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What is the oldest music you have and like?

tabiratabira 856 Posts
edited November 2011 in Strut Central
I can respect any age of music but my ears only prick up from about the mid fifties jazz and onwards. I think that this is the oldest LP I have, 1957:



  Comments

  • HorseleechHorseleech 3,830 Posts
    Recordings from a rural music fair in England, 1903.

    Incredible.
  • tabiratabira 856 Posts
    wow. not long after Edison invented recorded sound. Any beats?

    Seriously d'you have a file?
  • DB_CooperDB_Cooper Manhatin' 7,823 Posts
    20s blues and Dixieland, I think? Maybe early 30s?
  • jjfad027jjfad027 1,594 Posts
    I like this guy sometimes.

    I had an ex that called it "serial killer music"



    1903! Whoa that sounds interesting.

  • HorseleechHorseleech 3,830 Posts
    Whoops, it was 1908, not nearly as old as I thought! And I love any excuse to watch that crumbling cylinder clip...

    Here's a link with pictures of the record (a pretty amazing package) and a download link. Joseph Taylor singing "Brigg Fair" is considered a landmark recording - it was the only song from this issued at the time and one of the first recordings of it's type ever released.

    http://time-has-told-me.blogspot.com/2007/11/joseph-taylor.html
  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    Jelly Roll Morton.
  • mrmatthewmrmatthew 1,575 Posts
    probably gonna be some gospel from the 50s.




    OKay, now im not too sure.
    Probably have some older jazz or music concrete from the 40's, ill have to take a look when i get home now. Good question!
  • The_Hook_UpThe_Hook_Up 8,182 Posts
    I have some Milton Brown recordings from the 30s I dig, as well as Django and some Roy Elderidge also...so much good music from the 30s.
  • sabadabadasabadabada 5,966 Posts
    Bix
  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    I have (or have had) plenty of blues and country from the 30s and into the 20s.
    I love that stuff.

    Also, as Harvey said, Jelly Roll Morton.
    Also Fats Waller.
    And earlier still Scott Joplin, though I would rather listen to Morton and Waller.

    And has been said, Django.

    Electric recording came in about 1918 IIRC. It was an improvement over acoustic recording.
    It takes some patience to listen to early recordings. When I was young I had lots of patience, now I usually prefer to listen to stuff that was well recorded.
  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    http://www.npr.org/2011/11/23/142700464/robert-johnson-and-pablo-casals-game-changers-turn-75

    Fantastic story.

    "Nov. 23, 1936, was a good day for recorded music. Two men, an ocean apart, each stepped up to a microphone and began to play. One was a cello prodigy who had performed for the queen of Spain; the other was a guitar player in the juke joints of the Mississippi Delta. But on that day, Pablo Casals and Robert Johnson each made recordings that would change music history."
  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    mrmatthew said:
    probably gonna be some gospel from the 50s.




    OKay, now im not too sure.
    Probably have some older jazz or music concrete from the 40's, ill have to take a look when i get home now. Good question!

    That is a good record.
    But 50s gospel quartets get a lot better if you dig deeper.
  • RAJRAJ tenacious local 7,782 Posts
    Medieval Lute Music
  • pickwick33pickwick33 8,946 Posts
    Can't pinpoint the decade or the record, but I have several anthologies of prewar blues and country, from the 20s-30s.
  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    LaserWolf said:
    http://www.npr.org/2011/11/23/142700464/robert-johnson-and-pablo-casals-game-changers-turn-75

    Fantastic story.

    "Nov. 23, 1936, was a good day for recorded music. Two men, an ocean apart, each stepped up to a microphone and began to play. One was a cello prodigy who had performed for the queen of Spain; the other was a guitar player in the juke joints of the Mississippi Delta. But on that day, Pablo Casals and Robert Johnson each made recordings that would change music history."

    http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=142700464&m=142721755

    ^ soundfile for a mash up of Johnson/Casals recorded on that date.
    Not a fan of mash ups, but after listening to the story this recording is amazing.
  • OkemOkem 4,617 Posts
    I enjoy a lot of classical music of the Romantic period (which was most of the 19th Century) Chopin, Liszt, Mendelssohn that sort of thing. And then slightly later around the turn of the century, Impressionist Music; Debbusy, Ravel, Satie. The sort of stuff a lot of the early jazz pianists were inspired by. Some earlier classical music is ok in parts, but I find it a little pompous.

