[ARSCLIST] King Oliver/Louis Armstrong Gennett recordings

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Was anyone ever able to use digital tools and make those recordings anything 
approaching decent sounding? All I have is the Book of the Month Club 
reissue of the the Milestone LP produced by Orrin Keepnews and remastered 
for BOMC at Fantasy in 1974. The sound quality is so poor that I consider it 
unlistenable. I understand the limitations of the original source material 
but wonder if any digi-magic was later invented that improved the listening 
experience at all?

The awful-sounding Gennett records were made in 1923. Just 2 years later, 
Okeh made some decent-sounding Armstrong Hot Fives records in Chicago. I 
have those on a Columbia reissue LP "The Louis Armstrong Story Vol 1", I 
seem to have a very late (70s) pressing of this record, which the notes 
indicate was issued at the dawn of the LP era, so back in the late 40's the 
Columbia engineers must have done disk-to-disk transfers, I would guess from 
Okeh metal parts.

-- Tom Fine