"Since My Best Gal Turned Me Down" by Bix Beiderbecke

Bix Beiderbecke and his Gang recorded "Since My Best Girl Turned Me Down" on October 25, 1927 in New York City. The musicians on this record are members of the orchestra that played at the Club New Yorker, which was open only one month. Before that, most of those musicians played in the freshly-disbanded Jean Goldkette Orchestra.

Bix's Gang consists of Bix on cornet, Bill Rank on trombone, Bill Murray on clariney, Adrian Rollini on bass sax, Frank Signorelli on piano, and Chauncey Morehouse on drums. This record is a reissue of the performance, which was originally released on the OKeh label

The record player is an Orthophonic Victrola model VE4-4X, or "Granada". The "E" in the model number indicates that the Victrola is fitted with a synchronous A/C motor instead of a wind-up motor. The machine has a full "orthophonic" playback system (for electrically-recorded records) including the special orthophonic sound box with a duralumin diaphragm and a folded exponential horn inside of the cabinet. Although the gigantic Credenza Victrola produced deeper bass, the Granada had the most accurate overall frequency response of all the acoustic Orthophonic Victrolas. The serial number indicates that this machine was probably manufactured in 1926.

I shoot my video with a Sony Digital 8 format camera. For audio, I use a Shure SM-57 microphone on a stand placed about 4 feet in front of the Victrola horn. Although I normally use "soft tone" needles, this video was made with a "bright" or "loud" tone needle. The mic is plugged directly into the video camera. The videos are edited with Windows Movie Maker. I use Sound Forge 9 to clean up the audio, but don't worry -- you're hearing the record exactly as the Victrola plays it!

For more great music, videos, and trivia from this era, please visit my website, http://www.virtualvictrola.com.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Bix
• Beiderbecke
• Gang
• Best
• Gal
• jazz
• 1927

[IdontneedanIpod]

How did you get your Record so clean?

[mlaprarie]

@IdontneedanIpod, Part of it is because old record players are not as sensitive to minor blemishes, and despite what many people think a shellac 78 rpm record in very good condition will produce very little surface noise when played on vintage equipment. People living 75+ years ago had standards for sound as well, and would have been much less enthused about records that were barely listenable.

[jhb134]

@mlaprarie - Was this ever reissued, even on the old (1970's era) French RCA series of Beiderbecke ... 5 volumes, altogether? ... I don't see it ....

[mlaprarie]

@jhb134, it was reissued on the Columbia/Legacy CD "Bix Beiderbecke: At The Jazz Band Ball". It is also on Volume 2 of the "Bix Restored" series from Origin Jazz.

[DeadYetFleshNbOne]

holy sh-masterpiece

[everybodylovesmybaby]

This one really smokes! Thank you!

[MsBarking]

Thank you a hundred times for this!



[rordorica]

great record, I must get a copy of it, thanks for sharing it.

[VictrolaJazz]

Phenomenal!

[Abriggs500]

It's sad that traditional jazz is dying out with the generation gradually passing away. It's up to the young people to carry on the REAL JAZZ, not all the be bop fusion, school jazz.

[busessuck1]

Sounds a lot like Sweet Georgia Brown - especially if you start wistling it

[jhb134]

@mlaprarie - thanks! Should've known that it would be a Columbia/CBS type of reissue. I think that virtually EVERY, worthwhile 78 side, with Bix, has been reissued on one form or another. Or maybe not ... :)

[ChristophePhilippe]

And no mixing, multi-tracking, or other garbage to interfere with music-making.

Fantastic!

[jhb134]

@TreforMetaxas09 - Thanks! ... As they, once said .... "Bix lives"! He and Louis Armstrong RECOGNIZED the talents, of those two (he and Louis) ... and they once-played on those old riverboats, along the Mississippi River, when jazz was first beginning, esp. on the trumpet/cornet, in GREAT improvisations that resulted.

[jhb134]

@mlaprarie - Thanks, and I should've known; have the Bix discography, part of Richard Sudhalter's old book. It's nice to have parts of the RCA/French reissue ... put-together by Jean-Paul Guiter.