Side By Side + At Sundown (1927) Savoy Havana Band

SIDE BY SIDE ~ (0:00)
AT SUNDOWN ~ (3:08)
Savoy Havana Band
HMV B5294 (27 May 1927)

Ramon Newton, Rudy Bayfield Evans and Abe Bronson are the vocal trio in SIDE BY SIDE. Strangely, they seem to be improvising their way through it

HMV indicated the generation of the pressing-stamper which made a record by using letters from the sequence G-R-A-M-O-P-H-L-T-D. These were embossed in the shellac at the 3 o’clock position (relative to the label) in the run-out space: G ≡ 1, R ≡ 2, etc to D ≡ 10. On this copy, the stamper mark is GR for Side By side, the twelfth stamper created, and GP for At Sundown, the sixteenth. This must have been a very popular record and in the HMV catalogue for some time; and I’m not surprised.

Laurie Huntington is the one being energetic on the cymbal.

For the technically minded: I usually transcribe at the labelled ‘speed’: 78 rpm or the 80 rpm that Columbia favoured for a while. Transcribing at 45 rpm followed by digitally speeding up the result involves shifting everything* relative to the frequency response of the cartridge etc (* including any ambient low frequency vibrations at the turntable); plus there’s the awkward conversion ratio of 78/45 = 1.7333333r to be handled in the digital processing. Unfortunately this record has a warp causing vertical oscillations which audibly played havoc with the cartridge at 78 rpm; so it was transcribed at 39 rpm with the integer upscale of 2 (an octave on the pitch).