For Blue Note, More Prestige Than Prestige
Here are some nice records we’ve been watching. Each of these will be added to the Jazz Collector Price Guide.
Phil Woods, Pairing Off, Prestige 7046. This looked to be a beautiful copy of an extremely nice record and it was graded in M- condition for both the vinyl and the cover. The price was $344.90, which actually seems pretty low to us. By comparison, for example, look at this record: The Magnificent Thad Jones Volume 3, Blue Note 1546. This was an original West 63rd Street pressing from a reputable seller. The record was in VG+ condition, at best, for the vinyl and VG condition for the cover. The price was $800. Is there really that big a gap
between Prestige and Blue Note these days? I mean, it would seem that original pressings of each of these records are equally hard to find, and the Phil record was in nearly pristine condition and sold for less than half the price of the Thad Jones record. Look at this other Prestige as well: Paul Quinichette, On the Sunny Side of the Street, Prestige 7103. This was an original New York pressing. It was listed in VG+ condition for both the record and the vinyl. It sold for $224.50. Not bad, but not Blue Note either.
Well, when you factor in that many Prestige dates were 1 day blowing sessions and the Blue Note dates had a day of rehearsal and a day of recording, a two-times premium for the BNs seems about right.
Unrelated question to the experts.
Did Prestige use record sleeves very often? I usually find BNs with the original sleeves in the records, but only rarely with the Prestige. I know Prestige used them later on, but when and how frequently?
Thanks.
Dave: your question is vague and ill formulated. What do you mean by ” (Prestige) record sleeves” and “original (Blue Note) sleeves”?
To put things straight:
In the fifties Prestige albums had the onion skin inner sleeves and Blue Note had plain paper inner sleeves. Connoisseurs can tell on the basis of the texture of the paper in which period the record was issued.
Right, Rudolf !! I might add that I think Prestige innersleeves featuring other catlag titles were issued during Bergenfield era.
My earliest pictorial Blue Note innersleeve has Stanley Turrentine/Three Sounds ‘Blue Hour'(4057) as the title with highest cat. no. featured. Since this session was recorded in Dec 1960, I suppose the innersleeve could not have been printed until 1961.
Maybe Rudolf & Michel have earlier ones?
My guess for the Blue Note pictorial inner sleeves is 1962/63. Prestige/New Jazz, Bergenfield somewhat earlier, 1960/61. Prestige had a blue and a red print version and abandoned the policy after 1962. Blue Note was to continue until its sale to UA.
Rudolf: Sorry if I offended you with my “vague and ill-formulated” question. As you interpreted my question correctly, perhaps the question wasn’t so poorly constructed after all?
Dave: “offended”, why??
Just fo fun I checked again on Prestige/New Jazz. I have an old Prestige box on which the post stamp says 15 Sept. 1959. The box contained New Jazz 8203-Farmer’s Market, 8220-Groovin’ with Golson and 8232-Jenkins, Jordan, Timmons. These 3 albums came with the onion skin inner sleeves. So somewhere in 1960 they must have started to issue the pictorial inner sleeves, first the blue print, thereafter the red print. But it did not last, soon there after came plain white sleeves with a circle in the middle showing the label. Thereafter plain white, without label circle.
Michel Ruppli in the Introduction to his discography “the Prestige label” (Greenwood Press, 1980) says that Prestige moved from Manhattan to Bergenfeld, N.J. in 1967. This is a manifest printing error. I assume he meant to say 1957. This seems very probable, would say late 1957, even early 1958. My last NYC (label and cover) issue is # 7140 (Hip Harp), rec. 21/3/58. But # 7142 Soultrane, rec. 7/2/1958, is Bergenfield only. They may have used a stock of blank NYC labels in the intermediate period just after the change of adress.