Doing history often gets personal for me, and the story that follows is a prime example of why I chose the topics I pursue. For some time, I have been interested in the history of sports cars in the U.S., particularly during the 1950s when sports car sales and SCCA participation took off. It was the result of rising middle class expectations and ambitions, a response to the ungainly Detroit 鈥渄inosaur in the driveway,鈥?and popular literature that included Don Sanford鈥檚 The Red Car and Tom McCahill鈥檚 Mechanix Illustrated articles. And as a teenager during the mid-1960s I got caught up in it, as I purchased a 1959 MGA after graduating from high school. Lately as I reflect on my past I have often wondered how I got on the path of being so keenly interested in sports cars. The Riverside Records story is worth telling, for it links jazz music with sports cars. It began in 1952 with the partnership of two Columbia graduates, Bill Grauer, Jr. and Orrin Keepnews. Grauer began by convincing RCA Victor to re-issue 78s from the 1920s and 30s in LP format.
However, he then shifted focus to the contemporary music of Thelonious Monk, Randy Weston, Bill Evans, Sonny Rollins and Cannonball Adderly. In the midst of this artistic achievement, Grauer also became a sports car enthusiast. The most unusual sound recording's A side began with interviews of drivers, a prelude to the listener experiencing "sounds at rest:" a 3 liter Maserati; 3.5; 3.5 liter Ferrari; a Lotus; and finally a Porsche Spyder. The flip side included hour by hour reports of the 12 hour race. Who do you think would care about all of this? But this was not a one-off exercise, for over the next seven years many other vinyl discs of racing sounds and exotic cars would follow, and amuse a generation or two of sports car enthusiasts. A label with a reputation for jazz recording left a legacy for the automotive historian to mine and explicate. Over 60 minutes of interviews with the world鈥檚 greatest drivers鈥angio, Moss, Collins, Behra, Hill, Musso, Menditeguy, Bennett, Rubirosa, Portago, Parnell.
The sounds of Ferraris, Maseratis, Jags, Aston martins, Porsche, Corvettes, Lotus, etc. warming up, revving, roaring at speed, coming out of corners flat out. Other releases that followed the 鈥淪ounds of Sebring鈥?included the chronicling of the Sebring races between 1958 and 1962. Additionally, drivers were featured. During more recent times ex-Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason and collaborator Mark Hales revisited the theme of sound and race cars with the 1998 publication of Into the Red, a book that included an accompanying CD. A number of the cars whose sounds were reproduced by Mason and Hales were also featured in the Riverside series. Given the technical description of the pains taken to capture exhaust engine and track sounds in 1998, a renewed appreciation of Grauer鈥檚 pioneering efforts emerges. Musician Mason has the ear, sensitivity and prose to capture the sounds of cars on the track at Silverstone that Riverside Records had captured at Oulton Park, in Yorkshire some 40 years before.
At first, the noise from this gleaming mass of metal is a disappointment. Folklore still says eight straight cylinders make a noise like ripping fabric, but not this Alfa. It鈥檚 more of a boom than a rip. Push in the ignition key to switch on the electrics and illuminate the a starter button. The electric motor whirrs the eight pistons past compression with barely a stutter and the Alfa gently comes alive, moaning and chuffing as a thousand pieces of metal bump and grind before bathing themselves in a fresh coating of lubricant. And then, as you wait to warm the oil, there鈥檚 more to be had by listening carefully, just as with any good piece of music. You cn hear the boom become the bass, and now there鈥檚 a gentle wail from the supercharger which swells as you rev up, disappears when you lift off. Just beneath that there鈥檚 another, more musical warble from the exhaust.
Not the demented pigeon noise of a modern five-cylinder Audi, but a more orchestrated, subtler kind of rhythm, like a string bass shimmering in the background. If that little chrome-rimmed rev counter with its flickering needle were to fail, it would be the rhythm which would say how fast the engine was turning. Otherwise the hum of eight straight cylinders is so seamlessly subtle that you could hardly tell. From Mason and Hales, p. The ERA makes a noise like a bass saxophone and cello in duet. The strings are the tremendous whine of the supercharger that feeds the one and a half litre six cylinder engine and the sax is the rich, reedy, deep-throated, metallic sound of the exhaust. When the engine is driving hard, the clamor gargles from deep within the engine鈥檚 chest, then vibrates down the long metal pipe that runs just below the cockpit side before blasting out like a freshly lit firework.