Topic: When Was the First "Fade - Out" Recorded?

[Giff me dat fill-em!]

I have recently been checking out CDs from my public library, and the two that come to mind are "Chart-Toppers of the Forties" and "The Charleston Era", which boast many-a tune from that era, BUT also have definite beginning, middle and end parts of the song. Sifting through my Pilsner download collection, I came across the Louis Armstrong tune of "Christmas Night in Harlem" that actually has him in a "fade-out" style of song, rather than the direct beginning-middle-end style of music so prevalent in the 20's-30's-40's ... therefore my question to our most famous Pilsner Panther is ... Can you define the first use of the "fade-out at the end" style of song? For, as a 50s-60s-70s-etc song buff, the fade-out-at-the-end is the norm, so I'm curious as to its first use in the musical field.

And ... as General Patton once said ... Tanks!

[Pilsner Panther]

Well, Giff, my opinion is that the first electrical fade-out was done on a 1932 or '33 Duke Ellington Brunswick recording called "Steamboat Shuffle."

Sorry to say, I don't have it in my collection, but I do remember what it sounds like at the end: the band goes into a repeated paddlewheel-like riff, while the engineer in the control booth slowly turns the gain controls on the recording mikes down, to simulate the sound of a steamboat vanishing in the distance. This is all done with the most primitive vacuum-tube recording studio technology, but it works very well.

I used to own the original 78, but I sold it.

 

Too bad, because I've never come across the side again on any CD compilation of the Duke's music (and there are hundreds).

Mr. Ellington was a very forward-looking individual; he also made some of the very first experimental— but real— stereo extended-play microgroove recordings with RCA Victor in 1931-32. I do have those, and I'll be posting them as part of my current Early Swing series. Coming up next, as a matter of fact!

Generally speaking, I don't like fade-outs, I'd rather that the music comes to a definite conclusion. Would Beethoven, Brahms, or Tchaikovsky have used a fade-out, even if the technology had been available to them?

Naww...