Tweet Zamecnik silent film music on Columbia Records

Here is a link to a record collector in the UK, who has posted several Youtube videos of silent film music played on his vintage phonograph from Columbia records, nice quality for vintage records played on a nice vintage player:


J. S. Zamecnik "The Sacrifice"


J. S. Zamecnik "The Verdict"


J. S. Zamecnik "Comedy Excitement"


J. S. Zamecnik "Discussion"


- William Axt "Emotional Andante"

Wow! Great post. Hope this guy adds some more stuff from both composers. Maybe something from the original William Axt-David Mendoza score of THE BIG PARADE even. Thanks much for linking these here. That last one he let run quite a bit to long though. I could use this music for scoring myself.

Over the holidays, I took a bunch of vintage Christmas phonograph recordings and
took all the static and hiss out of them. It's amazing that this kind of work isn't
done and floating around. You can hear voices from 1905 without the usual cylinder
sounds and static. It's really amazing. The software I used isn't the new (so one
can probably find a copy on eBay). I use Adobe Audition 1.5 One has to use something
as sophisticated as that because as far as I know, the freeware versions don't have
these kind of advanced functions.

I put the restored Vintage Christmas Phonograph recordings here:

http://regenerativemusic.net/Vintage_Ch ... tored.html

Wow! Impressive collection. Thanks much for sharing these. Jorge has been doing this sort of thing for several years and is very skilled at it. I've given it a try with little success. My software must not be good enough.

Thanks. I'm glad you like it. One has to have the noise cancellation function in
which you highlight a section of pure background noise and then the software analyzes
that and removes it from the entire file. One has to have a section in which one
hears just pure noise without the sound of the music or speaker. So, anytime one
is making a recording, it's important to leave some area like that in the file and not
trim it completely from either end.

One has to have the noise cancellation function in
which you highlight a section of pure background noise and then the software analyzes
that and removes it from the entire file. One has to have a section in which one
hears just pure noise without the sound of the music or speaker. So, anytime one
is making a recording, it's important to leave some area like that in the file and not
trim it completely from either end.

Hey, I wonder of the same thing could be done with those old Yoko Ono records where she's screaming over performances by the likes of John Lennon, Eric Clapton and Ringo Starr. Just lift her voice off and we'd have something worth listening to!

The colonel has posted some more Zamecnik recordings on his youtube page, more great stuff on 1920's Columbias.

He has posted about a dozen additional recordings of film scores by Zamecnik, including at least 5 from the 1919 Vol. One of his Orchestral Photoplay music.

Here is a link to a record collector in the UK, who has posted several Youtube videos of silent film music played on his vintage phonograph from Columbia records, nice quality for vintage records played on a nice vintage player:


J. S. Zamecnik "Comedy Excitement"

Zamecnik's "Comedy Excitement" is used prominently and excellently in this, one of my all-time favorite shorts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzUtVU76Pgo

I subscribed to this guys channel. He has a vast collection of fantastic movie music. Very happy to know about this. Some of the Zamecnik stuff like "AIR FLIGHT" may well have been used in the WINGS score on the new Blu-ray. There are also a few military sounding pieces as well that he has posted in the past few days.

:)
Some of the Zamecnik stuff like "AIR FLIGHT" may well have been used in the WINGS score on the new Blu-ray. There are also a few military sounding pieces as well that he has posted in the past few days.

Good speculating about "Air Flight" possibly being used in the score for WINGS.
Looking at the music cue sheet (dated Nov. 1, 1929) I see that "Air Flight" is used twice (selections #46 & 64 in order of usage out of a total of 199 compositions used).

Much as I love Mont Alto it's GREAT to hear Zamecnik played by a full orchestra.

:)
Some of the Zamecnik stuff like "AIR FLIGHT" may well have been used in the WINGS score on the new Blu-ray. There are also a few military sounding pieces as well that he has posted in the past few days.

Good speculating about "Air Flight" possibly being used in the score for WINGS.
Looking at the music cue sheet (dated Nov. 1, 1929) I see that "Air Flight" is used twice (selections #46 & 64 in order of usage out of a total of 199 compositions used).

"Air Flight" was definitely in the original Zamecnik score for Wings, but there were comments a few months back on the current project that in some places, alternate pieces had to be substituted for copyrighted works that were interpolated in the original score but couldn't be cleared for a reasonable fee. "Air Flight" could be in that category, since it's copyrighted 1927, and Sam Fox did renew most of their copyrights.

