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The famous high-tech Swedish Toolex Alpha record presses are again being manufactured as Pheenix Alpha in a Stockholm suburb by former employees of the original company using the original blueprints. This according to a recent article in a Swedish newspaper.

According to the story, the last Toolex Alpha left the factory in 1990 bound for Melodiya in the then Soviet Union, though it was believed to have been manufactured a few years earlier.

Recording direct-to-disk is difficult enough. The entire side has to be cut in one long take. Consider a big band vocal album like this, which has four songs per side. The orchestra and singer have to be ready as soon as the cutting stylus hits the lacquer and then they have to perform flawlessly on each track, pausing but a few seconds between songs.

The late Allen Touissant preferred working in the background for most of his long career. He got his start playing piano in the 1950’s, when his Dr. Longhair-influence rollicking style caught the ear of Dave Bartholomew, Fats Domino’s producer.

The jazz subscription vinyl-only label Newvelle, which had a successful first year, releasing albums by Frank Kimbraugh, Jack DeJohnnette, Noah Preminger, Don Friedman, Ben Allison and Leo Genovese (feauturing Esperanza Spalding and Jack DeJohnette), just announced its second year kickstarter launch.