Howdy Folks! Welcome to The UnEarthed In The Atomic Attic album blog! Here you will find a wide variety of unusual Space Age Vinyl finds that feature good quality cover scans, jacket notes and audio samples for you to enjoy. I'm here to have fun and hope you will share in my process of discovery!
The Ping Pong Sound Of Guitars In Percussion
By Eddie Wayne & Group
Chief Engineer: Preston Ford
Coronet Records CXS-139
A Division Of Premier
1963
The album title "ping-pong percussion" is misleading as there is not a single typical "ping-pong" effect on the set. Nor are there any instances of typical period "percussion" effects. But the music is still cool.
The assembled tracks were probably produced by two to four different groups of session musicians. I made an attempt to find info on Eddie Wayne with no success. This is just a guess, but Eddie Wayne is probably a name the budget label made up to suggest, to unaware buyers, that the guitar artist was "Duane Eddy".
Quiet Nights And Brazilian Guitars Guitars Unlimited Arranger and Conductor: Jack Marshall Produced by David Cavanaugh & Jack Marshall Capitol/EMI Records T 2451 1966
Large Group:
Guitarists - Howard Roberts, Bob Bain, Tony Rizzo, Al Hendrickson, Tommy Tedesco, Laurindo Almeida (alternating with Rosinha de Valenca)
Percussion - Shelly Manne and Milt Holland (alternating on drums and percussion)
Bells - Frank Flynn
Bass - Joe Mondragon
Small Group (Manha de Carnival, Ho-ba-la-la, Desanfinado and O Barqiuinho):
Guitarists - Howard Roberts, Jack Marshall
Percussion - Shelly Manne and Milt Holland (alternating on drums and percussion)
Bass - Joe Mondragon
All jazz guitar solos by Howard Roberts; guitar solo on "Here Lies Love" and "These Are The Ways Of Love" by Laurindo Almeida
Excellent light jazz with a 60s vibe. Recommended. The Girl From Ipanema Manhã De Carnival (Theme From "Black Orpheus") Meditation (Meditação) Here Lies Love Ho-Ba-La-La Bim-Bom Desafinado Quiet Nights Of Quiet Stars (Corcovado) One Note Samba (Samba De Uma Nota So) These Are The Ways Of Love O Barquinho (Little Boat)
From Billboard - February 2, 1959: Capitol Record's latest release of stereo LP's should find a hearty reception from stereophiles. Included in the 16-LP release are stereophonic versions of sets that have in most cases proven big monaural sellers.
Headlining the pop releases is "Oklahoma!" In stereo the album is even more charming and this release should create new interest in the set, which has long been a best-seller. Another strong pop album in the group is "Jackie Gleason Presents Velvet Brass," which lends itself very well to stereo, because of the many contrasting ork effects.
You're Driving Me Crazy
Skyliner
But Not For Me
Cherokee
Me And My Shadow
Take The "A" Train
By The Beautiful Sea
Am I Blue
What's New
Girl Of My Dreams
My Buddy
I Can't Believe That You're In Love With Me
September Song
Out Of Nowhere
Chinatown, My Chinatown
Spectacular Harps Robert Maxwell MGM Records E3836 1960
From Billboard - August 8, 1960: MGM Records, as part of its fall program of close to 30 new releases, has included a blockbuster sound "spectacular" series, which is sure to create new fuss and feathers in the growing market for disks with the accent on what has been referred to as the "ultimate" in sound.
Unlike several other companies, which have started separate label identification for their super-sound packages, MGM sticks to its own mother logo, using the "spectacular" tag as a cross identification.
Initial release in this group consists of five all-instrumental sets, each one which is keyed to a specific school of instrumentation. Certainly one of the most colorful of these is the "Spectacular Brass" set and one number alone. "Let Me Entertain You," from Gypsy,' with a flock of swaggering, full-blown brass sounds, is worth almost the price of admission itself. Another interesting set features a colorful harmonica ensemble. Robert Maxwell, harpist extraordinaire, also contributes fine listening via his "Spectacular Harps" album. The group is rounded out with sets featuring accordions and percussion. The latter, tho well made, will find a highly competitive market.
