary to incise a groove into wax,
especially in loud passages where the resistance to cutting was greatest. For
this reason weight-driven motors were still in use in a number of studios,
including HMV, into the late 1930s.
Initially the wonderful acoustics of the church studio (see picture 7: the
right-hand side of the building) couldn’t be utilised. “This is very logical”,
Harry Coster explains. The acoustic recording technique of those days was not
able to capture the sound as heard in the larger hall of the church, and so it
was impossible to record a pipe organ in this hall.
Since February 1918 the upper floor of the church had been in use for recording
symphonic work. (Picture 7: The left building or chapel) The room was big enough
and it was insulated from the noise of the factory. This studio was known as
‘Camden Church Studio’ or the ‘Trinity Church Studio’. In 1925, when the Western
Electric recording system was installed, it became possible to record using
microphones. From then on the wonderful acoustics of the hall in the right-hand
part of the church building came into their own. In 1925/1926 the church was
converted again. The upper floor now became ‘Camden Church Studio Number 2’ and
the church hall housing the famous pipe organ became ‘Camden Church Studio
Number 1.’
6. Trinity Baptist Church (c.1870) with bell tower, as seen from the southwest
corner where Cooper Street crosses North 5th Street. (Photo courtesy: Paul
Schopp)
7. Trinity Church, probably late 30s. The space from which the bell tower was
removed can be seen on the left. Studio 2 and the recording room were situated
on the second floor on the left of the church building (The chapel). Studio 1
with the Estey pipe organ was situated in the right part of the church building.
The picture must have been made after 1935 when Victor stopped recording there
and had turned it into a store for employees. The sign in front of Studio 1
reads: ’RCA Victor (..) Employee sales’ (Photo courtesy: Larry Hufmann)
The difference in sound between the studios can be easily heard on the Howard
Lanin recording (Victor 19797) of September 29, 1925. One side of the record
Melancholy Lou (33433-2) was recorded in Studio 1, and one can hear
the beautiful sound of the church hall. The other side, Don’t Wake Me Up,
Let Me Dream (33434-5), has the compact and dry sound of Studio 2 that
was on the upper floor of the other side of the building. The recordings of
Jelly Roll Morton (July 8 to July 12, 1929) seem to have the sound of studio 2
and not studio 1 as Laurie Wright states in his book ‘Mr Jelly Lord’ (iv) (see
also picture 14)
Unfortunately we don’t have a photograph giving us a good overview of both
studios. We hope that someone will come up with hitherto unknown photos of the
studios after publication of this article.
With the installation of the Western Electric recording system it became
possible to make use of the Estey pipe organ for recordings. This pipe organ had
been placed in the church hall, the building on the right (see picture 5). Some
sources suggest that Victor got this pipe organ when they purchased the Trinity
Church building. The Estey Organ Company from Brattleboro, Vermont gave each
pipe organ they produced an opus number. This pipe organ was registered as opus
1850 and had been built in 1921(v). This means that the Victor Company itself
bought the pipe organ. They obviously had plans to make use of the bigger church
hall at a very early stage, perhaps as a rehearsal area for orchestras or
singers before recording. The church hall was not very large, because it was
part of a relatively small church, as it was not necessary for it to be any
larger due to the fact that there were a lot of other churches in Camden. The
introduction of the Western Electric recording system probably made it necessary
to rebuild the pipe organ twice. In 1925 the rebuilding of the organ made it
necessary for the company to rename the organ twice. In 1925 it became opus
2370, and after a second rebuild in 1926 it was renamed opus 2529. In 1925 Estey
installed a console organ with lighting (a ‘luminous’ console). This console
organ probably was a technical tour de force in those days. It remotely
controlled the actual pipe organ, which was situated in a separate room
elsewhere in the church hall. This was probably to provide a practical solution
for a technical problem, which was how to record the powerful sound of a pipe
organ from a distance using a microphone and at the same time allow the organ
player to be in the same area as the rest of the orchestra or singers. In 1926
the Estey Organ Company was brought back to enlarge the instrument. A third
manual with additional features (e.g. 2nd touch) were added to the console organ
and several ranks of new pipes were added in the separate organ room that were
intended to make the organ more capable of playing different styles (vi). It was
on this newly rebuilt pipe organ opus 2529 that Thomas ‘Fats’ Waller made his
famous organ recordings between 1926 and 1935.
