8/5/2021

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"Pagliacci Vesta La Giubba", Enrico Caruso - RCA Victor 7720-A

[I don't have a 1907 release of this song. This re-release is from 1947. 
Evidently they over dubbed the background music with new music on 
09/15/1932.]

Today's theme: Enrico Caruso superstar "tenor of the century"

August 2, 2021 was the 100th anniversary of Caruso's death.

If you only ever hear one Caruso recording, this is probably the one you 
should hear - it is by far his most famous.

Caruso's 1904 recording of "Vesti la giubba" from Leoncavallo's opera 
Pagliacci was the first sound recording to sell a million copies.

Vesti la giubba ("Put on the costume")
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesti_la_giubba

Caruso had a symbiotic relationship with Victor Records.

The first phonographs were cylinder recordings which were hard to mass 
produce.
Emil Berliner developed the phonograph record in disk form which started 
selling commercially about 1905.

Before that "talking machines" were just a cute, expensive toy.

The Victor Talking Machine Company sought out and signed up numerous top 
opera singers of the time to make records for their "Red Label" series, 
starting with Enrico Caruso.

Caruso was a famous Italian singer at the time.
Recording on Victor Records gave credibility to Victor that it's "talking 
machines" were real musical instruments and not just toys.
Victor in turn turned Caruso into the first world wide recording mega-star.
Remember that back then there was no radio or TV and movies were silent.
The phonograph meant that you could now listen to some of the top singers in 
the world in your own living room.
That became very popular :-)

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A modern remastering of the recording.
They separated out Caruso's voice from the background music and then 
recorded new, modern background music to replace it.

"The vocals were recorded on March 17, 1907 and the instrumentals were 
recorded either in 1998 or 1999 in Vienna."

Enrico Caruso - Vesti La Giubba (Remastered)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_P1QdXMzfA
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Original of the 1907 recording (original background music).
Leoncavallo: Pagliacci; vesti a la giubba - Enrico Caruso Victrola Records 
#88061 12" 1907
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgCEKR0XZK0
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Stay Jazzed!
--Tom Swezey