Cheap reissues, back in the day.

[Dmitry]

It has been two years since I've hit a record fair, so last Saturday I went to a smaller local gathering in Marlborough, Massachusetts. Flicking though the record covers, I was reminiscing on the crappy Argo/Cadet reissues we touched upon here - 

, when I saw this beauty. The crimson-red letters J and S  in  Jazztet , and in John Lewis's name did not come out. 

 

A DIVISION OF ALL PLATINUM RECORD GROUP, dating this ca.1976-1980, or thereabout. All Platinum bought Chess from the GENERAL RECORDED TAPE, who bought it from the Chess brothers in 1969. 

So there goes THE AZZTET AND OHNLEWI. OHN LEWI sound very Old Testament, THE AZZTET...burlesque.

Here's the original cover, btw.

 

 

Edited February 14, 2022 by Dmitry

[clifford_thornton]

definite hatchet job on a very nice record & cover...

[Dan Gould]

No doubt an unfortunate result of the determination to go black & white but that's exactly how I got my copy of that music.  The pressing was fine, and I want to say, cheap (it was many moons ago).  I've always been more concerned with the music than the presentation - I worked pretty hard to find the Jazztet recordings on vinyl and doing that kept me from purchasing the Mosaic set when it was available.

[mjazzg]

I was bemoaning this only the other day in the "Vinyl now playing thread" as I'd received the b&w edition of James Moody's 'Great Day' when I'd ordered the early pressing. so instead of this lovely cover

I got this

The music still sounds great but...

I had wondered if it were something to do with export but obviously not

 

[JSngry]

All Platinum was Sylvia (and Joe) Robinson, the same Sylvia of Mickey & Sylvia, "Pillow Talk", and oh btw, Sugar Hill Records.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Platinum_Records

The B&W covers were indeed "unfortunate", but it helped keep the records in the stores for a little while. At the time, they weren't there otherwise.

[sidewinder]

And ‘All Platinum’ was bankrolled by Morris Levy of Roulette fame, I believe. There were stories of that studio being given cases full of cash no questions asked during that period. Money laundering?

Stores like Mole and Honest Jon’s over here were full of those pressings with the B&W covers back in the late 70s and they all had that notch cutout. Don’t think I ever saw one of those Cadets without the notch and all of the ones I have - have it.

Reeks of a scam !

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nlkb

This is an interesting listen !

[Dmitry]

Saw this one too. Engineered stereo...run!

[Bill Nelson]

While these All Platinum cheap repros kept the record titles in stores de fucto, the vinyl itself was flimsy (see: RCA Dynaflex), often warped, and with pressing bubbles.  Adding in the thin cardboard LP jackets with bastardized cover art and you had a product barely worth the $1.98 sticker price.  Given the connection to Roulette, any artist/composer asking for royalties would be greeted with, "You got some kind of PROBLEM, buddy?"

[sidewinder]

The Jazztet titles I picked up on this All Platinum/Cadet label had noticeable warp and wow effect. Not what you want to hear on ‘Killer Joe’. Back in the late 70s it was the only way over here to hear this music though.

[Dan Gould]

I guess I was lucky that I considered the sound of the John Lewis collaboration to be perfectly acceptable .... can't recall which other black and white Argo I ever purchased. I think maybe I got 1-3 as CDRs from somebody else.

[GA Russell]

5 hours ago, Bill Nelson said:

...the vinyl itself was flimsy (see: RCA Dynaflex)...

I remember the Dynaflex records.  Was their sound any worse than their competitors' at the time?

[Ken Dryden]

Which company was it that put out those crappy Blue Note reissues with cheap graphics and a noticeable lack of color?

Even worse than RCA's Dynaflex were the LPs made with recycled vinyl after the Arab Oil embargo in 1973. Quiet passages often sounded like Rice Krispies in milk, especially in the first pressing of ELP's Brain Salad Surgery.

[Dmitry]

Ken, you must be thinking of Pausa.

[Eric]

37 minutes ago, Ken Dryden said:

Which company was it that put out those crappy Blue Note reissues with cheap graphics and a noticeable lack of color?

Even worse than RCA's Dynaflex were the LPs made with recycled vinyl after the Arab Oil embargo in 1973. Quiet passages often sounded like Rice Krispies in milk, especially in the first pressing of ELP's Brain Salad Surgery.

