John Coltrane Quartet/Quintet Birdland WADO Broadcasts 1962-63

John Coltrane Quartet/Quintet
Birdland
WADO Broadcasts 1962-63

Partially restored, tweaked, and improved by Prof. Goody and TheTooleMan, April 2008

CONTRAST CLAUSE: Many of these recordings have been seeded on Dimeadozen recently, and some of the seeds may be active. These versions have been edited and adjusted for improved sound.

Goody and I set out to upload his revised, pitch-corrected versions of Coltrane's Birdland sets which were seeded on Dimeadozen. Goody gave me his files of 1962-02-16, 1962-02-23, and 1963-03-02 to seed, but after I gave them a listen, I decided to do some additional tweaking and try to help them some more. My changes were applied to the files Goody corrected, except for 1962-02-16, which I restored from the hum-laden version. I applied Goody's pitch correction to my version.

Most of these recordings sound like they were taken from acetates cut by the radio station, WADO, while the live broadcasts from Birdland were in progress. The audio has the tell-tale pops and clicks of acetates. Acetates are also not very durable, and some surface wear can be heard in the playback.

I found many of the recordings needed some help with scratchy acetate artifacts and drastic audio level changes. I ironed out the levels and reduced the most severe pops and clicks. Several other dates had way too much bass, too, which caused distortion throughout the audible spectrum. I reduced the bass on these tracks, then re-normalized the levels. The distortion remains, but the bass is less overpowering.

I also dug out another Birdland recording which was seeded some time ago. The recording was labeled "Man Made Miles." The seeder, Jaik Willis, states in his notes that the date is approximately 1962-02-10. I had done some work on this recording in August 2004, and since it is an improvement over the originals, I included it here, too.

Where available, the original info files are included in each folder along with the revised recordings.

The recording of 1962-02-16 is marred by a terribly loud electronic hum. I went back to the original download and removed the hum myself, then worked with the equalizer to help the audio some more. It's fairly listenable now. There is a cut about 5 minutes into track three, "My Favorite Things," in this set. Recording quality changes tremendously following the cut. The song picks up with Eric Dolphy on flute. There is also a problem with fluctuating speed, starting after the cut. It would take forever to fix the speed problems with this part of the recording, so I left it as-is. It's possible that the recording is a different take from a different date, but I have no evidence of that.

Also included here is the recently seeded recording of Trane at Birdland on October 8, 1963. This recording also suffered from overloaded bass, which I reduced.

Happy listening!

TheTooleMan
April, 2008

Tracks:

1962-02-10 (approximate date, as given in the torrent seeded by Jaik Willis
"Man Made Miles"
John Coltrane (ss, ts); Eric Dolphy (as, fl); McCoy Tyner (p); Jimmy Garrison (b); Elvin Jones (d); Symphony Sid Torin (ann)

1. Mr. PC
2. Miles Mode
3. My Favorite Things


1962-02-10
(same lineup as 1962-02-10)
1. Inchworm
2. Mr. PC
3. My Favorite Things


1962-06-02
John Coltrane (ss, ts), McCoy Tyner (p), Jimmy Garrison (b), Elvin Jones (d)
1. My Favorite Things
2. Body and Soul
3. Cousin Mary


1963-02-23
(same lineup as 1962-06-02)
1. I Want to Talk About You
2. Transition


1963-03-02
(same lineup as 1962-06-02)
1. Mr. PC
2. Introduction (Symphony Sid Torin)
3. My Favorite Things


1963-10-08
(same lineup as 1962-06-02)
1. Traneing In
2. Mr. PC
3. Lonnie's Lament




John Coltrane AT BIRDLAND 1962-63

February 16, 1962
Birdland, New York
Source/Quality: RB (B)

John Coltrane (ss, ts); Eric Dolphy (as, fl); McCoy Tyner (p); Jimmy Garrison (b); Elvin Jones (d); Symphony Sid Torin (ann)

1 Introduction (Symphony Sid Torin)
The Inchworm (F. Loesser) 7:52
2 Mr. P.C. (J. Coltrane) 7:13
3 Introduction (Symphony Sid Torin)
My Favorite Things (R. Rodgers-O. Hammerstein) 13:55

from 'rmtubs'"
> Some time ago, this show was seeded as part of a larger torrent with Trane's Birdland recordings from 1962/63: http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=123061

This particular show was quite unlistenable because of heavy 60 Hz hum. I received this show earlier in a trade and did some filtering. Now I find it quite listenable (B quality).

