When Vinyl Ruled
I just found this site by chance and was surprised to find myself mentioned here in April 2005 with a link to the When Vinyl Ruled 2000-AES historical exhibit I was involved with in Los Angeles back in September 2000. Time certainly does fly, as it is really hard for me to believe that it has been seven years since that event. Although I never met Wally and he had been gone over ten year by the time of this exhibit, I feel that Wally made several significant contributions to the success of this exhibit which I will mention for the benefit of those who did not have the opportunity to visit the exhibit.
First, if you look closely at the picture below you will see a framed picture to the left of the UA console. That picture shows Wes Montgomery sitting and Orrin Keepnews of Riverside Records standing in front of the very same UA console on June 25, 1962 in the backroom of Tsubo a club in Berkeley. Although Wally is not shown in the photograph, Wally’s live recording of this same performance through the UA console shown onto an Ampex 351-2 was released as the Riverside LP “Full House.”
Elsewhere on this site Dale Manquen eloquently tells the story of his trip with Wally to the 1966 Monterey Jazz festival with the prototype Mincom recorder. Even though I first met Dale in 1975 when I was in his very first professional tape recorder theory and maintenance class and I have heard many of his wonderful stories, the first time I have heard this story is when I visited this website. In 2000 when I was planning the AES exhibit I contacted Dale, asked if would mind providing some of his 3M artifacts for the display, and he told me he would be pleased to do so. Dale brought some photographs and machine prototype assemblies which were of much interest to many visitors.
Now once again if you look closely at the picture you will see three 1/2 inch tape boxes leaning in front of the Ampex 300 door on the lower right. Amazingly enough those three 3-track tapes shown were also recorded by Wally live at the Monterey Jazz Festival, except earlier on September 22-23, 1963. Had I only known in 2000 that Dale had been with Wally at the 1966 Festival I would not only have asked him about his experience, but I also would have made sure that Dale heard playbacks of the tapes that I had. Naturally the tapes sounded fantastic and went over very well with the many exhibit visitors. The artists were Jack and Charlie Teagarden with Pee Wee Russell and two sets by the Harry James Orchestra with vocalist Ruth Price.
Thanks to Stephen for setting up this site, to Dale for sharing so much knowledge with us over the years, and to Wally for helping to make When Vinyl Ruled a success.