Another Tail of Two Covers
So I was at a record store recently and on the shelves saw a copy of the record 3 Degrees East –3 Degrees West on World Pacific. It had a cover I hadn’t recalled seeing. Even though I was pretty sure the cover I had at home was the original, the price was cheap enough so I purchased it. It was interesting when I got home and compared the two covers. The cover on the left in the picture is the original. This is the one I had in my collection. It has a copyright date of 1956 on the back and is on Pacific Jazz Records, PJ-1217. It also has the “kakubushi” framed cover. The record I purchased at the store, with the cover on the right, is copyrighted from 1957 and is on World Pacific Records, also number PJ-1217. The liner notes and pictures on the back are the same. Not sure why the company would re-release the record with different packaging just a year later: You’d think if
they wanted to press more they would just use the original artwork. Perhaps they felt they could sell a few more copies with a different cover. It seems as if Prestige did this type of thing all the time. In any case, I’m keeping the original, sending the other over to eBay. Keep an eye out for it — this is a great record, by the way, featuring John Lewis, Bill Perkins and Jim Hall.
Hi Al. I have with two covers also the Richie Kamuca Jazz Erotica/ West Coast jazz in Hi FI.
And the Chet Baker Play Boys.
Al/Joaquim: with the change of Pacific Jazz into World Pacific (which was an enigma in itself) they had to implement changes anyway on each album (logo, company name, labels and copyright year). Why they changed the lovely original for this less than appealing boat photograph cannot be explained otherwise than by the Prestige sales trick. They also changed the cover of Quartet – Russ Freeman/Chet Baker, the original being a beauty.
Can Joaquim describe me the 2 covers he has of “Playboys”, the only one I know is the one with the bunnies (playgirls). There is a re-issue on Pacific Jazz “Picture of Heath” which is better than the original.
I had the 2 versions f Hi Fi Kamauca but did away with one of them, both were insignifant.
I have the 2° E 3° W album in the 2 US versions and one on British Vogue (with the lady in the grass.) I keep them all, it is one of my all time favourites. If one must go, it will be the boat cover.
I did have 2 copies of the original cover. One was the Pacific Jazz original & the other was World Pacific with the WP prefix. They had only changed the front cover to reflect the company name change. So maybe they came to their senses & went back to the more appealing cover.
Michael: that is very interesting. If I understand you well, you have copies of “the lady in the grass” on PJ and WP.
Joaquim: waiting for your feedback on “Playboys” – Baker/Pepper – 2 versions.
The unfortunate thing of this PJ < WP change is that the following albums went down the drain:
-1208 Jack Montrose Sextet
-1211 Cy Touff-Richie Kamuca
-1212 Russ Freeman-Dick Twardzik
-1213 Bud Shank w. Strings
/ Tronbones
-1214 Arranged by Montrose (Clifford Brown/Bob Gordon).
These albums were discontinued in 1956/57.
P.J. 1208, 1212 for Russ Freeman, 1213, and 1214 for Bob Gordon, were never re-issued in any form. Dick Twardzik and Clifford Brown had their own album in the later Pacific Jazz (PJ 37 and 3) series.
I just listened to the Cy Touff-Richue Kamuca record the other day for the first time. I’ve had it in the collection for years and now I’m going through the process of deciding what to sell and keep. This one I decided to keep: Nice record.
I have the original cover with the original label which I won off Euclid recently ($20). In their auction they showed the WP label and described it as well and when I got it it had the original label. Not sure how they made that mistake but it was a nice surpise and kept the price nice and cheap.
Rudolf: Yes, I had both. I traded off the WP, the graphics were just not as sharp as the original. I just put the Touff-Kamuca on last night, actually took it out a couple of days ago to listen to. What a rhythm section, never really gave Pete Jolly much of a chance other than great Jim Flora covers. I recently picked up the original Hifi Kamuca, Jazz Erotica but in stereo. I believe Hifi was one of the first to record in stereo but seemed odd with the release of West Coast Jazz in Hi-Fi that this would be issued in stereo.