SUPERBATONE RECORDS

"There Can Be No Compromise With Purity of Tone!" 

SUPERBATONE CDs shine the coherent light on a wide variety of historic music and entertainment ranging in time from the very dawn of recording to the end of the 78 era (1888 - 1960).  Our basic mission is to startle listeners with unknown, great material that has not been noticed until now, or maybe has never been presented in excellent sound.  Many unjustly neglected artists and eras are brought back to life on Superbatone, and more are being discovered all the time.  

SUPERBATONE transfers are made with great care and skill with the one goal of clarity and brilliance.  Whether the source records are early acoustic or electric, these CDs can be played as loudly as you please with NO harmonic distortion and complete enjoyment. Our slogan (stolen from RCA Victor, who hasn't used it since 1929): "THERE CAN BE NO COMPROMISE WITH PURITY OF TONE!"

TO ORDER:  All CDs are $15.00 each, except as noted.  Domestic postage and
packing is $3.00 for the first CD; $1.00 for each additional.  Overseas:  $5.00
for the first CD; $2.00 each additional. Checks or Money orders should be made
out to Brad Kay, and sent to: Superbatone Records, Inc.  732 Superba Ave.  
Venice, CA 90291, USA.   Our e-mail address:  SUPRBATONE@aol.com

733:   THE COMPLETE EARLY SOPHIE TUCKER (1910 - 1937) Sophie Tucker was "The
Last of the Red Hot Mamas" and for several decades the most famous woman in
show business.  She was also one of the great singers of her time, especially in
her early years. She was a tremendous exponent of ragtime and early jazz.  
With her powerful voice and beat, she was a sort of Jewish Bessie Smith.   For
the first time anywhere, all her early recordings are gathered together in
chronological order, from her "coon shouting" for Edison in 1910, to her
sophisticated night club routines recorded in England in the late '30s.  In between are
all her records for Aeolian, OKeh, Victor, American and English Columbia and
Broadcast.  An indispensable collection.  One hundred-and-one tracks on four
CDs, $55.00.   Each volume may be ordered separately for $15.00.

734: THE REAL SOUND OF RAGTIME (1889 -1924). Ragtime and the commercial
recording industry arrived  at the same time, in the late 1880s.  From the
beginning, cakewalks, rags and some very early proto-ragtime were committed to
cylinder and disc.  Besides being delightful entertainment, these records are
priceless documents of how the music was performed in its era.  Kerry Mills
cakewalks, Scott Joplin classics, an Irving Berlin parody, James Reese Europe
one-steps, an early Jelly Roll Morton piece and much more are included; performed by
military bands, orchestras, solo banjos, xylophones, even a cembalon, and of
course, singers.  The records range in time and style from an 1889 brown wax
cylinder of Issler's Orchestra playing the proto-ragtime "Electric Light
Quadrille," to the utterly surreal Richard-Strauss-meets-Scott-Joplin "Ouija," played
in 1920 by the Lakesonian Brass Sextette.  The incredibly rare and hot
"Gladiolus Rag" by the Pathé Dance Orchestra is reissued here for the first time.  
This CD has been engineered with care and skill so that these ancient
performances can be played at Rock 'n' Roll volume with extremely gratifying results.

735:  JANE GREEN (almost) COMPLETE (1920 - 1929).  She was the most talented
gal singer in vaudeville.  Her heartfelt, swinging, on-pitch voice, perfect
diction and delivery, and absence of show-biz pathos added up to a style that
was years ahead of her flapper contemporaries, and pointed the way to the future
of popular singing.  She was to them what Bix Beiderbecke was to other cornet
players: lyrical and hot, impeccably musical.  Like Bix, she died young (in
1931) and was utterly forgotten until the 1980s.  This CD includes every title
she recorded for Pathé and Victor, plus the soundtracks to her Vitaphone short
and an RKO feature, "The Delightful Rogue."  This disc is only a couple of
alternate takes shy of being her complete recorded output.  Essential.