The pipe organ recordings of Fats Waller in the 1920s
Fats Waller made his first pipe organ recordings in the Trinity Church
building, Studio 1, on November 17, 1926. These were the first recordings of
jazz made using a pipe organ. It was quite an accomplishment to make a ponderous
pipe organ swing the way Fats Waller did. One has to bear in mind that the sound
from the pipes of an organ come a fraction of a second later than when the notes
are played by the organist. That’s not a great problem if the organist is
playing solo, but it can be a big timing problem if they have to play with a
band or have to switch to piano in between as Fats Waller did. Also the
recording engineers had to do a lot of experimenting to get good recordings from
the pipe organ. That this wasn’t an easy job can be deduced from the notes on
the recording sheets of the first recording sessions. The recording sheet of
take 1 of St Louis Blues and of Church Organ Blues
(renamed Lenox Avenue Blues) stated: ’57-in from shutters in line
with right column’. The other takes and also the issued take 4 of Lenox
Avenue Blues were recorded with two microphones and a note: ’29-ft from
shutters in line with right column’. On January 14, 1927 when another recording
session with Fats Waller was done, the engineers found a better balance and they
used one microphone and put it ‘7-ft from the shutters in line with the right
column’ (vii).To date we do not know of any photographs that give us a good
enough impression of the whole church studio: we have only one picture of the
console of the Estey pipe organ, and the microphone they used for such sessions.
8. The only known picture of the Estey Pipe Organ in Studio 1 of the Trinity
Church Studio. On this organ Fats Waller made his famous organ recordings. The
Louisiana Sugar Babes and Thomas Morris and his Seven Hot Jazz Babies were
standing near the console organ and the microphone. The piano keyboard was
placed near the console organ. On this picture we see E.J. Quimby at the console
organ with the tenor George Hopkins at the microphone. The famous Victor
recording engineer Raymond Sooy is directing the recording. (c.1930).
Fats Waller’s manager (from 1938), Ed Kirkeby, wrote a biography of Fats Waller,
‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ and gave an interesting description of Studio 1. ‘The
Victor people had bought an old church in Camden, New Jersey, which contained an
organ on one side of the large hall, and a Steinway concert grand on the other.
Beside the Steinway was an additional console organ, convenient for recording
piano and organ together, or organ and band’(viii). On this equipment Fats
recorded with Morris’s Hot Babies and The Louisiana Sugar Babes.
The recordings of Fats Waller with Morris’s Hot Babies (1927) and the Louisiana
Sugar Babes (1928) were not an easy task for Fats, and it shows that he was a
real professional and experienced player to handle the obstacles he faced. Reed
player Garvin Bushel participated in the Louisiana Sugar Babes session with
James P. Johnson, Fats Waller and Jabbo Smith on March 27, 1928. In his
autobiography he remembers this session well and writes:
‘In March (1928) I went down with James
P., Fats, and Jabbo to record in Camden, New Jersey. Victor had bought this
church there which had a great-sounding organ, and used it as a recording
studio. The organ pipes were in one room and we were in another.