    I don't have much in the way of Medieval music, not that I'd listen to regularly. And with folk music it's hard to say when it's actually from, but I do like a good hurdy gurdy.
  • disco_chedisco_che 1,115 Posts
    I'm not listening to a lot of classical music but the oldest stuff I like (occasionally) is Claudio Monteverdi.

    When it comes to original recordings my oldest got to be Django Reinhardt - love it.
  • asstroasstro 1,754 Posts
    I dig some of Blind Lemon Jefferson's recordings from the late 20's, it sounds otherworldly just because it's captured so primitively.
  • The_Hook_UpThe_Hook_Up 8,182 Posts
    I forgot about sol hoopii...love this. He was a stowaway on a ship and ended up in San Fran in 1919..probably the most famous of all the Hawaiian guitarists. The tuning he developed became the standard tuning for the pedal steel although he never played a pedal steel..


    I guess the oldest music I have is Thomas Tallis "Spem in Alium" a choral piece composed in 1570. It is pretty otherworldly, the whole thing is all about counterpoint so it is just tons of melodies floating on top of one another.
  • eliseelise 3,252 Posts


    This record has been on repeat for the last few months. (1955)

    I may have some older records, but this is one that stands out.
  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts
    Horseleech said:
    Whoops, it was 1908, not nearly as old as I thought! And I love any excuse to watch that crumbling cylinder clip...

    Here's a link with pictures of the record (a pretty amazing package) and a download link. Joseph Taylor singing "Brigg Fair" is considered a landmark recording - it was the only song from this issued at the time and one of the first recordings of it's type ever released.

    http://time-has-told-me.blogspot.com/2007/11/joseph-taylor.html

    In the early years of the century a few enlightened folk song collectors took the revolutionary step of recording the actual performances of country singers and musicians, thus capturing all the idiosyncrasies of style, where before the words and music had been laboriously and relatively inaccurately transcribed on paper. The cylinder phonograph had made this huge step forward possible.


    This has reminded me that one of my grand-fathers (I guess a great-grandfather) played fiddle, and was a master of various songs and styles that were literally dying out with their performers. I'm told a guy travelled to come and record him. I'll need to ask my grandmother about this (she's 95, so I guess it was her father).
  • mickalphabetmickalphabet deep inna majestic segue 374 Posts
    i've recently started DJing with a crew called the gramaphone disco who do venues and festival areas up in a dark boudoir style, run a speakeasy bar and have a strictly Pre-60s music policy. its totally opened my ears to oceans of great music from calypso, cumbia, tiki to early soul, jazz, early rockabilly and mad crossovers of styles from ye olden days, and its surprising how hard some of the productions hit on soundsystem even to this day.






  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    Love me some Bessie Smith as well.
  • The_Hook_UpThe_Hook_Up 8,182 Posts
    I dig some Mills Bros and Nat King Cole as well


  • DB_CooperDB_Cooper Manhatin' 7,823 Posts
    I've got this 168 CD set that includes tons of classic jazz, dixieland, blues, ragtime, and whatnot, if folks are interested. If so, let me know which disc, and I'll upload it.
  • DrWuDrWu 4,021 Posts
  • PATXPATX 2,820 Posts
    Humans: !Kung/San (Folkways). I sell most ethnic field recordings I find, but this one is a facemelter. Their music must be at least 10k years old.

    For even older music, I get down with the sounds of the humpbacks. Just picked up an LP of it but used to have the Nat Geo flexi when I was a kid. Brought it to show and tell to try and share my wonder but just got laughed at and kids made heaving noises like haha that whale sounds like a constipated spazz.
  • DrWuDrWu 4,021 Posts
  • The_Hook_UpThe_Hook_Up 8,182 Posts
    This thread has inspired me to an all 40s and 50s set on my R&B and Soul radio show tonight...tune in tonight 10 to midnight(central) if you think it might be your thing:

    www.wevl.org
  • The_NonThe_Non 5,691 Posts
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