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Actuelle was a product of
Pathe Freres and was Pathe's "needle-cut" disc (i.e. lateral
cut grooves) as opposed to vertical cut or "hill and dale" as
it is now often referred to.
Actuelles appeared in Britain in September 1921 and lasted until December 1928. The records used English, French and American Pathe masters throughout. Initially, these were dubbed from a master cylinder recording, generating quite considerable "cylinder rumble" on some records. The surfaces of the records were always very smooth, though. The English masters were in a 78000-79000 and 90000 series, the American ones ran from 68000 to 70000, then restarted at 105000, reaching somewhere in the 108000 range. French matrices were in a 5000-6000 block. Electrical recording came quite late; only one or two English matrices on Actuelle are electric; the American masters went electric at about 107100, though some early electrics have matrices in an E-2000 range. All English dance records are by studio bands led by Wag Abbey, though the electrics are actually French bands (despite having English matrix numbers); American ones include the usual Sam Lanin, Lou Gold, Ben Selvin etc. There was quite a lot of interesting Jazz issued, such as The Red Heads and The Original Memphis Five. Columbia bought the English branch of Pathe in December 1928; it is conceivable there may be some late Actuelles pressed by Columbia using their superior laminated technique. Certainly some of the last "Perfect" records (q.v.) may be found with fine laminated surfaces. In America, Actuelles appeared in September 1920 and sported a label very similar to the English one that appeared the following year. In about 1925 they changed to a less colourful design as seen here (third label) and remained with this design until the demise of the label at the start of 1930 (?) |
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