Command 826
Producer: Enoch Light
Track listing: Heat Wave / The Man I Love / I’ve Got a Crush on You /All the Way / My Romance / You Do Something to Me / Zing Went the Strings of My Heart / Someone to Watch Over Me / Love for Sale / I’ll See You Again / I See Your Face Before Me / With a Song in My Heart
November 20, 1961
7 weeks stereo
With the release of Persuasive Percussion, Enoch Light revolutionized stereo recording and launched the highly successful Command label. With the subsequent releases Provocative Percussion, Persuasive Percussion, Volume 2, and Provocative Percussion, Volume 2 in 1960, and Persuasive Percussion, Volume 3 in 1961, the hot streak continued, as all of those albums made the top five. However, Light wasn’t just concerned with commercial success. As was the case with Provocative Percussion, one of his main motivations was to improve the sound of recorded music. With Stereo 35/MM, Light attempted to take his quest to a new level.
Recorded at Carnegie Hall in New York City, the album was named for the material it was recorded on — 35-millimeter magnetic film. Light and recording engineer Robert Fine believed that 35-millimeter film offered better sound reproduction than tape, which was flawed due to possible distortions caused by hiss and flutter. The wider 35-millimeter film, on the other hand, allowed for greater separation of channels and higher running speeds. Since film runs on a closed-circuit loop, it has no flutter and little background noise.
Light’s sound innovations didn’t come without a price. Carnegie Hall — where Judy Garland recorded the previous chart-topper, Judy at Carnegie Hall — has great natural acoustics, but it was also costly to rent. The film on which the album was recorded was also expensive, running approximately $30 for 10 minutes of recording stock.
While Light and Fine worked on the recording, the group of 60 ace sidemen that made up Light’s orchestra were more concerned with the music, says trumpet player Doc Severinsen, who later went on to fame as leader of the Tonight Show band. “We didn’t care much,” he says. “We just thought it was another nice, new recording technique, but it didn’t have an effect on the way we played.” The material, ranging from George Gershwin’s “I’ve Got a Crush on You” and “Someone to Watch Over Me” to Irving Berlin’s “Heat Wave” and Cole Porter’s “Love For Sale,” was arranged by Lew Davies.
While the musicians weren’t overly concerned with the technology, they were knocked out by the results. “I remember going up into a temporary control room that they set up in one of the dressing rooms,” says Severinsen, “and when we heard the stuff back, it was pretty amazing compared to what we were used to.” The famed acoustics of Carnegie Hall also contributed to the high quality recording. “It was a very forward-thinking idea to record in a wonderful hall like that,” Severinsen adds. “Most albums like that were done in a studio and they didn’t have the feeling of a performance. Although we were recording, we had the feeling that this was a performance, since we were at Carnegie Hall.”
The sessions to record the album went fairly smoothly, as Light and Davies plotted out arrangements that would fully exploit the sound capabilities of the film. “Enoch knew exactly what he wanted,” says Severinsen. “Everything was recorded very cleanly.” There wasn’t the need for multiple takes of the songs, because the orchestra rehearsed the material prior to the recording.
The expert musicianship combined with the new technology in sound recording also played well with the public, as Stereo 35/MM became Light’s second chart-topper and his sixth top five album in less than two years. Stereo 35/MM, Volume Two also performed well, peaking at number eight in 1962.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of November 20, 1961
1. Stereo 35/MM, Enoch Light and His Orchestra
2. Judy at Carnegie Hall, Judy Garland
3. The Sound of Music, Original Cast
4. Camelot, Original Cast
5. Never on Sunday, Soundtrack