At Centuries of Sound I am making mixes for every year of recorded sound. The download here is only for the first hour of the mix. For the full 3-hour version either see below for the Mixcloud player, or come to patreon.com/centuriesofsound for the podcast version and a host of other bonus materials for just $5 per month. As it’s the festive season I’ve decided to use the new function on Patreon to do a couple of membership offers. Firstly I’m offering a 10% discount on all tiers, monthly and annual, just go to patreon.com/centuriesofsound and sign up with the promo code 8AA78 – Secondly, if you buy a gift membership for anyone ($5 p/m tier, annual) then I will give you a CD version of the mixes for the year of their birth (only pre-1950/1972/1989)– so cut up into CD-sized chunks each with its own artwork. For gift memberships – patreon.com/centuriesofsound/gift – then send me a message either on Patreon or by emailing james (at) centuriesofsound.com, I will get those to you within three days.

Mixcloud player with full mix – or listen on the Mixcloud website.

1949 Part Two – The 12″ Mix

How do you listen to recorded music? I feel like every phase of my life has a different answer here – the record player at home, a Walkman, a Discman, the stereo system I had when I went to university, the mp3 player that went around Asia with me, then years of phones, laptops, Bluetooth speakers, headphones, car stereos. Sometimes I would listen privately, sometimes on speakers, sometimes it would be in the background, sometimes it would have my full attention. These days it seems like, aside from the car radio, all my listening is private, streamed from computer or phone, and something feels missing. Centuries of Sound started when I was in an environment where nobody wanted to listen to music so I had to retreat into this private experience, and have I ever emerged from that? Only through sharing with you, really.

Putting on a longer piece of music, sitting down and just experiencing it – that’s just something I don’t have time for any more. It is something I miss, but it’s also something I can live without. When end of year polls come around, this is why I focus on the tracks. I like things bite-sized, not because I have a short attention span, more because there’s so much out there and only so much time I can spend with it. And yet, this thing, what is it but very long-form listening?

Putting on an LP seems like such a fundamental part of music listening for so many people, it seems odd to note that as we approach the middle of the 20th century, it’s only now that this is really becoming an option. If you were listening to a record before 1949, it was probably a 10” shellac disc with not much more than three and a half minutes of music per side, and unless you had an elaborate disc-changing machine, that’s how long you had before you had to get up and change the record. There were “albums” though, and had been for quite a while. The earliest I can find is a 1907 recording of Ruggero Leoncavallo’s 1892 opera “I Pagliacci,” starring Puerto Rican tenor Antonio Paoli, and supervised in its production by the composer himself. But these were “albums” as in a “photograph album” or a “stamp album” – a large book of separate discs. Frank Sinatra’s first album, 1946’s “The Voice of Frank Sinatra” is in this format, eight songs across four discs.

When Columbia introduced the 33? rpm 12” vinyl LP in late 1948, the focus was naturally on what it could do that shellac records couldn’t. With around 26 minutes per side, the initial focus was naturally on classical music – and of course it helped that buyers of classical music had more money and a taste for better quality recordings – LPs had “microgroove technology” that allowed for higher fidelity. Next followed Broadway shows, the more respectable kinds of jazz, and more sophisticated pop music – Frank again. What did not appear at first was the music made by and listened to by poor black people (R&B) or poor white people (country) – neither were the right sort of market. Of course, as we will be seeing in a decade and a half, their descendants would lean into the LP so much that, well, you know.

If you want to chat as listen, you can join the conversation on discord here – https://discord.gg/5a7f6wqjcJ

Track list

Intro

(Clip from Dragnet)
(Clip from The Hitchhiker)
0:00:18 Pierre Schaeffer – Vagotte
(Clip from Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts)
(Clip from Suspense)
(Clip from You Bet Your Life)
0:01:16 Miles Davis – Budo
(Clip from Inner Sanctum)

July

(Clip from The Shadow)
(Clip from Jack Benny Show)
0:04:10 Jay Jay Johnson’s Boppers – Fox Hunt
(Clip from Reviewing The Year 1948)
0:07:04 George Shearing – Summertime
(Clip from Inner Sanctum)
0:10:13 Charlie Parker – Just Friends
(Clip from interview with Alphonse Picou and Paul Dominguez, Jr.)
0:13:54 Lennie Tristano – Wow (Clip)
0:14:05 Lennie Tristano – Intuition
(Clip from Review of News for the Year 1949)
0:16:31 James Moody’s Modernists – Tin Tin Deo
(Clip from Reviewing The Year 1949)
0:19:28 Blind Willie McTell – Last Dime Blues
(Clip from Reviewing The Year 1949)
0:22:52 Professor Longhair – Hey Little Girl
(Clip from interview with Alphonse Picou and Paul Dominguez, Jr.)
0:25:11 Francois Awila ye mpangi zandi – Kiboba Kiyma Nkuaku (Kikongo; Congo)
(Clip from Passport to Pimlico)
0:27:57 Joe Lutcher – Mardi Gras
(Clip from Passport to Pimlico)

