Fats Jazz Band: That Old Feeling (1x LP 140 gr)

Vinyl directly transferred from PURE Analog Original Master Tape Professional Direct to Two Track Recording, recorded by Sepea Audio 

Recorders - Studer A80 ½“ @30ips (1980s), Studer C37 ¼“ tape @15 ips, Telefunken M5 ¼“ tape @15 ips, Mix - Sonosax SX-T
Recording Producer & Digital Editing : Ladislav Krajcovic
Design & Typography : Jana Dekánková
Made in Slovakia, © Sepea 2017

THAT OLD FEELING (LP shortened version with 14 tracks)

FATS JAZZ BAND

The members of the vintage orchestra FATS JAZZ BAND from Slovakia have recorded a beautiful piece of art. Using original vintage music instruments from 1930s and 1940s, playing original transcriptions of old recordings and using analogue recording technique, they have recorded LP and TAPES named THAT OLD FEELING.

The LP / TAPES contain only transcriptions of old shellac recordings from the years 1924 up to 1947. So the band have rerecorded original arrangements as were played by early jazz legends such as Fats Waller, Peggy Lee, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Jack Teagarden, Billie Holiday, Teddy Wilson, Edythe Wright, John Kirby, Miff Mole and many more.

Whole cooperation between Fats Jazz Band and recording team started by unexpected meeting between bandleader Ladislav Fanzowitz and analogue maniacs (in the best way) Ladislav Krajčovič and Peter Sedlák from company SEPEA AUDIO s.r.o. This company specializes in analogue recording and publishes high quality tapes all around the world.

The recording team of Mr. Krajčovič and Mr. Sedlák brought to the culture house, where the recording has been processing, three huge tape recorders. Because it was first time after long period that someone was that crazy to record this beautiful traditional jazz by analogue technic, they wanted to have three different sound versions and at the end to chose the best one for publishing.

The sound director Ladislav Krajčovič told us about all used types of tape recorders: „Our idea was to make the recording on 3 different tape recorders, because every machine transfers the signal in a very specific way to the tape and the recording achieve its special sound color (character). Maximum authenticity and softness of the sound we have achieved probably on a tube tape recorder, but every market likes something else. Critical listeners around the world prefer once the tube, once the transistor sound.

First tape recorder was a Swiss-made transistor recorder Studer A80 Master Recorder from the 1980s, ½ inch tape at 30 ips. It’s the only one fully working in Slovakia. And there are only few of them fully working in whole Europe. Second tape recorder was a tube Studer C37, ¼ inch tape at 15 ips. And third was a transistor recorder from the 1950s, Telefunken M5, ¼ inch tape at 15 ips borrowed from our Hungarian friend Mr. Baranyai. Above mentioned tape speeds are very important, because different speeds transfers the frequencies, especially the low one, in a different ways and that’s why the recordings have they own, different sound. Very important role played also our analogue mixing console, Swiss brand Sonosax SX-T. 

The Fats Jazz Band had to record every song at once, including vocals, so NO OVERDUBBINGS were used. Musicians played altogether and sometimes they had to move for more than one meter from microphone to achieve right volume balance between tutti parts and solos in the songs. Also singers were recording with the band, which is very unusual today. The bandleader Mr. Fanzowitz says: “If you want to record whole song at once with all members including soloists and singers, you have to have really high professionals in the band. The have to be prepared for 100% before recording day and after setting up all distances from microphones, we all have 5-6 chances to record the song. We have recorded every song without stop maximum 6 times, then we chose the best track and if there was some musical mistake, we cut and replaced that part by another track. But no other corrections were made. The sound is original sound of the instruments. All musicians and singers have to play clear and in tune. We can’t do anything like enhancement notes which are out of tune or playing with dynamic or rhythm like modern bands often do. So what you hear from our recordings is 100% the same as what you can hear on our concerts.”.

During the recording session also digital recording was made and this was published on CD with the same name. But as all involved people say: the sound of analogue recording is much softer and clear as the digital one and listening from gramophone or magnetophone is pure pleasure. The LPs from analogue recorded tapes were pressed in Germany and copies of analogue tapes in all types (¼ inch or ½ inch and speeds 15 or 30 ips) were made in Slovakia in SEPEA AUDIO s.r.o.

The vintage art deco layouts were made by band singer Jana Dekánková.