21st Century Cylinders
Produced by The Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva
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What do Les Paul, They Might Be Giants, Wynton Marsalis and Hillary Clinton
have in common? They've all put their heads into big, brass horns and
recorded wax cylinders at the Thomas Edison National Historical Site in West
Orange, New Jersey. In the past few years, these people have made a trip to
Edison original music room to cut cylinders.
Wynton Marsalis has a new CD coming out that includes music recorded by this
method: "MISTER JELLY LORD -- STANDARD TIME -- VOLUME
SIX" on Columbia Jazz records. He's using the old style recording medium
because that's how the music of past jazz masters was captured. Les Paul
turned to wax cylinders because he's always experimented with technology -
having invented the multi-track method for audio tape.
John Flansburgh of the group They Might Be Giants discovered that the style
of singing we hear in old wax cylinders results from the need to project
loudly in the absence of electronic amplification.
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Copyright © 1999 The Kitchen Sisters
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