On 10/8/2012 3:42 PM, Donald Tait wrote:
>    I might be incorrect about this, and would welcome being corrected, but I have understood that the earliest commercially-released electrical recording was from March 1925, live:
>
>    US Columbia 50013-D (Black Label)
>    Trad. arr. Mark Andrews: "John Peel"
>    Associated Glee Clubs of America
>      The label reads "850 Male Voices"
>      "Recorded at their performance at Metropolitan Opera House, N.Y."
>      Matrix #98163
>
>    The other side:
>    "Adeste Fidelis"
>    Associated Glee Clubs, Met.Op. Hse.1925 (as above)
>    850 Male Voices
>    "Augmented by the audience of 4000 voices at the Metropolitan Opera House, N.Y." Matrix 98166
>
>    Nowhere do the labels indicate that a new or different recording method was used.
As far as I know, those discs were Columbia's first electrical issues, 
and since Columbia signed with WE before Victor did, they're probably 
the first electrical issues period.

Here's a question: Columbia and Victor were both testing the new system 
during most of 1924. Were any of the test recordings issued commercially 
-- does anyone know? I looked at the Patrick Gaffney recording I found; 
it was Matrix # 140472, which (according to Barr) would place the 
recording date sometime around March 1925. The Glee Club recording 
described above, from its matrix numbers, would have been recorded about 
January 1925. The issue number of the Gaffney record is 350-D, which 
Barr places (by interpolation) about May 1925. What's interesting is 
that, like the Glee Club record, the Gaffney record has no indication on 
the label of electrical recording, and no W on the matrix. That leads me 
to wonder why. Were they just waiting for the new labels to be printed? 
Were they concerned that advertising the new process would kill sales of 
previous acoustical recordings?

Peace,
Paul