For those who are interested in the details:
trade -> EAC -> Cool Edit -> (Left Channel -> Both) -> notch filtering (Super Narrow): 60 Hz, 120 Hz, 180 Hz -> FFT filter cut off everything above 6000 Hz (there was no music signal above there anyway).
No noise filter has been used. <> WAV) > Cool Edit Pro (Pitch Bender) > TLH (FLAC & Sigs)

Pitch was approx. 41 cents flat.
Corrected and FLACed.
goody - 2/6/07


John Coltrane Quartet
Birdland, New York
June 2, 1962

Source/Quality: aud (B)

John Coltrane (ss, ts), McCoy Tyner (p), Jimmy Garrison (b), Elvin Jones (d)
William Crayton "Pee Wee" Marquette (announcer), Unknown (announcer)

4. My Favorite Things (R. Rodgers-O. Hammerstein) 14:01
5. Body and Soul (J.W. Green-E. Heyman-R. Sour-F. Eyton) 9:57
6. Cousin Mary (Coltrane)/announcement 4:47

('Cousin Mary' portion of this set provided by 'dgstrane' - Thanks!)


Disc 2
February 23, 1963
Birdland, New York
Source/Quality: RB (B)

John Coltrane (ts); McCoy Tyner (p); Jimmy Garrison (b); Elvin Jones (d);
Symphony Sid Torin (announcer)

1 I Want To Talk About You (B. Eckstine) 10:44
2 Transition (J. Coltrane) 15:13


Thanks to 'The GuessWho' for correcting the title of 'Transition', previously identified as 'One Down, One Up'.
Pitch was approx. 57 cents sharp. Corrected and FLACed.
goody - 3/2/08

All original content on this website is licensed under a Creative Commons License.


March 2, 1963
Birdland, New York
Source/Quality: RB (B)

John Coltrane (ss, ts); McCoy Tyner (p); Jimmy Garrison (b); Elvin Jones (d);
Symphony Sid Torin (ann)

1 Mr. P.C. (J. Coltrane) 13:03
2 Introduction (Symphony Sid Torin) 0:34
3 My Favorite Things (R. Rodgers-O. Hammerstein) (inc) 10:38

Fixed digital 'stuttering' at the ends of tracks 1, 2 and FLACed. There will still be a bit of a rough transition heard at the start of MFT, as the source material was incomplete. However, it's much better now.
goody 3/3/08


THANKS TO PETER LOSIN FOR TRACKLISTS !!!!

My notes for this upgrade remaster:

My gracious apologies always to all those who I've unknowingly and knowingly offended with any critical comments regarding the former condition of this set. I know that this rare material is raw, and the fact that it has been captured and preserved in ANY condition so that we can experience it at all is highly noteworthy. Big THANK YOU! I have previously commented that much of this is for completists. Toward improving that, I've done the best I can to do the little edits I felt necessary to make the listening experience easier on my own ears, and I'm very pleased with the little improvements. I hope you agree.

Obviously, some of my caveats still stand - there's some pretty bad radio reception on some of this, especially in the tracks from March 2, 1963. I can't change history. (Yet...) And until the Feb. 16, 1962 set was dehummed, there was no way I could determine the proper pitch, rendering that set initially unlistenable to me. Once that impediment was removed, I had a 'Eureka' moment and was able to rather easily target a pitch center and correct it. (Thanks, 'rmtubs'.)

I can't put this up here without ultimately acknowledging everyone who keeps Dime alive at the top end, and who provide this great place of musical exchange vibrant and essential (and back up and running when servers get 'touchy'.)

In addition to the acknowledments and thankyous noted above, thanks, especially, to 'u01495' for originally uploading this set (and many others I've greatly enjoyed,) 'theocrite' for reseeding it and spurring this upgraded edition, and 'twat', for comic relief and very helpful infos.

A big thanks to TheTooleMan for hosting this and for volunteering his time and bandwidth in that regard, so that I can otherwise use this poor, trusty box to improve other broken gems and get them out there to more of you.

Thank you John Coltrane. Thank you John Coltrane. Thank you John Coltrane.

goody 3/5/08