Reel Legacy in America
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Mystery Party
There wasn't much information to go on when starting the project to transfer the old reel to reel tapes.
The only clearly marked reel said "Dad's Polka Hour!" which turned out to be the audio from Martica's Tavern.
Don's reel to reel machine from the 1960s would play a mono track on half of the tape, and another mono track on the other half going in the opposite direction. Most of the currently available reel to reel machines are more recent models. These machines typically play a pair of stereo tracks going in a single direction.
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All this made the playback of the family reels more challenging. On the recovery machine, one tape track would play forwards and the other backwards - at the same time! By rewiring the machine and manipulating the monitoring system,
the recovery was made possible.
There was an interesting phenomenon while transferring the Martica's performance to digital.
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The audio gauges for the backwards tape track showed no level for roughly the first 25 minutes of the Martica's playback. Then, the audio gauges jumped indicating that there was content on the other side of the tape. The first assumption was that Don & Bill ran out of tape on side A at Martica's, and subsequently completed their recording on side B. Unexpectedly, nearly 30 minutes from the completion of the Martica's performance on side A, the audio meters on side B went blank again indicating no audio information.
There was something captured only on the center of side B!
Had the reel not been monitored with meters on the transfer - the other side of the tape would have appeared to be blank.
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The reel was reversed and cued to the section where the gauges showed audio. What poured from the speakers was another musical performance...but not the same band we heard for 90 minutes from Martica's.
After careful listening, we confirmed that Matt Lisak was playing the drums. This was evident by his signature two tone cowbell fills. Faintly in the distance, we heard the sound of a saxophone doubling the melody lines. The most amplified instrument had a sound that conveyed the spirit of an accordion...but yet was somehow different.
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The career musicians in the room analyzed the sound and performance in order to best determine what instrument we were hearing. The bass moved like an accordion - often with opposing root and fifth intervals. But the chords and melodies sounded like an organ. The textures were most similar to the signature sound of a Hammond B3 organ playing through a
rotating Leslie speaker from the 1960s.
We considered that "Cookie" owned a Werlitzer organ. The Werlitzer organ has a similar sound to a B3, but this recording was clearly made before her family moved to Carbondale, IL where her organ was known to be from.
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It was also determined that this event was a family party. Don and his friend Rich Walczak were recording and they occasionally talked into the microphone. Rich would not have been with Don at one of Matt's tavern performances. We considered that perhaps it was recorded at someone's house, but the number of voices in the background indicated a larger gathering
of some type.
We strained to listen for any hint of who was playing with Matt that day.
There was also the consideration of the music selection and instrumentation.
The set list was not limited to polkas and waltzes like it was at Martica's. It was a mix of "standards" - songs like "Spanish Eyes" and "Never on a Sunday" and other popular songs of that era. Eventually we determined the instrument that was making
the unique sounds on the recording.
There was one unique instrument of that era which could produce the sounds we heard on the tapes...
That instrument is the Cordovox from the Chicago Musical Instrument Company.
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A Cordovox is played like an accordion. It has bellows and left hand bass buttons and can produce accordion sounds.
The unique feature of a Cordovox is that it has an integrated short scale Hammond B3 organ on the right hand keys.
This portion of the instrument can play independently from the bellows of the accordion, and it also requires amplification...
typically through a rotating Leslie speaker system.
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Slowly, the pieces came together to determine who was playing on the hidden recording.
The only person close to the family, who owned a Cordovox accordion, who used a Leslie rotating speaker, who was also known to perform regularly with Matt, and who also regularly performed this type of material -
was Gene Rydecki of the Melody Knights.
Gene and the Melody Knights performed with his band at Ron & Robin's Chicago wedding at Rainbow Gardens.
He and LaVerne were regularly at family parties for Chris and Cookie.
The Melody Knights also typically used a saxophone player, and a guitar player. After careful listening, you will notice the saxophone doubling Gene's right hand melody lines, and a guitar pulsing syncopated chords in the background.
It was then irrefutable that this performance featured Matt and Gene.
1960s Cordovox
Original Manufacturer's Badge
Magazine Ad
Leslie Rotating Speaker Cabinet
Mystery Solved!
There is a final mystery that requires your help to solve.
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The final song of the performance features the band playing "Happy Birthday" to someone while the crowd sings along. After repeated listening to this section of the recording, it is still difficult to determine who the guest of honor was or
why it seemed important enough at the time to capture the day on a recording.
If you have any information to help solve the mystery, please share it.
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Listen to see if you can make out the name of who everyone was singing to!
Until then, listen and enjoy the music of Matt & Gene from almost 60 years ago, and experience the sounds of a regular family gathering on the south side of Chicago in the mid 1960s. Enjoy!
Matt & Gene's Mystery Party
Please forward any song titles you may know!
Close Lisak family friend Patrick Doody provided the reel-to-reel machine used to recover this cherished audio.
We would like to offer him our sincere thanks for his help and friendship!