Applause?

[Dmitry]

15 minutes ago, Eric said:

Applause?

Yeas, that what I meant! Applause, not Pausa. 

[Ken Dryden]

Applause was the label, I never bought any of their crappy reissues.

 

[Dmitry]

Interesting story with the Applause. I just went on Discogs, and picked up the address for the label - 
258 South Beverly Dr.
Beverly Hills, CA 90212

I proceeded to do the rudimentary internet search, combining the label name and the address. This is what appeared -

https://www.cabusinessdb.com/company/1069802/

I clicked on the agent's name, ARTHUR MOGULL, and it appears that good Arthur incorporated four companies, all with music-related names, three on the same date in 1982, and one, Applause, almost a year earlier, to the day, in 1981. Multiple obituaries from 2004 list him as a major player in the music industry. He was a president of the United Artists for some years in the 1970s, and even co-owned the United Artists for a year, before selling it to the EMI. Somehow in his contract with the EMI, his lawyers must've squeezed in some kind of limited licensing deal for reissuing some Blue Note titles, among others, but without any mention of the label, or anything else, and with these shitty covers. Some of these covers looks like they were samizdat-printed by a couple of Soviet beatniks in a cellar, somewhere far behind the Iron Curtain, while others were probably done by Artie's grandkids for arcade money.
I might be very wrong, and his family will sue, because he was a prince among men, but it's just possible that he was some kind of lawyered-up motherfucker. I can't imagine an honest person supervising an operation like Applause. 

https://www.nysun.com/obituaries/artie-mogull-77-a-r-man-signed-legendary-acts/5751/

I don't remember ever seeing the APPLAUSE cds, but they surely released them.

https://www.discogs.com/label/335904-Applause-Records-Inc

 

[Ken Dryden]

I remember seeing Applause CDs with the same crappy, cheap covers. I avoided them as well, there are some of them listed on Discogs.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Ken Dryden

[JSngry]

Applause was a sign of the end times, but and yet, they provided the first US issue of Lou Donaldson's excellent Lush Life, another one of Duke Pearson's medium-sized horn band triumphs, which had previously only seen like in Japan as Sweet Slumber.

Go figure that one.

[Ken Dryden]

It's bad enough that the original LP of this Roger Kellaway solo piano session has three incorrect song titles, but the idiots who put out the CD reissue added another wrinkle:

 

Edited February 15, 2022 by Ken Dryden

[Dmitry]

43 minutes ago, Ken Dryden said:

It's bad enough that the original LP of this Roger Kellaway solo piano session has three incorrect song titles, but the idiots who put out the CD reissue added another wrinkle:

 

The cover that really says it all...holy crap. Otoh, maybe there IS another dimension to it. Was Kellaway from Houston?

BTW, if you look at the Applause "discography", most Blue Notes they reissued were from the post-Alfred Lion period. Not all, but most.

 

Edited February 15, 2022 by Dmitry

[Royal Oak]

On 14/02/2022 at 4:21 PM, mjazzg said:

I was bemoaning this only the other day in the "Vinyl now playing thread" as I'd received the b&w edition of James Moody's 'Great Day' when I'd ordered the early pressing. so instead of this lovely cover

I got this

The music still sounds great but...

I had wondered if it were something to do with export but obviously not

 

Haha, I have that Moody with the colour cover, but my Ahmad Jamal at the Pershing Vol 2 is a crappy black and white (and limp) cover.

[Teasing the Korean]

Does anyone remember how the back covers of Columbia and MCA/Decca reissue LPs looked like Xeroxes of the previous edition?  By the time you got to an 1980s reissue of a 1950s album, you couldn't even read the liner notes.  

Edited February 15, 2022 by Teasing the Korean

[JSngry]

9 hours ago, Dmitry said:

Otoh, maybe there IS another dimension to it. Was Kellaway from Houston?

They DID make a record together, but that ain't it...

THIS is it:

[Dmitry]

1961 original

ca.1980 ALL PLATINUM job

and, an unexpectedly cool Compania Fonigrafica Espnola Spain reissue from 1983. I like this one! They play on the subway line numbering system in NYC, and perhaps unwittingly, Take the A-train.