Liner Notes
Dixieland Veterans
My dad loved his Dixieland music. Even when he had no idea who was performing it. This is a perfect album for that mindset, because this budget label doesn’t even get all of the tunes listed correctly on the cover and label, let alone tell us who’s performing on it.
And even though the title of this episode leans toward anonymous musicians, today’s technology might have helped. And then again. It might not have.
So, get ready to hear some hot jazz recordings from an album re-released without naming the artists in Volume 239: Unknown Dixieland.
Video Intro
Listen here or on my PodBean Podcast Episode page:
You can check out the video version here or on YouTube:
Go Directly to Any Song or Break on YouTube:
00:00 – Season’s Show Intro
00:49 – Episode Introduction
01:40 – Battle Hymn Of The Republic
03:49 – First Break: Why I chose this record for this episode
05:07 – Pee Wee Blues
09:28 – Synthetic Blues
14:45 – Second Break: More information about the record, its marketplace value and what condition my dad’s vinyl is in.
17:43 – Strike Up the Band
20:02 – Third Break: Quick one – no bio
20:19 – Billboard March
23:10 – Fourth Break: this episode’s Interesting Side Note.
26:26 – Blue Blues
30:57 – Fifth Break: Final Words
32:22 – When The Saints Go Marching In
36:07 – Close
Credits and Copyrights:
Unknown Artist – Dixieland!
Label: Omega Disk – OSL 63
Format: Vinyl, Stereo, LP
Released: mid 1960s best my research could tell
Genre: Jazz
Style: Dixieland
We will hear all 7 songs from this album.
Buck Clayton – trumpet
Jo Jones – drums
Vic Dickenson – trombone
Pee Wee Russell – clarinet
Lou Carter – piano
Bud Freeman – tenor saxophone
Omega was a budget record label based in Hollywood run by the International Pacific Recording Corporation, which also produced reel-to-reel tapes on their Omegatape label.
Battle Hymn Of The Republic
[Traditional]
Pee Wee Blues
written by Pee Wee Russell, Nat Pierce
Synthetic Blues
written by Tim McEwan and Tyler Lyle
Strike Up the Band
NOT Chiribiribin as both discogs and the record album itself listed here.
written by George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin
Billboard March
written in 1901 by John N. Klohr, and dedicated to the Billboard music-industry magazine.
Blue Blues
written by Nick Mulder
When The Saints Go Marching In
Traditional
I do not own the rights to this music. ASCAP, BMI licenses provided by third-party platforms for music that is not under Public Domain.
#dixielandmusic #musichistory #vinylcollecting #vinylrecords #musicalmemories
Here is the Episode Script!
Thanks sweetie and thank YOU for tuning into episode 239 of Spinning My Dad’s Vinyl.
My dad loved his Dixieland music. Even when he had no idea who was performing it. This is a perfect album for that mindset, because this budget label doesn’t even get all of the tunes listed correctly on the cover and label, let alone tell us who’s performing on it.
And even though the title of this episode leans toward anonymous musicians, today’s technology might have helped. And then again. It might not have.
So, get ready to hear some hot jazz recordings from an album re-released without naming the artists in Volume 239: Unknown Dixieland.
[Music: Battle Hymn Of The Republic]
There is the traditional song Battle Hymn Of The Republic.
And yes, I do know who was in this recording session. Thank you, internet!
Buck Clayton – trumpet
Jo Jones – drums
Vic Dickenson – trombone
Pee Wee Russell – clarinet
Lou Carter – piano
Bud Freeman – tenor saxophone
A great collaboration. We’ve heard many of them in past episodes.
Ok…Why this record for this episode?
Well, the psychedelic artwork on the front cover has certainly caught my eye every time I’ve glanced at it. But it just didn’t go with the words Dixieland which includes an exclamation point.
The cover eventually wore me down and I had to drop the needle on it to see what was there. Boy, was I pleasantly surprised. I still had no idea who the musicians were until I started writing the script, but I had already enjoyed listening to the record several times before that happened.
This was a great session featuring some veterans in the jazz recording business and they really seemed relaxed on the tunes which I think were recorded in the mid 1960s.
If you like Dixieland, this is some great stuff.
Next up, a couple of Blues tunes.
[Music: Pee Wee Blues]
[Music: Synthetic Blues]
Synthetic Blues
written by Tim McEwan and Tyler Lyle
Before that we heard Pee Wee Blues
written by Pee Wee Russell and Nat Pierce
Now let me tell you about my dad’s vinyl I am spinning for this episode.
Unknown Artist – Dixieland!
Label: Omega Disk – OSL 63
Format: Vinyl, Stereo, LP
Released: mid 1960s to the best my research could tell
Genre: Jazz
Style: Dixieland
Omega was a budget record label based in Hollywood run by the International Pacific Recording Corporation, which also produced reel-to-reel tapes on their Omegatape label.
I did want to tell you that this is a re-release of this collaboration that went under the same title except for in the UK, the title was Dixieland Ala-Carte. Also Record number OSL 63. This is how I found out about what musicians are playing on this recording.
We will hear ALL 7 songs from this album, I thought why not?
