Aspen Wind Quintet
Alice Tully Hall
playing the Frank Zappa composition “Times Beach”
New York City
May 8, 1985

25:26 running time
138 MB

16 bit
44.1kHz

a koolstrike original audience recording

Cheap and crummy desktop cassette tape recorder > master tape duplicated > Audacity > xAct > SBE > FLAC

01 Times Beach I 4:48
02 Times Beach II 6:43
03 Times Beach III 4:46
04 Times Beach IV 9:17

Music composed by Frank Zappa (1940 - 1993).

Musicians:
Barli Nugent flute
Claudia Coonce oboe
David Krakauer clarinet
Timothy Ward bassoon
Kaitilin Mahony horn


In 1985, the Aspen Wind Quartet played the Frank Zappa composition “Times Beach”, eventually, before Frank passed away the Ensemble Modern also recorded a version of this music.

Alice Tully Hall in New York City was the concert facility for this recording. This music was originally recorded by koolstrike, so any praise or criticism should be directed there.

The story of this recording according to koolstrike:

“In the spring of 1985 I heard that the Aspen Wind Quintet would be playing “Times Beach” in New York City. At that time I was a broke student and I did not own any “good” audience recording equipment. My father did however, own a desktop Panasonic (I think) cassette recorder. This recorder was pretty big, battery operated and I had to sneak it into the hall. This recorder was a cheap deal designed to record voices, the usual 1980’s budget recording deck. Believe me, it was nothing fancy and it was big and bulky compared to what we have today!

Even worse, it was a pretty warm and humid day. Showing up to Alice Tully Hall with a jacket over my arm concealing the recorder which was about 10”x6”x3” was a source of major stress. Luckily, Alice Tully Hall was the home to many classical music concerts and the usual concert goer was not lugging recording equipment in with them! Getting past the ticket takers was easier than I thought it would be, they were all older women, so smile, be polite and I figured no questions would be asked.

After taking my seat and looking around beyond the usual Zappa fans, some of which I recognized from the many shows I attended in 1984, the hall had a majority of senior citizens as concert attendees and was about half full. I was decades younger than most of the audience!

I still had to worry. I figured any older concert goer that saw my recorder would rat me out in a second. I had to keep the jacket over my lap and get the recorder going without being noticed. Luckily, I did.

Post show, I was happy the recording was successful but the quality was poor. That motivated me to save my money and buy a “proper” recording deck; a Sony WMD6C along with a Sony microphone. Never again would low quality equipment spoil my recording!

In regards to the original master tape, it was lost in my many moves. Fortunately, I made a copy for a friend of mine that lives overseas. We were recently discussing the show and I spoke of my regret over losing the only tape that had this recording. My friend reminded me that he had a copy of the tape I made for him 30 plus years ago. He sent me the copy, I digitized it and here we are today.

The recording may be rough but the music is unmistakeable, it belongs to one composer, the late Frank Zappa. I hope you can enjoy what this music is and what it represents, a composer spending his own time and talents and money to bring a piece of music to the world.

Rest in peace Frank!”

Included in this torrent is a New York Time newspaper clipping that is a review of the concert.

I am sure one day this recording will make it’s way over to zappateers.

I would like to thank koolstrike for providing this tape and back story. Koolstrike wold like to thank his friend for holding onto this tape and not losing it!

Enjoy!!!

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NEVER sell!

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