Rodney, who holds Sam Fox copyrights today?

Rodney, who holds Sam Fox copyrights today?

Back when I recorded our Zamecnik album, it was still the Sam Fox company (run by Sam's daughter Duane). They seem to have sold out to W B Music Corp., according to the Ascap web site. (Since we licensed four numbers for the album, those four titles are now in the Ascap database... the rest of Zamecnik's work is probably much harder to track, since there's been little interest in anything except maybe "Polly.")

Aside from "Polly" I think his other two mainstream hits were "Neopolitan Nights" and "Wake Up America!"

Thanks Eric and Rodney!

That's true, I'd forgotten Neopolitan Nights. Basically, ASCAP doesn't bother putting things into their database until someone records them and pays license, after that the chances are much higher that someone else will be researching it, so they list it.

And Zamecnik had a march that I think was used for newsreels well into the talkie era, though I'm blanking on what it was. Something like "World Events March."

Hey! How 'bout that internet. Here it is: The World Events March.

Also, weren't several of Zamecnnik's arrangements more popular than the originals, Nola comes to mind.

And when you cruise Ebay or the used book sites, you can tell, boy can you tell, which pieces were hits between 1900 and 1940.

There must be 18,000 copies of Neapolitan Nights for sale at any given minute.

What about performance rights in a concert setting - how does that differ from recording issues?

The Sam Fox library is indeed owned by Warner-Chappell now. SF was good at renewing just about all of their copyrights, but a few slipped through the cracks (probably because the rights were transferred back to the author, who forgot to renew).

"Romany Rye" and "My Cairo Love" were also popular dance tunes enough at the time to have been recorded on multiple labels.

Speaking of the wonderful Columbia Records 78s featuring Zamecnik's music are any of you aware that several Edison Blue Amberol cylinders were released featuring his popular works? I have a couple of them, which feature performances by the New York Military Band. Let me know if you are interested. I expect to transfer them as soon as Herr Bruderhofer's newly designed modern cylinder player arrives from Germany.

There is the great tie in piece - The Brooklyn Cake Walk by Thurban, aka The Rarebit Fiend, aka The Automobile March, I have heard it as recorded by the Edison Military Band and that tied in with his short fantasy film by Edison Films, The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend, directed by Edmund S. Porter and based on the Winsor McCay comic strip of the same name.. I was unaware that other cylinders tied in with the films made by Edison.

The Brooklyn Cakewalk seems to be on of the earliest names of the piece, and it seems to have been renamed to suit the various market schemes of it's publishers.

You can see the sheet music here: http://nla.gov.au/nla.mus-an14513226

So please share what you have - there are several youtube recordings of this piece in various permutations.

Edit: Corrected two typos

That should be Winsor McCay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winsor_McCay

That's what I get for trusting my memory - I swear I can't remember anything correctly any more - mille grazie!

Interesting that the Columbia "The Verdict" skips the nice scherzo section.

Interesting that the Columbia "The Verdict" skips the nice scherzo section.

I think most if not all of these are abbreviated -- The Sacrifice leaves out the opening, as well as some material farther on. Possibly the limitations of the recording device...

The length of the recording, I imagine. When you've only got 3-4 minutes, something usually gets cut. I've noticed that a lot of the Victor recordings cut repeats out.

Also these have been re-orchestrated, at least the ones I know, and the orchestrations are more symphonic and less theatrical to my ear.

There is the great tie in piece - The Brooklyn Cake Walk by Thurban, aka The Rarebit Fiend, aka The Automobile March, I have heard it as recorded by the Edison Military Band and that tied in with his short fantasy film by Edison Films, The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend, directed by Edmund S. Porter and based on the Percy McKay comic strip of the same name.. I was unaware that other cylinders tied in with the films made by Edison.

"PERCY MCKAY?????" That was WINSOR MCCAY!!!!!

There is the great tie in piece - The Brooklyn Cake Walk by Thurban, aka The Rarebit Fiend, aka The Automobile March, I have heard it as recorded by the Edison Military Band and that tied in with his short fantasy film by Edison Films, The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend, directed by Edmund S. Porter and based on the Percy McKay comic strip of the same name.. I was unaware that other cylinders tied in with the films made by Edison.

"PERCY MCKAY?????" That was WINSOR MCCAY!!!!!

Thanks, I fixed it in the text itself, instead of my earlier correction in the comments.