Vet a.&r. man, Eddie Heller, is to be commended for producing the line-up.
Caravan Chapel In The Pines Harp Tango It's A Sin To Tell A Lie The Simple Things Happy Days Are Here Again Hong Kong Holiday Ebb Tide Lefty's Hideout Little David Play On Your Harp Alice Blue Gown Limehouse Blues
Original Compositions and Improvisations by Dick Hyman
Command ABC Records 938-S
1969
From the inside cover: The Moog synthesizer is a musical instrument that is still so new that not even those who have developed it know what its full musical potential may be.
Synthesizers have been used in recording studios before this, of course. They have often added freaked-out electronic sound to whatever a musical group produces with its regular instruments. They have provided decoration, color and feeling.
But now Dick Hyman has harnessed these provocative electronic synthesizer sounds. He uses the Moog synthesizer as a musical instrument – a total musical instrument – playing it three ways; unaccompanied, with accompaniment from live musicians, and even with accompaniment from a robot instrument.
"My objective is to humanize electronic music," said Dick, "as well as to humorize it and to play with it as a full performance instead of a collection of unearthly sounds."
What is a Moog synthesizer?
To the non-technical eye it consists of two short organ-like keyboards, and three cabinets with panels which contain knobs and jacks similar to a telephone switchboard so that various elements in the synthesizer can be linked or "patched."
When he sat down to play the synthesizer, Dick Hyman says he felt as though he were inside an airplane cockpit. His link with reality was the fact that he has played all sorts of keyboard instruments from the piano and the organ to the ondioline and the nodes Martinot. As a result, he not only had confidence in his approach to the two keyboards but he had some experience and knowledge of the kinds of sounds he wanted to produce, particularly from his experience with electronic organs.
"I had to approach it as an organist," he said. "To me, the synthesizer is like a super-organ because it includes everything that the different kinds of electric organs can do. The difference is that it can produce only one note at a time."
Dick could work the keyboard – but that' part of the operation of a synthesizer. It also has to be programmed – the linkages have to be made by patching to create the types of sounds that the performer wants. This requires someone skilled in the technical operation of the synthesizer.
So, while Dick Hyman manipulated the keyboard, Walter Sear, technical specialist in Moog equipment did the programming or patching.
"I would suggest the sound that I wanted," Dick explained, "and Walter would set it. Or he'd suggest a sound that he thought would fit in with what I was trying to do. Sometimes we'd stumble on something interesting while we were on the way to something else.
Some of the pieces Dick played were composed before he reached the studio. On these set pieces, he used live musicians along with the Moog – Art Ryerson and Jay Berliner on guitars, Chet Amsterdam on Fender bass, and Buddy Salzman, drums, with Dick on honky-tonl piano.
Other selections were improvised in the studio. Dick constructed his improvisations from the sounds of the synthesizer, just as a sculptor might be inspired in his creation by the texture of the stone he was working with.
"I found," said Dick, "that it was much more interesting to create freely on the synthesizer in this fashion than to bend the machine to any preconceived ideas I might have had. In playing my prepared compositions, I had more control over the final result than in any other recording situation I've been in but because the instrument is so new and so unexplored, the final results were more unrelated to what I started out with than anything I've done before. The pieces that were developed in the studio, when I went ahead and explored the instrument, went much more quickly, I'd say to Walter Sear, 'Surprise me with some sounds.' And he'd patch in something and I'd start to play whatever it suggested. That was the most fun.
In addition to the Moog synthesizer, Dick also used another electronic instrument on some piece: a Maestro Rhythm Unit, a robot drummer that is normally used by organists in cocktail lounges to provide accompaniment. It is an electronic box decorated with push buttons marked "samba," "rhumba," "tango," "fox trot," "rock and roll," "go-go," "boogaloo," "ad-infinitum. You push the button to get the desired rhythm and then adjust the machine to the specific tempo you want. The rhythm unit can be fed directly into the Moog synthesizer so that the unit's rhythmic aspects can be turned into tonal aspects.