Fats played organ on this date. The piano and the organ manual were together
[This is the same as the ‘console organ’ Kirkeby was
talking about], but since the pipes were in the
next room Fats had a real job, because the organ always sounded a fraction of a
second late. It was quite a thing. And it was hard keeping time because we had
no drums or bass. That morning, Fats didn’t drink his fifth of gin until after
we got through recording' (ix,x)
Bushell’s statements are very interesting. First it proves again that there was
a separate room in the church hall which housed the organ pipes. But secondly it
indicates that Fats was well-prepared and didn’t drink during the session
knowing he had a difficult morning and could be facing timing problems. On
November 17, 1926 Waller’s first recording session on pipe organ also included a
recording with Morris’s Hot Babies, but all takes of the recording of All
God’s Chillun Got Wings were rejected. It’s not unlikely that the
recording engineers weren’t the only ones having problems with recording the
organ and a band together. Could it be that Fats Waller underestimated the job
and drank too much, discovering too late that he needed all his concentration to
get the job right with a sound that was delayed by a fraction of a second,
despite (or may be because of) the fact that at this session there was a drummer
to keep time (allegedly Eddie King, Victor’s A & R man and a former drummer with
the Van Eps Trio)? For the recording session of May 20, 1927 of Morris’s Hot
Babies we know for sure it was Eddie King playing the ‘rudimentary’ drums (xi).
9. Fats Waller at the Compton Grand pipe organ in the HMV Abbey Road Studio
No.1 in London 1938.
Technical obstacles in Studio 1 (1926 – 1930)
The control and recording room had several problems in recording in Studio 1
of the Victor Church Studio. These problems can be heard on the original Victor
78 issues. The dynamics/volume of a pipe organ are controlled by the player. To
do this he uses a foot pedal as can be seen in picture 9. If the volume pedal
was pressed a little too firmly at any time, the recording room lost control and
resulted in over-modulated grooves on the record. This was clearly a problem
that was not easily rectified, because they would otherwise have made another
take.
Harry Coster points out that if you listen to original issues of many of the
early recordings, it is easy to recognise which ones were made in Studio 1, the
church hall. ‘If you listen carefully, you hear at the beginning of the
recording two very short buzzes. Normally the recording room gave a signal when
the recording process had started. This obviously didn’t work well in Studio 1
so they gave two short buzzes in order to indicate that the recording process
had started and the musician should begin playing. It can still be heard on
several 78s’. (eg., Victor 21298, Shilkret’s Rhyth-Melodists, Chloe
/When You’re With Somebody Else, for more than one reason an interesting
recording (xii).
Another shortcoming of the Camden Church Studio can be heard on many original
Victor 78s of the 1920s. Harry Coster: ‘Most recordings of the Camden Church
Studio have a barely audible very high whistle at the beginning of the
recording, but after three minutes, near the end of the recording, this very
high pitch whistle is lower and can be readily heard.'
(xiii). The explanation for this whistle is that the temperature control system
in the recording room was not very good; the recording waxes had to be kept warm
so that they could readily take the incision of the recording cutter. The room
temperature was often too low, and that resulted in the wax on which the
recording was made cooling down too quickly. (This high-pitch whistle problem
was known as ‘cold wax chatter’) This shortcoming could be partly polished off
on the matrices, but it still can be heard on several original 78s, not only at
the Church Studio, but frequently on ‘field’ recordings, where the haphazard
nature of the record sessions produced their fair share of technical problems -
the 1928 Victor Memphis sessions are particularly dogged by this problem..
The end of the Trinity Church Studio
Up until 1935 several adaptations were made to the Church Studio to cure all
the acoustic and other problems that blighted the building. Not only Fats Waller
recorded there, but also several other jazz greats such as Duke Ellington, Paul
Whiteman, King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton (who is known to have recorded there
on July 8 – 12, 1929).
The end for the studio came when the local authorities decided to extend the
subway in Camden. The noise of the construction operations and the subsequent
noise of the subway itself plagued the recording activities, which by then used
very sensitive equipment. Most of the recording activities were relocated to New
York and other places. In 1936 the Victor Church Studio was converted into a
gymnasium for the Victor Athletic Association. Until 1947 Studio 1 also served
as a store for the employees of Victor. In 1947 Victor (RCA) sold the building
and after that there is no further information available about the former Victor
Church Studio. There is also no information about what happened to the famous
Estey pipe organ. It’s generally assumed that the building was demolished and
became what is now a parking lot.
Lost and found?
With the address of the Victor Church Studio, 114 North Street in his hands,
Harry Coster started looking to find where the former studio had been located.
