Dave, Hammond did a bunch of Keynote sessions at Majestic Studio, he talks about it in his
autobiography. He worked there up until the studio closed. Keynote was bought by Mercury right about
the time Majestic closed up, and some of the Keynote titles were quickly reissued as Mercury
records. The reason so much Mercury work was done at Reeves in the late 78 era/early LP era/dawn of
tape as a master media in the US timeframe was the connection of Reeves hiring my father and John
Hammond taking the Mercury work there. Mitch Miller was hired by Hammond, as was David Hall. In
addition to all of Mercury's early self-produced classical content, Reeves was the recording site
for Norman Granz produced sessions with Charlie Parker ("With Strings," which was arranged and
conducted by Mitch Miller) and Machito, parts of "The Jazz Scene," among others. Granz started
working with my father at Reeves, and they continued to work together into the 50s. Granz started
doing more of his recording on the west coast and at smaller NYC studios later on, but he still did
occasional sessions with my father up to the time he sold Verve to MGM. My father always singled out
Hammond and Granz as two people who taught him a lot about music and how sound and music work
together. For those interested in the history of recorded jazz, and how the jazz business works
within the record business, it's very worthwhile to read John Hammond's autobiography "On The
Record" and the recent book about Normal Granz by Tad Hershorn. Hammond and Granz were probably the
original "frienemies," highly inter-connected, respectful of each other's accomplishments but rarely
able to be friendly to each other because of rivalries and jealousies.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Lewis" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2015 1:22 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Nice Sonora Article
> Tom,
>
> "Just as" they were failing is about right, as Majestic filed for
> bankruptcy in February 1948. Hammond was fired by Majestic in January 1947,
> but I'm sure by this time
> no one cared who was in there. I wish I knew which session this was;
> Hammond, of course, was subsequently hired by Mercury and maybe that's
> where this session
> ended up as well.
>
> My ARSC Journal article about Majestic is in AMP, but it is currently
> mis-linked.
>
> best,
>
> Dave
>
> On Thu, Oct 22, 2015 at 7:09 AM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Majestic's NYC studio was still operating in 1948. I know this because my
>> father was chief engineer there and he made recordings with John Hammond
>> there in 1948, shortly before moving to Reeves Sound Studios. The story I
>> always heard was that he was hired by Reeves just as Majestic was failing.
>> Mercury ended up buying Majestic's catalog, along with Keynote, Swan and
>> some other small NYC labels.
>>
>> -- Tom Fine
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Lewis" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2015 11:22 PM
>> Subject: [ARSCLIST] Nice Sonora Article
>>
>>
>>
>> One post-war label definitely on my radar is Sonora, "Clear as a Bell"
>>> (not.) I haven't seen this before; Robert L. Campbell's study,
>>> published in June. Our own David Diehl helped out with it.
>>>
>>> http://myweb.clemson.edu/~campber/sonora.html
>>>
>>> One thing: The Majestic label did fold at the end of 1947, not in early
>>> 1949. By February 1948 they were already being dissolved in the courts.
>>> However, they did do the same thing Sonora did; stripped the record label
>>> out of the Radio and Television interest and saved the latter.
>>>
>>> Dave Lewis
>>> Hamilton, OH
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
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