A couple of months ago a posting over on the Tape Trail (audio asylum) from a local fellow that I'd have to call the "King" of the tape dumpster divers ( he repeatedly makes incredible reel to reel finds,.. how about a working Ampex 351 if he could haul it off that day!). He said that the local recycling center had some tapes with Fantasy Records labels on them. Unfortunately before any of us could strike (except for his snagging a couple of dat tapes of music he loves) they disappeared as if they'd never been there. I stumbled across the guy that got them somehow and was selling them on eBay. CV emailed me about them and mentioned that he might bid on some of the Country Joe tapes so I thought I'd just let him give 'em a try. The next week there were a couple more tapes and I spotted one that I thought I'd take a chance on. Now the listing didn't have much info about these tapes except titles and format. The one I bid on was a 30 ips, 1/2 inch tape of two Dexter Gordon cuts. It turned out that I was the only one that bid on it so I got it for $20. I was pretty excited about it. When I got it, the only info was that it was #3 of a set of 3 and the titles included. When I looked at the reel, it was like one of those Hitchcock scenes when the camera zooms in and out. All I could see was those numbers,.. 456! Ampex 456, the very womb of sticky shed.
I few weeks passed without much thought about the tape. I found a couple of other items that I wanted from the same seller (who has some pretty rare items sometimes) and bought some classical lps and "Word Jazz" by Ken Nordine .
Then today, I decided to do a little research on the tape. I looked up the titles, "Lovely Lisa" and "Affair in Havana". It took a while because you can-not be-lieve how many releases Dex was on or led. Well, I found out that they're from an album called " The Resurgence of Dexter Gordon" and was his first after an extended gig with the Dept of Corrections. It was recorded in L.A. on Oct 13 1960,..1960? My heart leapt. Ampex didn't make 456 in 1960! "Maybe it's just the reel!" But then I thought about it. Hell, 1960,.. It would be on acetate and mono. And if it was mono, what's it doing on 1/2 inch? Then I started to wonder, " Why would Fantasy make a large format copy of one of Gordon's less sought after releases? Original Jazz Classics that's why. Fantasy started that reissue series in the early 80's and that's when 456 was all the rage. So I looked up "Resurgence,.." on the web and sure enough, they did do a CD version. So, from what I can guess, what I've got (and more than likely what the other tapes that found their way to eBay) are duplication masters that were slated to find their way onto a digital transfer (that I believe were remastered) that would give birth to stampers for OJC cd's.
So Marie, (if you can stop laughing long enough at my ham handed detective work), is there a way to tell by examining a tape if it is likely to have SSS? I'd love to hear what the sound quality is like on this tape but not at the expense of sending the r2r owner out to pick up the CostCo sized can of naptha.