“During my 2007 visit to Camden I wanted to see the location of the legendary
Victor Church Studio myself. When I entered the street and arrived at the
address I was utterly astonished to see the building still existing! They have
built a newer church beside it in the same style, but the old church is still
there, and on the other side of the old church there is indeed a parking lot.
Unfortunately the building was closed and I couldn’t get inside and I didn’t
have any time left to return later, so I don’t know what is left of the old
studio or the pipe organ.”
This was thrilling news and we decided to write about this discovery and dig
into the history of the church, but I very soon began to have doubts.
10. Is the chapel on the left the former Victor (Trinity) Church Studio, and is
it now part of the Tabernacle Of Faith Church at 115 North 5th Street in Camden?
In the foreground is the visible debris the remnants of the bell tower that
Victor demolished? (Photo: Harry Coster)
11. The possible former Victor (Trinity) Church Studio (left) from a different
angle (photo Harry Coster)
When one compare the photos Harry Coster made with the pictures of the old
Trinity Church (former Studio 2), there are some striking resemblances: the
outward form of the church and what looks like the remnants of the demolished
bell tower. But the differences are equally striking.
The Trinity Church had a red brick front and this church has a sandstone front.
Furthermore, the style of the front differs from the original design, as do also
the positions of the windows. Did the Victor Company go to such a great effort
in order to restyle and rebuild the old church as late as the end of the 1930s,
such that it would match the style of the Tabernacle of Faith church? Another
disturbing detail is the address: Shouldn’t 114 North 5th Street be on the other
side of the road? Of course, a lot changes in 80 years. However, there had to be
some more concrete (pardon the pun) evidence available somewhere.
I decided to contact the Municipality of Camden and got in touch with the
official responsible for historical buildings in Camden. He said he would have
to consult the city historian first. When I called him again he told me that he
had been told that the Victor Church Studio had been demolished a long time ago,
but that it had been situated on another location and not on North 5th Street! I
then asked him if he had historical street maps which showed where 114 North 5th
Street was situated in the 1920s and what the address of that site now was. The
answer: ‘115 North 5th Street’! Then I asked the official to present the city
historian with my evidence that the Victor Church Studio had been indisputably
situated at 114 North 5th Street in the 1920s. The answer then was that we were
absolutely right, but that the Victor Church Studio had been situated on the
opposite side of the road to the Tabernacle of Faith Church and it had been
demolished a long time ago and the location was now a parking lot. They were
probably right, but not really convincing. Were there really two almost
identical churches opposite each other, both having demolished bell towers? I
had to use my own common sense to get the picture straight, because I couldn’t
go to Camden and look into the archives there myself. First I studied the
junction of North 5th Street and Cooper Street by using Google Earth, thus
making clear for myself what is north and south in the city map. Then I studied
the picture of the Trinity Church dating from c. 1870. The picture had been made
from the south-west corner of North 5th Street and Cooper Street (xiv). I found
out that the photographer had stood at the corner where the tower of the
Tabernacle of Faith Church is situated, and then looked into North 5th Street.
And indeed the Trinity Church had been situated directly opposite the chapel of
the Tabernacle of Faith Church. If you use Google Earth you can see that
nowadays there is a parking lot on the spot where the Trinity Church used to be.
Then I started to look for an old aerial photograph of the city of Camden. There
were very many churches in those days, but after studying the street maps I knew
exactly what to look for. Finally I found a city view dating from the mid -
1920s showing North 5th Street. On this photo one can see very clearly the
Tabernacle of Faith (then called Centenary Tabernacle) Church, with the chapel
of the Trinity Church and formerly the Victor Church Studio directly opposite.
It then still had its bell tower!(xv)
12. A rather poor aerial view of Camden mid-twenties. The Victor Church Studio
(with bell tower!) is seen from the rear and stands in front of the Centenary
Tabernacle Church opposite.
On the aerial view of Camden City the back of the Victor Church Studio can be
seen. The white building with the bell tower and the chapel of the former
Trinity Church stands directly opposite the chapel of the Tabernacle of Faith
Church. It is clear to see that this building had two floors. Before 1925 the
acoustic recordings were made on the second floor of the chapel. After 1925 this
studio on the second floor of the chapel became known as Studio 2.
