GG: Kind of Blue/Kind of Sharp

["John P. Hill" <jphill@frank.mtsu.edu>]

On Wed, 22 Jul 1998, Bruce Petherick wrote:

> At 03:19 21/07/98 -0400, you wrote:
> >You forgot to mention that KIND OF BLUE was originally released a half-step
> >off, and that, until the most recent CD package, this problem was never
> >corrected.
> 
> Why was it a semitone out?  and which is the text ?
> More about the recording as text later.....

The sessions for KIND OF BLUE were held on March 2 and April 6 of 1959
at Columbia's 30th St. studio in NYC.  Two tape machines were operating at
both sessions:  a master and a safety.  At the March 2 session, the
master machine's transport was running slightly slow.  The first side of
the album (SO WHAT, FREDDIE FREELOADER and BLUE IN GREEN) was recorded at
this session.  When this master tape was later played back on a machine
with correct speed, it played back this first side material about a
quarter tone *sharp*.  This was *not* deliberate on the part of either
MD or Teo Macero;  it was purely an unintentional, mechanical problem that
apparently went unnoticed (not too many folks around with perfect pitch?)
at the time of the original sessions.

This problem was corrected for the first time on the Sony Master Sound
20-bit reissue, where they were able to use the first generation safety
tape as the source material.

jh