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[ARSCLIST] JATP Hartford May 1953 -- does any film survive



Hi All:

This question regards the May, 1953 (exact dates not listed) Jazz at the
Philharmonic concert in Hartford CT. Perhaps it was a couple of nights, or
just a one night stop up the east coast. Pablo issued a recording of the
concert on LP in the mid-80's. Apparently, there was never a Norgran or
Verve issue at the time. The LP sounded horrible at first but then I figured
out that the high-frequency squeal on it was likely a Fairchild Pic-Sync
tone. I can't be positive about this, but a pic-sync notch filter at 14K
took out the tone, completely. So that got me wondering -- could this
concert have been filmed? And, if so, does the film survive? It's a real
all-star cast and the performance is good, so if the film exists, it could
be a nice DVD. Hopefully, Fantasy still has the master tape in their
archives.

I also wonder why Norman Granz would have put the concert out on Pablo
without notching out the tone during the mastering. Surely the mastering
studio would have access to a UREI Little Dipper or something similar. Maybe
everyone involved was older and didn't hear those frequencies anymore?

The tone may well not be a pic-sync but it sure notched out right in that
14K area. The musical content pretty much rolls off at 10K also, which again
makes me think Pic-Sync. I will cook up some short soundfiles and have them
available for e-mail. The tone does not sound like scrape-flutter or bias
problems, it sounds like it's there for a reason and someone forgot to notch
it out.

-- Tom Fine


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