ALSO AVAILABLE: 732:   The original Superbatone LP, "JANE GREEN - WILD
ROMANTIC BLUES."   Thirteen tracks, including the soundtrack of Miss Green's
Vitaphone short, "Singin' the Blues." A labor of love and work of art, this beautiful
production (now a collectors' item) features a lavish 8-page booklet with
bio, photos and complete song lyrics; the record is pressed on blue vinyl, with
original label art by the great Robert Crumb.  $20.  

736:   WILLARD ROBISON (1926-30)   He seems to be the "odd man out" of great
American songwriters and composers. Robison was the author of one world-wide
hit ("A Cottage for Sale") and a hundred other songs, a pioneer singer /
songwriter with a totally beguiling style, and an orchestral composer of
considerable wit and skill - AND  he recorded prolifically.  Despite all this, he remains
vanishingly obscure, except to the few dedicated performers and collectors
who over the years have happened onto his work.   This CD is a very late attempt
to remedy this.  It consists entirely of original recordings of his
compositions, performed or conducted by himself, during his years of greatest
popularity, 1926 - 30.   They fall into three groups: Willard Robison accompanying
himself at the piano; his orchestral work "The American Suite"; and his vocals
accompanied by studio orchestras at Victor and Columbia records.  

738:  THE VICTOR MINSTRELS (1905-1915)  Eighty minutes of pure Americana.  
It's the whole blackface minstrel tradition, which began in 1843, complete with
hot music and bad jokes.  It was still alive and kicking in 1910, around when
most of these sides were recorded.  This troupe featured such Victor studio
stalwarts as Billy Murray, Frank Stanley, Arthur Collins and Henry Burr, who are
a whole lot livelier in blackface than in most other phases of their
professional careers.  

739:  MIKE BERNARD (1912-1918).  Fourteen of the fifteen solo piano sides
recorded for American Columbia by this great and legendary ragtime
super-virtuoso, collected together for the first time.  His power, technique and sheer
rhythmic force will astound you.  He is the only such pianist to be recorded during
the ragtime era (1897-1917).  He thus stands in for a whole generation of
pianists who were listening to Liszt with one ear and Joplin with the other.   If
you ever wanted a clue to the style and approach of such unrecorded and dimly
remembered ragtime piano legends as "One Leg" Willie Joseph, Tony Jackson,
"The Shadow" and others, this is the item to have.    

740:   GEORGE JESSEL'S 50th BIRTHDAY ROAST  April 4th, 1948.  Possibly the
most stellar and uproarious after-dinner roast ever recorded.  Honoring Jessel
are fellow Friars Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor, Danny Kaye, George Burns, Pat
O'Brien, Bob Hope, Louis B. Mayer, Samuel Goldwyn, and in rare, live, vocal and
comedic form, Al Jolson.  Jessel's "Guest of Honor" acceptance speech is eloquent
and hilarious beyond belief - possibly the sublimest public utterance ever by
"America's Toastmaster General."  2 CDs, $25.

741:  COLUMBIA DANCE BANDS (1925 - 28).  A recently acquired group of store
stock (i.e., untouched) Columbia records, of wonderfully orchestrated popular
tunes by the likes of Ben Selvin, The Ipana Troubadours, The Cliquot Club
Eskimos and others.  Immaculately transferred to disc for your dining and/or
dancing pleasure.  

737:   HEALING TIME - SOLO PIANO BY BRAD KAY.   Original music for healing /
meditation / relaxing, but with a difference:  Most so-called "healing" music
is veritable pabulum - bland, innocuous at best, guaranteed to nauseate anyone
with a discriminating ear.  The music of "Healing Time" will relax AND
entertain.  These are carefully conceived and executed compositions that draw on the
artist's background in early jazz, ragtime and modern classical music.  They
can be used as foreground or background.  It's a candy mint.  It's a breath
mint.  Either way, you win.  Created in collaboration with the late jazz singer
and expert meditator Susannah McCorkle.