250  preserving original orchestraīs recordings:a coleccionist

Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 11:49:57 -0300
From: SMC Administracion <adm@SMCAR.COM.AR>
Subject: preserving original orchestraīs recordings:a coleccionist

Dear friends of Tango list

Follows excerpts from an interview made by Paul Lange &
Michiko Okazaki from London (El Once Tango News- Autumn edition )
to a man from Japan , Akihito Baba , that represents the spirit
of preservation of Tango .The comments between brackets are
from myself. I met Baba SAN in Buenos Aires and bought him two
masterpiece recordings from early Canaro of the 30īs "Todo Milongas"
and "Todo Vals". Later I send this CDīs to Paul & Michiko for their
milonga venue in London, and later , when they went to Tokyo, have
the chance to met personally this man, quite a character , really.


"..P & M : We have heard that you have visited Buenos Aires
for the past 30 years and in that time collected over 10.000
78rpm tango records and have been reproducing them into
CDīs ...

Baba: ..I started with collecting as many LPīs as I could at
first, then later, when I realised the differences between SP
(78rpm) and LP, LPīs were available from the 50īs and the
old SPīs from the 20īs...you know there are differences..
sound-wise, it transmits completely different feelings to
me, Since then I have collected more SPīs.

...P & M: So you found the way to reproduce records
easily , through your profession( Baba SAN worked
at Nippon TV,Channel 4) .How did you go about
recording SPīs to CDs ? Did you do it yourself ?

Baba: Yes, recording was my profession.I didnīt
want to make any CDīs as in my opinion anything
for CDīs has to be good in sound quality.Especially,
the old feeling you get from LPs, even some scratch
sounds when I reproduce my collection, I thought
it didn īt work for CDīs. However the member of
my club (Club Tango Argentino or CTA, they made
a monthly concert in Tokyo with Baba SAN recordings)
persuaded to continue recording them
onto CDīs. I made about 132 CDīs .

P & M: You can clean some noises during the process
of recording CDs these days.

Baba:Yes , but on the other hand I don tīwant to cut
the noise when I reproduce SPs. I like to reproduce
SPs without cutting down hig waves to reduce the
noises. You can use an equaliser to cut the noises
down well, but I decided not to do so. There are
others who make clean sound reproductions in
Japan. But there are good SPīs not containing
any so-called noises, so you donīt have to cut
any noises. When you cut the noises, quite often
it loses the other sounds as well at the same
time. Thatīs a shame as well.

P & M : Didn īt you make contact with the
record companies (in Buenos Aires)??

Baba : Record companies don t keep them.
Itīs the other way around- they want SPs from
me, from my collection. They canīt produce any
CDs because they donīt have the originals like
I have. During the period that Tango disappeared
from the surface in Buenos Aires because of political
reasons, the Victor and Odeon companies in Buenos
Aires closed their offices as they couldnīt sell any LPs,
and at that time they threw away all the original master
copies away too.So they want to have SPīs like I
have so they can produce CDs. In England there
is a company called "Harlequin".They collected much
historical Latin America music and started to produce
many tango CDs .I know them because a friend of
mine in Argentina offered his tango photos to
them for using on the covers of CDs. Perhaps if I
have a chance to visit them in London we might
be able to do something together in future.

warm regards
Alberto Gesualdi
Buenos Aires