BING CROSBY 1940 NBC Kraft Music Hall Acetates 3 discs V++ UNIQUE, LOST SHOWS

$

225

HERE ARE three twelve-inch 78 rpm studio lacquers of songs and instrumentals, comprising excerpts from the 1940 season of the N.B.C. KRAFT MUSIC HALL, starring BING CROSBY and JOHN SCOTT TROTTER AND HIS ORCHESTRA.  

As you see, these discs are unlabeled. Indeed, when I first encountered them, they were covered with white palmitic acid residue, and looked fit only to be used as packers for "valuable" twelve-inch records! But I cleaned and played them, and lo, discovered the following very well recorded tracks:  

DISC 1.   side A:  1. JOHN SCOTT TROTTER ORCHESTRA:  "Minuet in Swing" 2. BING: "The Sly Old                                                    Gentleman From Featherbed Lane" 

                  side B:  BING:  1. "Mickey" 2. "Our Love" 

DISC 2.  side A:  1. BING:  "I Cried For You" 2. "S'posin'" 

                side B:   1. BING:  "Could Be" 2. "Little Sir Echo" 

DISC 3.  side A:  1. BING:  "And the Angels Sing" 2. PAUL TAYLOR CHORISTERS: "Red Wing" 

                side B:   1. BING: "I've Got a Lot of Dreaming to Do" 2. JOHN SCOTT TROTTER ORCHESTRA:                                              "Dancing Tambourine" 

"Dancing Tambourine" is a surprisingly hot, uptempo and VERY accomplished performance and arrangement even for as distinguished a band as John Scott Trotter's.  Bing Crosby, of course, is in his vocal prime on the other tracks.  There are several little "test cuts" lasting a few seconds each, scattered throughout; I spotted Bob Burns and his "Bazooka" on one! 

NOW, here's the amazing part: Most of these broadcasts were NOT PRESERVED! According to the Crosby / Kraft Music Hall web page: "Bing starred in more than three hundred Kraft shows; complete recordings of the hour broadcasts did not survive the War.  In 1971, NBC donated its entire collection of radio recordings to the Library of Congress.  Only six Kraft shows prior to 1944 were found in it."  The tracks on these records are not among them.  The show's principal writer, Caroll Carroll, explained ruefully: 

“Back when the past was the present, and I was writing Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall Thursday nights on NBC, one of those rare few was our engineer, Murdo MacKenzie.  Each week he would save the big electrical transcriptions of the show, for what use no one really knew.  When he was called to war, about 1943, I guess, he put his complete set of recordings in a closet at the old NBC studios at Sunset and Vine in Hollywood. He put an extra padlock on the door and a sign: 'PERSONAL PROPERTY OF MURDO MCKENZIE – DO NOT DISTURB!' After he and a few million others had secured the peace, he came back to find his closet had a new door, and was full of brooms and mops. NBC execs could only say, 'We needed the space.' So the ability of future generations to rehear the hundreds of hours of Bing and his guests – all the biggest names of the day – were, in a sense, just one more casualty of WWII” 

So, these discs, from 1940, represent Kraft Music Hall shows that are LOST today! Therefore, they likely are unique specimens, and are priced accordingly.  

I grade these discs nominally as V++.  Although I cleaned them, there still remains considerable palmitic acid residue, which perhaps could be further removed.  The shows, "as is," nevertheless are very well, professionally, recorded. The music already is loud and clear! 

PHOTOS:  1) John Scott Trotter, 2) Bing Crosby.  Both 1940. 

***** 

These records come from my private collection, which I have been accumulating since 1967, and now am downsizing!  My highest priority in these eBay auctions is to give you the best possible idea of a record’s true condition and aesthetic value.  I always post at least four clear images, showing the record fore and aft, a close-up of the label, and the whole disc, warts and all.  If my purple prose won’t cut it, the pictures will!  Shipping is done with expert care. Your record will brave Media Mail in a stout corregated box, between four sheets of cardboard and a couple of “packers.”  I hope you are amused by these descriptions, and by the quality of service being offered.