Enoch Light had a successful career as a musician as far back as the big band days, when he led Enoch Light and the Light Brigade. But it was with the coming of the LP and stereo sound that he was to make his greatest impact on American popular music. He started a label back in the 1950s, just when stereo sound was being developed and marketed. Grand Award records proved to be a testing ground for many of the musicians who were later to become part of Light's musical repertory group: Dick Hyman (under his own name and as ragtime pianist "Knuckles O'Toole"), Bobby Byrne, and arranger Lew Davies would all play important roles at Command Records.
Even back then, Light's mastery of marketing was evident: Grand Award trumpeted a new recording innovation called "Phase X". This turned out to be a revolutionary recording system that let you hear a phantom third channel in between the standard left and right channels. (This was a common recording technique in fact, but Light is the first person who thought to make PR hay out of it.)
Grand Award was a modestly successful label among what might be termed the "second tier" of labels: it was never a challenge to RCA or Capitol, but its enthusiastic embracing of stereo sound and distinctive (if today somewhat dated) packaging gave Grand Award a loyal following. But Light had bigger fish to fry and more challenging ideas, musically and sonically. And so was born his second label: Command.
Command started out as an audio spectacular label, and part of its distinctive sound was an extreme separation between the channels with NO phantom center channel (in other words, the exact opposite of the Grand Award "Phase X" system Light had trumpeted just a few years earlier!). Light didn't innovate the pop percussion recording (that was actually done a few years earlier by David Carroll at Mercury, and Dick Schory at Concert-Disc and then RCA). But he redefined its sound, bringing the microphones close in, and recording arrangements that exploited sounds ordinarily not heard in pop music. The off-beat and clever "takes" that Lew Davies and, to a lesser extent, Jack Andrews would devise in their arrangements gave a fresh appearance to songs that often dated from Light's big band days or before. (This use of "standards" guaranteed that the records would have appeal not just to today's sound fanatic but also to older listeners who just liked the tunes.) Distinctive cover art and double-thickness gatefold jackets told the purchaser that this was a quality production; inside, detailed notes tracked the instrumentation of each melodic line and even told listeners how they could use the widely-separated stereo sound to balance their loudspeakers.
Down the line Light would innovate further with 35mm recording (actually not Light's idea but one begun by Everest) - by recording on 35mm film, tape hiss was greatly lessened, print-through reduced, and wow and flutter "virtually eliminated" (because the film was driven by sprocket holes, while conventional tape was just pulled through by the friction of a rubber roller). The claims were probably extravagant, but the records sounded spectacular, with an amazing presence that even today is rarely duplicated. Eventually Light issued "Dimension 3" (musically one of his very best records), which featured an amazing new recording technique that actually created the sound of a phantom center channel in between the standard left and right! And so did the marketing genius of Enoch Light come full circle, back to the "Phase X" of the Grand Award days.
By the end of 1965 Light was no longer associated with Command, having sold the label (and Grand Award--the fine print copyright notices on Command records invariably read "Grand Award Record Company") to ABC. ABC continued the Command label with recordings by Dick Hyman, Bobby Byrne (who assumed Light's duties), and several others, but Enoch Light had nothing to do with them. RS 887 was the last Enoch Light LP issued by Command (not counting RS 915, which was merely a sampler consisting of previously issued tracks). In fact, the non-Light Command releases had already started somewhere around RS 880; 887 was just held back, possibly to stretch out Light's apparent connection with the Command name. (Grand Award had pretty much vanished as a label when Command was launched; budget-priced reissues with new cover art of some Grand Award titles did pop up from time to time.) While some of the Command releases during the ABC period were interesting, none of them has the sonic or musical intensity that Enoch Light brought to the producing process. Furthermore, under ABC's ownership, the Command label started to become less of a premium audiophile offering and more of a mass market item. Pressings with the Command/ABC label were usually noisier than the original Commands were, and the sound sometimes lacked the response on either end of the spectrum that could be heard on first pressings. New Command recordings eventually diminished to a trickle, ultimately to none at all. But the library of tapes and films remained a continued source for ABC to mine for all types of reissues. Many of the Command recordings reappeared in cheaply-packaged 2-LP sets, with titles like "Impelling Dances of Our Time" and minimal notes. Pressings were even more problematic than before. Eventually ABC would sell the Command and Grand Award libraries (as well as the Westminster classical label) to MCA.
Meanwhile, Light had gone on to his latest creation, Project 3, so named because obviously it was the third label he had created. Here he brought with him Lew Davies, whose arrangements were so vital to Command's success, and such musicians as Tony Mottola. There were also a number of new additions to the Light stable, such as the singing group Free Design, and brass player extraordinaire Bobby Hackett. The first Project 3 release, "Spanish Strings", featured Light with a big orchestra and Lew Davies arrangements, all taken down on 35mm film. But, fine an album as it is, something was lacking. The sound did not have the immediacy of the Command productions, and the arrangements were a tad more conventional than one expected from Davies. Light went on to make many more records for Project 3, but none of them equalled the best of his work on Command. The use of 35mm film, an Enoch Light hallmark, was eventually abandoned at Project 3, presumably because it was too expensive given the disappointing returns the releases were earning. A series of new stereo rerecordings of great big band hits would have seemed a natural for Light, but the sessions were slackly played, and the sound curiously boxy and artificial. The Project 3 library is now owned by Essex Entertainment.
The Command library is not well represented on CD: only Persuasive Percussion and Provocative Percussion have been issued, each on Varese Sarabande with 6 bonus tracks from the respective Volume 2s. "Swamp Fire" from "Dimension 3" can be found on a DCC "Bachelor's Den" CD, and Varese has issued a CD with highlights from the various Ray Charles Singers releases. Some of the Project 3 titles have found their way to CD; various Bobby Hackett and Tony Mottola reissues are easy to find. Light's first Project 3 LP, "Spanish Strings", is on CD (PRD 5000) credited to the "Fiesta Concert Orchestra", with Light's name nowhere to be seen! Light's Big Band recreations have seen several CD releases in varied couplings.
Mark Koldys
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