August

(Clip from The Hitchhiker)
0:31:21 John Lee Hooker – Boogie Chllen
(Clip from 1949 Year In Review Headlines)
(Clip from Review of News for the Year 1949)
0:34:53 The Louvin Brothers – Blues Stay Away From Me
(Clip from Jim & Judy in Teleland)
0:38:12 Django Reinhardt – Improvisation N°4
(Clip from Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts)
0:40:42 Sticks McGhee – Drinkin’ Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee
(Clip from Fred Allen Show)
0:43:14 Charlie Parker – Blues (Fast)
(Clip from Reviewing The Year 1949)
0:45:58 Charlie Ventura – Introduction
0:46:12 Charlie Ventura – Body And Soul
0:50:13 Tito Puente – Abaniquito
(Clip from 1949 Year In Review Headlines)
0:53:13 Wanda Landowska – Prelude II In C Minor
(Clip from interview with Frank Sinatra)
0:55:05 Lennie Tristano – Digression
(Clip from interview with Alphonse Picou and Paul Dominguez, Jr.)

September

0:58:09 Sidney Bechet – September Song
(Clip from Louis Armstrong interview)
1:02:13 Atlantic Quintet – Believe It Beloved
(Clip from Louis Armstrong interview)
1:03:45 Lee Konitz Quintet – Fishin’ Around
(Clip from Louis Armstrong interview)
1:07:25 George Shearing – Midnight On Cloud 69
(Clip from advertisement for Camel Cigarettes)
1:10:53 Jay Mcshann – You, Cindy Lou
(Clip from Reviewing The Year 1949)
(Clip from Review of News for the Year 1949)
(Clip from Reviewing The Year 1949)
1:13:06 Njembe Gwet Paulemond – Paulemond a Ye Nsinga Ndinga
(Clip from The Heiress)
1:15:47 Stanley Black – Jungle Bird
(Clip from 1949 Year In Review Headlines)
(Clip from 1949 – Year In Review)
1:18:53 Charles Mingus – He’s Gone
(Clips from Stray Dog)
1:21:00 Oum Kalsoum – Al Nile
(Clip from The Hitchhiker)

October

(Clip from The Third Man)
1:23:10 Anton Karas – The Harry Lime Theme
(Clip from The Third Man)
1:25:50 Osvaldo Pugliese – Malandraca
(Clip from 1949 Year In Review Headlines)
(Clip from interview with Victor Kravchenko)
1:29:07 Pierre Schaeffer – Variations Sur Un Flute Mexicaine
(Clip from Review of News for the Year 1949)
(Clip of Mao Zedong speech)
1:30:19 Miles Davis – Move
(Clip of Bevin Speech)
(Clip from The Third Man)
1:31:50 Bismillah Khan & Party – Shehnai instrumental
(Clip from Whisky Galore)
1:35:05 Lead Belly – John Henry
1:39:56 Lead Belly – 4, 5 & 9
1:41:02 Amos Milburn – Hold Me Baby
(Clip from On The Town)
1:44:10 Ruth Brown – So Long
(Clip from Whisky Galore)
1:46:43 Dizzy Gillespie – That Old Black Magic
(Clip from Suspense – Ghost Hunt)

November

1:50:07 Ivory Joe Hunter – I Almost Lost My Mind
(Clip from Suspense – Ghost Hunt)
1:52:38 Lonnie Johnson – Blues Stay Away from Me
(Clip from 1949 Year In Review Headlines)
(Clip from 1949 – Year In Review)
1:54:43 Eddie Davis – Mountain Oysters
(Clip from You Bet Your Life)
1:56:52 Lightnin’ Hopkins – Jail House Blues
1:59:28 Jerry Byrd – Steelin’ The Chimes
(Clip from Fred Allen Show)
2:01:55 Flatt and Scruggs and The Foggy Mountain Boys – That Home Above
(Clip from Dragnet)
2:03:33 Lionel Hampton And His Orchestra – Lavender Coffin
(Clip of Louis Farrakhan Playing Violin)
2:06:32 Curley Weaver – Trixie
(Clip from The Set Up)
2:08:21 Sonny Terry – Riff and Harmonica Jump
(Clip from Fred Allen Show)
2:10:56 Lucky Millinder – D Natural Blues

December

(Clip from Sir Alfred Munnings’ valedictory speech at The Royal Academy of Art)
2:13:37 Machito and His Afro-Cuban Orchestra – Tanga
(Clip from 1949 Year In Review Headlines)
2:18:52 Wynonie Harris – Sittin’ On It All The Time
(Clip from Dragnet)
2:21:40 Pee Wee Crayton – Texas Hop
(Clip from Jack Benny Show)
2:23:57 George Wallington Trio – Fairyland
(Clip from You Bet Your Life)
2:26:54 Bud Powell – Sweet Georgia Brown
(Clip from Whisky Galore)
2:29:52 Lee Konitz – Retrospection
2:32:58 Surashri Kesarbai Kerkar – Desi
2:35:08 Oum Kalthoum – Yalli Kan Yechgeek Adeeni
2:37:12 Shona – Masongano
2:39:45 Jack Armstrong Chevy Chase – The Cott

Ending

(Clip from Reviewing The Year 1949)
(Clip from 1949 Year In Review Headlines)
2:43:04 The Orioles – Tell Me So
(Clips from You Bet Your Life)