Late last year we had a discussion post about Syd Turner, friend of Morley, Tarrant Bailey Snr. Clifford Essex et. al.

 

Syd Turner recordings are few and extremely rare. I have just found one played by him under the pseudonym Sam Collins, which in on another level of rarity!

 

Here is the link to the previous discussion:

ONE OF THE BEST PLAYERS THAT YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD OF!

Cammeyer’s Andante and Waltz

Enjoy!

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Very cool, Ian. Sounds like he's playing a ZB.

Hi Marc, I don't think it was a ZB, but I could be mistaken. One interesting fact is that the pre 1915 Pathe Freres discs were quite unusual in that they played from the centre outwards!

Here is a snippet from Wikipedia:

"In 1905 the Pathé brothers entered the growing field of disc records. They needed to employ several unusual technologies as preventive measures against patent infringement.

 

 At first they sold single-sided discs with a recording in wax on top of a cement base. In October 1906 they started producing discs in the more usual manner with shellac. Even with this less eccentric material, the early Pathé discs were unlike any others. The grooves were cut vertically into the discs, rather than across them. They were also wider than other companies' records, requiring a special ball-shaped .005-inch-radius (0.13 mm) stylus to play them. The discs rotated at 90 rpm, rather than 78 or 80.

They originally started on the inside, near the center of the disc, spiraling out to the edge rather than the normal rim-start discs which were first produced in 1915!"

This disc by Sam Turner is one of these early discs so dates from 1905-1915 era.

I have several Pathe' Freres single-sided discs and my Brunswick player has a 'vertical cut' selection for the reproducer head, you just push a little button and the whole head rotates (you have to twist it manually) about 30 deg so that the steel needle is out of the way and the sapphire stylus is ready. That Brunswick has the best sound of 'em all (much better than my two Victrolas).

I don't think I have one of the 'inside out' discs though...can't remember, it has been about 20 yrs since I messed with them.

super beau

I agree that it sounds like a zither-banjo.

Trapdoor2 said:

Very cool, Ian. Sounds like he's playing a ZB.

Here are two that I have. I haven't cleaned them up, forgive me. I wanted to get them into the discussion before it was too late.

Attachments:

Now *that* sounds like a "regular" (non zither) banjo.  I wonder what it was like being a studio flute or piccolo player back in the day. It seems you got lots of work but you never got to play anything resembling a melody. Trills, squawks, squeaks, descending two octave arpeggios, shrieks, tweets, shrieks, and blasts were what was expected. 

Piccolo players have two modes, "Accents & Fills" and "Stars & Stripes". ;-)

I have just received from my friend (the audio editing maestro), an edited MP3 of the Syd Turner (aka Collins)  playing Cammeyer’s Andante and waltz.

 

Cammeyer’s score was written in G but the original recording, that I posted above, pitches close to A, so by slowing down the piece we can hear the solo pitched as per score:

ANDANTE & WALTZ slowed and pitched to G

This MAY have been how the recording was made, or maybe not, and could account for the extreme ZB like brightness of the original recording... or it could just have been played on a ZB as it is a Cammeyer piece!???

This sounds pretty much right to me at this speed. And now the strings sound thicker and less metallic. It sounds more like a regular banjo now. Also the music is more enjoyable to me at this speed.

I dunno. In the first version, the record-hiss sounds 'correct'. Also, the amount of wow' in the second makes it sound like it is too slow.

Interesting that the banjo sounds a lot different. The second version would never lead me down the ZB path where the 1st did immediately. Both versions are pretty cool. Thanks Ian!

I know what you mean, Marc and I hear that too. But the piano sounds more natural at G and the speed of the accompaniment less "super-human".



Trapdoor2 said:

I dunno. In the first version, the record-hiss sounds 'correct'. Also, the amount of wow' in the second makes it sound like it is too slow.

Interesting that the banjo sounds a lot different. The second version would never lead me down the ZB path where the 1st did immediately. Both versions are pretty cool. Thanks Ian!

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