There are no liner notes about the tunes or the musicians. There’s just a list of the songs on the album and a list of other records available from Omega.
It also has some blah blah blah about the record company and how they use only the finest ingredients for their records kind of thing.
So, let’s see what prices this record is being sold at on discogs dot com.
It’s only been sold twice
$2.33 High
$2.00 Low
$2.16 Average
$2.16 Median
Last sold on Nov 26, 2021 for that 2.33 high or actually 2 Euros.
My dad’s record is in poor condition. There is a lot of noise between tracks and it’s really scratchy at the needle drop points on both sides.
The surface has normal scuff marks, but they seem to affect the recording a little more than it looks like it should.
The cover is actually in pretty good condition. The color might be a little faded as it is mostly red, but otherwise it looks good. No real outline from the record can be seen, so I think it’s a sturdy material.
The back has a shorter than normal green magic marker streak and the word Posted stamped on it. This one has a capital K along with those other two markings.
He does NOT have his normal address label stuck to the front.
So I’ll value my dad’s vinyl at two bucks. I’ll stay within the framework set above.
Next up, is NOT chiribiribin as it says on the label and the back cover.
[Music: Strike Up the Band]
Strike Up the Band
written by George and Ira Gershwin
Since there is no one featured artist in this collaboration, we’ll keep the music rolling.
This next song was written for a popular music trade magazine.
[Music: Billboard March]
Billboard March
written in 1901 by John N. Klohr, and dedicated to the Billboard music-industry magazine.
Time now for this episode’s interesting side note and it has to do with the technology I use to research and write this show.
I realize that I get to use a lot of technology that I didn’t have available to me when I was in radio broadcasting from the early 1980s through the mid 1990s. Long before the internet and even longer before social media.
Our information back then came from paying attention, reading newspapers, and scouring the trade magazines. Most radio stations had subscriptions to Billboard or Radio and Records, two of the big radio and music trade magazines. When I was at a rock and roll station in Erie we used a weekly called Friday Morning Quarterback. It’s where we found the latest information on artists and the music industry.
It’s incredible the information I have at my fingertips now to help write this show.
The reason I wanted to talk about this is because I found myself using the music identification app Shazam to try to figure out who actually recorded this album. While it didn’t quite get all of the songs’ artists correctly, it did lead me down the right path where I found that this album was actually released as another album before.
It was with the main website I use to catalog my record collections where I identified that previous album. You’ve heard me mention discogs dot com in every episode when I value the record. That’s where most episodes start getting written, from the information on the discogs page dedicated to the record I have chosen.
For most of the first three years, artist bios were re-written from Wikipedia pages, or an artist’s website, or even an obituary. Sometimes I would find a great blog post or take information from that Wikipedia page to form an idea for these interesting side notes.
Now I find myself writing prompts for ChatGPT and Perplexity in order to better summarize an artist’s life. I have to be careful when I ask AI for help with these side notes, because I caught ChatGPT making up a story once about Jonah Jones.
I even now use voice to text when transcribing liner notes to the script. I used to do it the old fashion way and that was to read it while typing the words I was reading. Before that I was just reading right from the album cover during the episode, but I hated wearing glasses to see them.
So, I thought it was interesting how drastically the technology used to prepare and write my shows has changed not only from my early radio days to now, but even during the four and a half years of Spinning My Dad’s Vinyl.
Next up. When I first saw the title of this song, I thought of a big dog and a guy named Steve.
[Music: Blue Blues]
Blue Blues
written by Nick Mulder
Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I enjoyed bringing it to you.
This was a great recording session captured on this album. What a bunch of savvy veterans in the jazz music business we got to hear. Too bad I couldn’t find more about this session. It was almost like it was secretive or something.
And you knew my dad had to have an album simply titled Dixieland somewhere in his collection.
I don’t remember this album cover from my growing up days in the house.
It’s a hard-to-describe circular pattern in faded reds, dim whites, and dark blues. Sort of some abstract artwork, which would make sense for the mid-1960s. In black all capital western style font is the word Dixieland with an exclamation point. Omega is in smaller print on the bottom.
The top row on the white back cover says Dixieland but without the exclamation point. The seven songs on the album are separated into side A and B.
Under that is a row of names of other records you will find on the Omega label. And below that is a small row that spells out information about The World’s Finest Quality Stereophonic Record.
Budget labels never talk about the music or the artist the cover holds.
OK…to finish this off. I think you know this one.
[Music: When The Saints Go Marching In]
When The Saints Go Marching In
A Traditional Song
And there you have the entire album of mystery musicians who are no longer a mystery.
So thanks for tuning into Volume 239: Unknown Dixieland
however you did. If you want more information about this SHOW, head over to spinning my dad’s vinyl dot com.
I’ll be back next week with all my skips, scratches, and pops
FOR Volume 240: A Singing Satchmo
Until then,
Go with the flow my friends.
Get Notified!
New Episode!
Every Sunday
3 PM
Listen to each episode
Whenever you want!
Tell Your Friends
Follow/Like/Subscribe
Listen/Watch
Contact
frank@spinningmydadsvinyl.com