14. Jelly Roll Morton and his Red Hot Peppers recording in Studio 2 (8 – 12
July, 1929). In the background part of a carillon can be seen belonging to the
bell tower of the building.
15. Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra recording in the Camden Church
studio 1 probably during 1932.
Since 1925, Studio 1 had been situated in the building on the left of the white
chapel with the bell tower. (aerial view photo 13). This later became the
employee store for RCA-Victor. Also interesting on the photograph is the passage
that can be seen on the roof from one building to the other (Studio 1 to Studio
2?). Was this built by Victor to connect both studios? We don’t know. We also
don’t know what happened to the Estey pipe organ. If it had been preserved and
sold to another church it is pretty certain that the Estey Company would have
had some calls for its servicing or repair, so we can safely assume that it no
longer exists.
Conclusion
We cannot deny that both Harry Coster and I were disappointed that the
building no longer exists. This case of ‘mistaken identity’ made us dig deeper
into the history in order to establish the historical importance of the building
as an industrial monument. Alas, we can only give a glimpse of an interesting
piece of recording history and some new insights about some of the well-known
and legendary recordings of Fats Waller. We can now also have a more detailed
picture in our minds of the place where some of our favourite jazz recordings
were made.
-------------
We would like to thank: Larry Huffman, Marc van Nus, Ate van Delden, Bob
Thompson (City of Camden), and last but not least pianist Alan Rogers for
smoothing out my very bad English translation. He recently released a very fine
piano solo cd ‘Connections’ ( see: www.alanrogers.ch)
This article was originally published in Dutch for Doctor Jazz Magazine 203,
p.8-16. This is a revised version. Ben Kragting is also the editor of this Dutch
jazz magazine. www.doctorjazz.nl
Notes
i See www.stokowski.org
ii
www.davidsarnoff.org/sooy-maintext.html ‘February, 1918: The Victor Company
purchased the Trinity Church, 114 North Fifth Street, Camden, N.J., as we needed
a larger studio for Symphony Orchestra recording’. From the diary of Victor
recording engineer Raymond Sooy.
iii The memoirs and diary notes of Harry A. Sooy can be found on the internet.
He was one of the notable Victor recording engineers. The notes contain a lot of
information about the period 1898 to 1925. In March 1918 he wrote down the
following interesting notes: ‘To take care of the necessity for quarters
containing rooms large enough in which to do Symphony Orchestra recording, etc.,
the Victor Company purchased the Trinity Church Building, 114 North Fifth
Street, Camden, this being the best available place. The building was put in
order, and on February 27th I reported it was ready for operation, after which
we made records of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, Victor Herbert’s
Orchestra, the La Scala Orchestra of Italy and other organizations’.
www.davidsarnoff.org/sooyh-maintext1909.html
iv ‘Mr Jelly Lord’, Laurie Wright, Storyville Publications (1980), pp. 62 – 68.
v
www.esteyorgan.com/opuslist.html
vi www.esteyorgan.com/opuslist.
Search for the opus number for more information about the pipe organ.
vii ‘Fats in Fact’, Laurie Wright, Storyville Publications (1992), pp. 25 and
28.
viii ‘Ain‘t Misbehavin’, Ed Kirkeby, Da Capo Press (1975), p.106.
ix ‘Jazz From the Beginning’, Garvin Bushell. The University of Michigan Press
(1990), p. 74.
x Laurie Wright writes in his excellent book ‘Fats in Fact’ pp. 42 – 43, that
both Studio 1 and Studio 2 were in use during the Fats Waller sessions of March
27, 1928. The actual recording obviously took place in Studio 1, and Fats Waller
didn’t have to run from one room to the other as has been suggested. He must
have played the console organ together with the rest of the band. There may have
been other technical reasons for using both studios.
xi ‘Fats In Fact’, Laurie Wright, Storyville Publications (1992). p. 34.
