Excitement Incorporated - Ray Martin

The Breeze And I

Excitement Incorporated
Ray Martin And His Orchestra
Stereo Action
RCA Victor LSA-2422
1961

From the inside sleeve: Ray Martin has already shown his skill in using the marvelous extra dimension of Stereo Action on Dynamica (LSA-2287). But this time he has added the further element of his own intimate knowledge of a tremendously wide range of music – a knowledge first gained in his native Austria, later in England where he as one of the busiest conductors on radio and television and wrote the scores for four major films, and most recently in the United States. His cosmopolitan background gives him an unusual provocative insight into this carefully chosen collection of cosmopolitan tunes.

His arrangements involve such split-second use of Stereo Action movement that engineer Ernie Oelrich had to develop an unusually painstaking recording setup for each selection. To get proper stereo depth, he suspended two Telefunken U47 microphones twenty feet above the floor and twenty feet apart. The violins were covered by one Telefunken KM56 condenser microphone and the violas and cellos by another. The woodwinds had a Telefunken U49 condenser microphone, the French horns an RCA 10,001, while the trombone and trumpets each had their own Telefunken U49. A Separate RCA 77DX was set up for each of the singers in the vocal group, and each instrument in the rhythm section had its own individual microphone – the bass an RCA 10,002, the drums an RCA 77DX, and RCA BK5s for the piano and the guitar. An RCA BK5 was also used for the harp.

From Billboard, October 16, 1961: Excitement is certainly no understatement for this top-notch musical LP with the accent on sound. The Ray Martin ork, with strings and voices is dazzling, percussive and comes across with a mean ballad when the occasion demands. The recording, like the other numbers in this "Stereo Action" series, is tantalizingly clever as it moves from one speaker to the other. Current success of the albums in this series should get strong competition from the fine new set.

The Breeze And I
Jericho
Over The Rainbow
Just In Time
Czardas
What's New
El Cumbanchero
My Resistance Is Low
Big Noise From Winnetka
Body And Soul
12th Street Rag
Domino