Hotel Orchestra & John Lissauer - Hotel Orchestra (1973/2013) [Hi-Res]

A Big Band album of the great music of the ‘30s and ‘40s produced and recorded by André Perry with some of America’s finest jazz musicians mixed with early synthesizers. Hotel Orchestra was recorded in 1973 with some of America’s finest jazz musicians. (The original 2 track Non-Dolby analogue master tape was used for the digital mastering, using an Ampex 300 tube analogue recorder).

The original project’s objective was to use a fresh approach to produce a big band album of the great music of the late 30’s and 40’s. Various synthesizers were used (a novelty in the early 70’s) to reproduce the horn sections and a lot of research was made to find authentic instruments of the era example: guitars, and drum sets from the 30’s with calf skins, etc.

The LP was released only in Canada and quickly received gold status with raving reviews even in the USA, as copies were brought south of the border. If you are a fan of big band, jazz or simply of the great music of the era, give it a listen.

'I bought this album when it was 1st released in 1974. Too bad it’s not available on CD. If you like the Big Band music of the 40’s, then this is for you. It’s a totally re-done recording of all the big band songs done with a modern orchestra & modern recording. It’s mostly done with real instruments, but they do use some synthesizers here & there, but hardly noticeable. The recording quality is outstanding. Buy it before it’s no longer available. You won’t be disappointed.' 5.0 out of 5 stars Great recording, December 20, 2008 by Mr. Radio 'Bruce' (Canton, Ga. USA)

'It was 1969 when I purchased my first synthesizer, the Moog. Mine was the first Canadian studio to own one. It was a huge, bulky instrument from which sounds were selected by inserting cables from every direction into a patch bay to obtain the desired sound. It looked like a series of large, black upright boxes, laced with spaghetti. It was the new, new thing and everyone in the industry was afraid it would replace musicians. Soon it became clear that not only this would not be the case. Instead, keyboard players would be busier than ever before. As the new crop of synthesisers mushroomed and multiplied, I met a talented multi-faceted young musician from New York, called John Lissauer with whom I worked on several recordings. I soon decided to create a dedicated synthesizer project with him which we called The Hotel Orchestra.'

'The goal was to reproduce as closely as possible, a swing orchestra of the ‘30s and ‘40s,evoking the Tea Dance events so popular at the time. Instead of recording a full orchestra, we wanted to use a combination of real instruments complemented by synthesizers. We went to a lot of trouble to find authentic old instruments in pawn shops and musicians’ cherished private collections (the drum kit we used was an old set with calf skins, from the ‘30s), and to find the right players. In our desire for authenticity, we contacted Gene Krupa to perform his famous drum solo on the Sing Sing Sing cut but unfortunately he didn’t make it on the album as he passed away the week prior to the session. He was replaced by Joseph Caccuzo. Trombonist Sunny Russo had played with many of the famous big bands (Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, Tito Puente). Trumpet player Marvin Stamm had done much studio work with some of the great jazz artists (Bill Evans, Quincy Jones, Oliver Nelson). Guitar & banjo were played by Jeff Layton and of course, John Lissauer played the various synthesizers and keyboards and made it all come together.'

'As it was a big band configuration, the first trumpet was played live but the second, third and fourth trumpets were synthesized. Same formation for the Trombones but the tuba and all the saxophones were done using synthesizer exclusively, as was the case for the keyboards and upright bass; It worked so well, that it was somewhat difficult at times to detect that the bulk of the instruments were reproduced using synthesizers, so we decided to send little cues here and there to allow people to notice that these were not all traditional instruments. Hotel Orchestra was released in Canada where it achieved gold status in sales. This High-resolution audio release is a re-mastered version of the original analog tape of the album that was recorded in 1973.' (Andre Perry, Producer)

John Lissauer, piano, synthesizer
John Miller, bass
Joseph Cacuzzo, drums
Jeff Layton, guitar, banjo
Marvin Stamm, trumpet
Sonny Russo, trombone

Engineered by Nick Blagona
Produced by Andre Perry