xii For many years the organ playing on this recording was attributed to Fats
Waller, probably based on information given to Brian Rust by Nat Shilkret. In
his autobiography ‘Nathaniel Shilkret, Sixty Years in the Music Business’ (The
Scarecrow Press, Lanham Maryland, 2005) Nat Shilkret writes these interesting
lines: ‘After recording and arranging the Victor Salon Orchestra, I decided, for
the sake of variety, to record without arrangements. I would hire top players
like Lou Raderman, Tommy Dorsey, (Andy) Sanella, (Milton) Rettenberg and (Carl)
Kress, a guitarist, all of whom had good ideas, and, with just scratch ideas,
rehearse for hours on each tune. I encouraged them to suggest ideas, and I was
satisfied if, in six hours, we recorded just two selections, rather than the
usual eight records. We had worked on the tune Chloe (1928) without much
success. It was getting late, and we had to catch the 5 p.m. train to New York
for our radio dates. It was about fifteen minutes before quitting when I said,
‘Boys, let us try it once more – if I’m not satisfied, we’ll stop.’ We began our
last attempt, and then we heard an organ playing with us, and it sounded great.
We walked over to the organ, and there was Fats Waller, with a jug of gin. I
quickly asked him to join us and use his marvellous ideas, and we finished in
time. Later he recorded a few more records with us, and the name of the
combination was Rhyth-Melodists. For some reason we did not record many tunes
with the Rhyth-Melodists, but for many years I received calls about Fats Waller
and his connection with the group.’ (pp. 97 – 98).
Probably Nat Shilkret’s memories got mixed up and he confused events, as can be
seen to be the case several times in his book. As for Shilkret’s recording of
Chloe Brian Rust in ‘Jazz Records’ names Fats Waller as the organ player,
probably based on the unreliable memory of Nat Shilkret. According to Harry
Coster the Victor Recording Book gives the personnel as follows: Sigmund
Krumgold (pipe organ), Lou Raderman (v), Milton Rettenberg (p) and unreadable
but looks as Win Heidz (traps) (this would be veteran Victor staff
percussionist William H. Reitz - Ed).
Camden, N.J., March 2, 1928.
42529- 1 D (destroy)
2 H (hold)
3 Hi (hold indefinitely)
Take 2 was released. The master of take 3 has been preserved and it turns out
the group was at first named ‘Shilkret’s Organ Combination’ instead of the
Rhyth-Melodists! The organ playing on take 3 is almost exactly the same as on
take 2, which is unlikely were it Fats Waller playing. Of course, this doesn’t
necessarily prove that Fats Waller didn’t take part in the rehearsal Shilkret
mentioned in his autobiography. Maybe the experience of Fats gave Nat Shilkret
the idea to start an organ combination, as there obviously wasn’t an organ
player present at his rehearsals. Maybe even some test records were made. But
the combination of musicians Shilkret mentions: Tommy Dorsey, Carl Kress, Andy
Sanella, Lou Raderman and Milton Rettenberg can be found in ‘Jazz Records’ at
two Shilkret sessions a year later, in New York, 22 & 25 January, 1929. Maybe
Shilkret made some tests with this group as the Rhyth-Melodists including Fats
Waller? More questions than answers! Anyway the issued record of the
Rhyth-Melodists we know of, Chloe (Vic 21298), is definitely without Fats
Waller.
xiii The high pitch whistle caused by ‘cold wax’ can be best heard on the
‘master’ and prints of the ‘master’. From the master they make a ‘positive’,
‘mould’, or ‘mother (matrix)’ To reduce the whistle of a ‘cold wax’ to a minimum
the ‘mother’ was intensively polished. From this polished ‘mother’ they made
matrices to press records (‘the negative’). However, there still can be heard a
light beep — especially near the end of the recording on some records (This
problem wasn’t exclusive to Victor - all record companies suffered, some worse
than others; for instance I have yet to hear a 1920s Federal recording that
DOESN’T have cold wax chatter at the end! - Ed)
xiv www.dvrbs.com
xv www.dvrbs.com