For
many record collectors, needle issues are real barriers to entering the 78
collector market. Yes, they really do need to be changed after one or two uses.
Plus, those shellac disks are a nightmare to ship. Yet, there are plenty of
vintage 78 recordings that have never been reissued on subsequent formats. More
importantly for 78 enthusiasts, they just sound like an old school time-warps
from the past. The nostalgia is contagious in Joel Schlemowitz’s slightly and
politely experimental documentary 78rpm (trailer here), which opens a
weekend engagement this Friday in New York.
If
you think 78s are difficult to handle, just try Edison cylinders. The flat
playing record was indeed quite a consumer-friendly innovation, but the initial
development was complicated by a flurry of litigation. When the legal dust
settled, Emile Berliner was left standing as the legit inventor of the
Gramophone, as his grandson Oliver explains in Schlemowitz’s stylized
black-and-white talking head sequences.
Believe
it or not, you can still make some kind of a living as a Gramophone repairman.
In fact, business is on the upswing, thanks to renewed interest from the Jazz
Age and Steampunk scenes. Of course, many 78s are just interested in the music,
such as jazz musician interview subjects Loren Schoenberg and Vince Giordano. 78rpm argues jazz was the first form of
music to be documented from the time of its origins, thanks to the advent of
78s. That is an interesting way of looking at it—and essentially true, but we
are still sadly missing documentation of Buddy Bolden, jazz musician zero.
In
between interview segments and field reports capturing the retro 78 lifestyle,
Schlemowitz stages what could be considered “music videos” for representative
yet somewhat obscure 78 tracks from the likes of Ted Lewis, Paul Whiteman, and Wilbur
Sweatman. Easily the most entertaining interlude features dancers Nana Masuda,
Kaoru Matsuoka, and Masae Satouchi performing Matsuoka’s choreography for the
Victor Concert Orchestra’s “Narcissus” and Art Landry’s dramatically more
upbeat “Rip Saw Blues.”
