Meeting Topic: Sound Man: From WWII to MP3 - A Film About Jack Mullin
Moderator Name: Introduced by Noah Simon
Speaker Name: Film Directed by Don Hardy, Jr. and Scott Budman
Other business or activities at the meeting: We welcomed everyone back for the new year and introduced our officers to the members. We thanked everyone for voting in our election, which was our first all-online election (which had our highest vote-count in years). Those in attendance who were not members were encouraged to fill out an application, which was available at the meeting. A few words were said about the upcoming convention at the Javits Center, and also about the upcoming NY section meetings for October and November.
Meeting Location: Jazz Performance Space at the New School University, 55 West 13th Street, NY, NY, USA
Review of the NY Section's September Meeting, by Mr. Jerry Bruck
September 11th, 2007
Sound Man: From WWII to MP3
Host: Noah Simon, NYU
Our 2007-2008 season opened with the first New York showing of Sound Man: From WWII to MP3 - a documentary film by Scott Budman and Don Hardy, Jr. eulogizing tape pioneer Jack Mullin. Jack, a successful "sound man" in private life, joined the military during WW II. Stationed in Paris, he was sent to a Bavarian mountaintop (Hitler's abandoned Berchtesgaden) to look for a secret anti-aircraft device. All he found was the harp from a savaged piano, but as he was about to turn back toward Paris he decided to check out a lead of a different kind. This other "secret weapon" was called a "Magnetophon." Its tapes accounted for the high quality of the off-hours broadcasts of symphonic concerts and Hitler's speeches that had long puzzled the Allies. Jack disemboweled two of the machines and sent the parts home in mail bags as "war souvenirs," later to be reassembled in his basement. When the result was demonstrated at an IEEE meeting in San Francisco, Bing Crosby heard about it, had Jack demo it for him, and the rest is history for all of us. Ampex commercialized the Magnetophon as their Model 200, and the "tape recorder" was quickly adopted by musicians and broadcasters. Ampex later adapted a multi-track recorder into a "sel-sync" eight-track "octopus" which put Les Paul and Mary Ford on the musical map, and music hasn't been the same since. Meanwhile, Jack experimented with new ways to expand the uses of magnetic tape. One of his innovations, which he later regretted, was the "laugh track," to perk up lethargic live audiences for the radio listener. His other work, much of it done at 3M, is incorporated into today's sound recorders.
Jack gave us much of this early history in person, coming across as a quietly charming gentleman "of the old school," whose warmth, honesty and dedication were everywhere apparent. This is obvious in the reminiscences of the family he raised after the death of his wife, and of his colleagues and associates. He never capitalized on his part in bringing tape recording to public acceptance. Instead, he seemed content to live as though he knew what his grave marker would eventually say of him: "He was an extraordinary gentleman."
Preceding the showing of Sound Man, Irv Joel had assembled a montage drawn from an earlier video tape of Jack Mullin and from Irv Joel's Fiftieth Anniversary Video that he produced for the AES.