Mood Music
Serenade In The Night
Philip Green And His Orchestra
MGM Records E3119
1954
From the back cover: Philip Green has emerged as one of the most talented and popular bandleaders in post-war England. It is possible that the American forces stationed in the United Kingdom contributed to the development of a public taste for popular music which carried on after the war. Certainly such leaders as the late Glenn Miller and their bands registered successfully with the British as well as the Yanks. Fortunately, there were local men like Philip Green who kept this trend alive and even enhanced it.
Thoroughly grounded in music from the age of 7 when he started studying piano, Philip Green won a scholarship to Trinity College where he majored in orchestration, theory, and composition. after college he played in numerous orchestra and at 19 became London's youngest full-fledged conductor at the Prince Of Wales in the West End. He then became well known for his programs on Radio Luxembourg which were beamed to England and featured him often, as many as 17 times in a week.
During the war period Green conducted many shows for BBC which were a morale builder for the troops.
Shearing In Hi Fi The George Shearing Quintet
MGM Records E3293
1955
George Shearing - Piano
Al McKibbon - Bass
Cal Tjader - Vibes
Jean Thielemans - Guitar
Bill Clark - Drums
From the back cover: The amazing progress of audio development both during World War II and the years since has thrown a sharp accent upon recording and reproducing equipment. In this day and age, it is not only possible to produce (and reproduce) a recording in such a way as to recreate with astonishing accuracy the actual sounds one hears from instruments and orchestras in real life, but also in a way to idealize that sound, to bring it into sharper focus, to adjust delicate balances in such a manner that all sections come through in a way never quite possible ideally within the "live" listening experience itself. The result is the whole new field (if "field" is in any way an apt term) of "Hi-Fi." An exciting field – and one which has captivated the imagination of America and Americans!
One of the most exciting areas of survey for newly-developed microphones and tape machines and the exquisitely-perfect reproducing equipment of today is white hot (or, if you prefer the modern terminology, white cool) jazz. The vital, exciting, improvisatory accents of modern jazz hold almost accidental horizons of new sounds. Jazzmasters today range all over the musical map. The most advanced harmonies and performing techniques are theirs, they experiment with the application of classical forms, they approach their scoring with ideas daring even to the most advanced of "serious" modern composers. Little new music today seems as exciting in impulse as modern jazz. What better area of music could be found for the application of "hi-fi" techniques than here?
One of the most thoughtful jazz-men of our day is the inimitable George Shearing. George's tastes are catholic to the extreme, ranging from Bachian forms to Schoenbergian chromaticism and harmony. The whole mainstream of western musical history (and some primitive cultures) has been absorbed into his style and technique. The chameleon Mr. Shearing applies stimulating musical – and sonic – ideas to each new composition which comes his way with the "busyness" of a cloud-filled sky meeting with lighting disturbance banks. And, the result generally is just as electrifying!
His teeming ideas flow with natural ease, are skittishly changeable, are myriad in novel devices. Over all is applied the smooth requirements of what has become known to the jazz fans of America and the world at large as "The Shearing Sound," a liquid, polished blending of instruments – normally piano, bass, vibes, guitar and drums – in a remarkable personalized, yet universally satisfying, manner. Shearing is the engineer's and the hi-fi fan's delight, for his is a mind and his a quintet which place an accent upon inventive sound. To be sure, there is a near-standard Shearing trade-mark in the whispering metal brushes on cymbals, the frequent unison voicing of the melodic instruments of the grouping, the close-knit rhythmic interplay. But, after that, anything is liable to happen – and does! The basic problems of capturing the essential Shearing sound in recording is difficult enough – but add the stroke-of-genius bits of improvisatory magic and you have problems of a much more demanding variety. We think all of the technical problems have been solved admirably in this collection of some of George's greatest recordings, waxings great on both a musical and an engineering level, waxings which truly represent "Shearing In Hi Fi!"
